Intel Core i5-13600K
The star of the 13th Generation range.
Intel’s i5-12600K earned our maximum 5/5 score when it launched last year. Its excellent blend of performance, respectable power consumption and value for money made it a superb all-round chip. If we examine the spec of the i5-13600K, it looks like it’s even better.
In simple terms the 13600K can be considered an upgraded 12600K. It contains six performance cores and eight efficient cores for a total of 20 threads. The price has risen to $569, up from the 12600K’s $499 launch price, but that’s not a bad increase at all given the inflation over the last year, on top of the huge dip in the value of the Australian dollar. When compared to the launch price of AMD’s competing Ryzen 7700X at $689, the 13600K is a very compelling option.
The 13600K’s P and E cores actually drop in base clock speed compared to the 12600K, down by 200MHz, but that matters little in real world testing, where operating clocks are almost always higher. The P cores can boost up to 5.1GHz, that’s quite a drop over the maximum 5.8GHz of the 13900K, but it’s a 200MHz increase over the 12600K. The clock speed increases require a power consumption bump. The 13600K retains the base 125W PL1 TDP of all 13th Gen K CPUs, but sees a rise in maximum PL2 power, increasing to 181W, compared to 150W for the 12600K.
The 13600K of course receives the Raptor Lake cache upgrades, with 20MB of L2 cache and 24MB of L3 cache, and much like the 12900K, the Intel UHD770 graphics is mostly unchanged apart from a small maximum clock speed increase. Notably for upgraders, the 13600K, like the other 13th Gen models, retains both DDR5 and DDR4 memory support and compatibility with Z690 motherboards. This means 12th Gen owners have a very costeffective upgrade path in contrast to the purchase of an AMD system, which requires a new AM5 motherboard and DDR5 memory as well.
The 13600K delivers excellent performance, generally beating out the 7700X. The additional E-cores deliver a healthy multithreading boost over the 12600K and its gaming performance is stellar. It offers almost all of the gaming performance of the 13900K at around half the price, allowing you to save money you can put towards a new GPU, which will really boost your FPS.
Perhaps the only downside is the increase in power consumption over the 12600K. Under a sustained all core load, the 13600K system consumed a peak of 278W, that’s 40W more than a 7700X system and 56W more than a 12600K system. Compared to the 391W of a stock 13900K system though, 278W is downright thrifty. A good air cooler or 240mm AIO won’t have a problem keeping a 13600K cool.
The 13600K is the best all-round CPU on the market right now. Its gaming performance is outstanding, it’s good at heavily threaded tasks without going too crazy on power consumption and it offers good value for money. AMD’s 7700X remains competitive, but it costs more and loses some of the power efficiency advantage the Ryzen 5000 series had. If you’re after a CPU that can do it all, and you don’t need loads of cores for heavily threaded applications, the 13600K can’t be beaten.
"In simple terms the 13600K can be considered an upgraded 12600K. It contains six performance cores and eight efficient cores for a total of 20 threads."
The 12600K was an excellent CPU, but the stellar all-round performance of the 13600K is even better.
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Intel Core i5-13600K; LGA 1700 socket; 6 P cores + 8 E cores, 20 threads; P core Base/Max Clock Speed 3.5/5.1GHz, E core Base/Max Clock speed 2.6/3.9 GHz; 24MB L3 Cache; 125W Base Power, 181W Maximum Turbo Power.