HOW MUCH CAN INTEL
squeeze out of their 10nm Intel 7 process? Turns out quite a bit actually. A look into Raptor Lake
INTEL 13TH GEN CORE ‘RAPTOR LAKE' SERIES IN A NUTSHELL →
In the blue corner, Intel's direct response to AMD's Ryzen 7000 series is its own 13th Gen Core ‘Raptor Lake' series of processors. However, unlike AMD's brand new Zen 4 microarchitecture that's now based on a 5nm process, Intel's Raptor Lake is “merely” another refinement of their 10nm process node, also known as Intel 7, and the performance hybrid architecture that debuted with last generation's Alder Lake chips. Raptor Lake has more of everything compared to Alder Lake - faster P-cores, more E-cores, more L2 and L3 cache, and faster DDR5 support. However, the underlying architecture and technology remains the same. Now, I used air quotes for merely in the last paragraph because as easy as it is to write off Raptor Lake as Alder Lake+, Intel managed to squeeze so much gains from these tweaks that they claim Raptor Lake's performance matches or even exceeds the expectations of a microarchitecture generation gap.
→ Let's first take a look at the top level changes that will come to the desktop K-class CPUs before diving into some technical stuff. If there is any thing you take away from this article, it should be these points. Raptor Lake CPUs would feature: 01
Same number of Performance Cores (P-core) as its predecessors, but with faster boost clocks, up to 5.8GHz for the i9-13900K.
02
Double the Efficiency Cores (E-core) of its Alder Lake counterparts with the i9-13900K having 16 E-cores, for a total processing capability of 24 cores (and 32 threads). Intel will
Raptor Lake has faster boost clocks, up to 5.8GHz for the i9-13900K.
also extend the performance hybrid architecture to the entire i5 lineup for Raptor lake. Expect to see 6P+8E for the i5-13600K and 6P+4E for the rest of the i5s.
03
Expanded 2MB L2 cache per P-core, and 4MB L2 cache per E-core cluster, more than doubling the total L2 cache of its predecessors. The i9-13900K will feature a whopping 32MB of L2 (up from 14MB on the i9-12900K). 04
Larger L3 smart cache, up to 36MB for the i9-13900K (up from 30MB in the i9-12900K) 05
Faster DDR5-5600 support (up from DDR54800 of Alder Lake).
So, are there anything that's actually new with the Raptor Lake cores? Yes. Raptor Lake's P-cores are codenamed Raptor Cove, and are designed with what Intel is calling their 3rd generation SuperFIN transistors, improved speed paths and a new dynamic prefetcher algorithm. This allows the Raptor Cove P-cores to basically be more stable at scaling with voltage, unlocking up to 600MHz of boost speed over the last generation.
Similarly, the E-cores have gotten higher max boost speeds and smarter prefetcher algorithms as well. The i9-13900K E-cores have a max boost of 4.3GHz (over 3.9GHz on the i9-12900K). However, I do note that the base E-core frequencies are lower on the 13th Gen CPUs as their 12th Gen counterparts. For example, the i9-13900K has a 2.0GHz base compared to 2.2GHz on the i912900K. This could very well be a balancing feature due to the additional E-cores on these CPUs.
Lastly, Raptor Lake CPUs will have a faster compute fabric as well (900MHz more than Alder Lake), with a larger L3 cache and again, better dynamic L2/L3 prefetching algorithms.
On the software side, Intel Thread Director has also been improved to better handle and route processes to the various cores, offering more performance or more efficiency when needed. This comes in addition to better multi-threaded support on Windows 11 as well.
Intel is also pushing Raptor Lake as a great overclocking platform, and to that, updated the Extreme Tuning Utility for both experienced overclockers with percore tweaking, as well as a 1-button Speed Optimizer for those new to overclocking.
WHAT CAN YOU ACTUALLY EXPECT IN TERMS OF PERFORMANCE?
→ Intel is claiming up to 15% single-threaded and a massive 41% multi-threaded performance gains for Raptor Lake. Expect up to 24% improvements in gaming and 34% improvement in creator workflow applications.
An interesting dynamic performance-per-watt chart shows that the i9-13900K can match the 1912900K running at 241W, at just 65W.
Like NVIDIA, Intel is starting to use 99th percentile numbers to prove that min-max fps rates aren't the only thing that matter in performance benchmarking, and that a more consistently high
Intel is claiming up to 15% single-threaded and a massive 41% multi-threaded performance gains for Raptor Lake.
(99%) fps rate will provide a clearer indication of performance and gaming experience across the board.
The most impressive demo that was shown to us was a 13th Gen Core i9-13900K vs AMD Ryzen 5800X3D in a simultaneous gaming (Rift Breaker) and live-streaming workload, where the Intel machine proved to have higher fps and higher 99th percentile than the AMD-based system. At the end of the benchmark, the surprise reveal was that the i913900K was additionally rendering a 4K HDR video in the background, while the AMD system did not.
You could say Intel has had a good comeback run with Alder Lake that looks like it will continue with Raptor Lake. The benchmarks and scenarios played out to us in the charts and demos above look very promising, but of course, these are always one-sided and against the competition's pastgeneration best. Until we get our hands on both Intel 13th Gen Core and AMD Ryzen 7000 processors for a head-tohead, we won't know who's got the upper hand as yet.