Sunday, August 7th 2022
Intel "Raptor Lake" i9-13900K Sees 14% Performance Boost with Power-Limit Unlocks
The upcoming 13th Gen Core i9-13900K "Raptor Lake" 8P+16E core processor offers a significant multi-threaded performance increase with its power-limits relaxed, according to Cinebench R23 testing unearthed by OneRaichu. In its default settings, with stock power limits, the i9-13900K draws up to 254 W of package power, where it scores 35693 points. With the power limits unlocked in the motherboard's UEFI setup program (i.e. PL1/PL2 set at an impossible 4096 W), the processor's package power peaks at 345 W (a 36% increase in peak power-draw), but results in a multi-threaded score of 40616 points, or a 13.8% performance gain.
Sources:
OneRaichu (Twitter), VideoCardz


49 Comments on Intel "Raptor Lake" i9-13900K Sees 14% Performance Boost with Power-Limit Unlocks
Not very impressive, honestly.
..When is an upgrade, not an upgrade. When Intel decides you can't have nice things.
Hell, It maybe that the new AMD 7xxx chips are faster for my particular needs, seeing as they do have AVX 512 on them...at least they did the last time it was mentioned in the (leaked) spec sheets.
See, on one hand this is an extraordinary level of multicore performance for a "consumer" chip, but on the other hand this power draw is simply not acceptable for the majority of users. Also 354W is no easy feat to cool away anyways. This is pure custom loop territory! No AIO will handle that for a sustained period of time.
That probably adds more to the system cost than the CPU price alone.
Then there is platform costs. Those shiny new Z790 boards that can handle clean power at that wattage are probably only the higher end ones and as we've seen with Z690 on launch: these can cost well over $1K with up to $2K at times. Threadripper at the time got away with $500-$600 for a proper board!
And for comparisons sake, the TR prices are the prices AMD could take for the chips due to no competition from Intel in that market. If there were competition, these would be lowered by AMD in an instant. Just like Intel did with the 10980XE when Threadripper came out. So prices are not worth comparing between different times/segment.
IMO, the biggest takeaway from this story is that the realistic use cases for a fully unlocked i9 shrink down with each generation. If these clocks mean that much power, might as well go for the locked i9 and tweak its power limits instead; you'll lose some mhz in the top end, but at this point these speeds are becoming unsustainable. Similar situation to unlocked laptops cpus.
FYI: The ONLY way you will be getting a 13900K to pull 340 watts without instantly reaching 100c is with LN2, Chiller or delid the CPU.
I can see it now 13900KS + 4090 Ti minimum PSU spec = 1.2kW ATX3.0 with 2.5kW power spike protection.
Stock is not how most reviews test these CPUs or advertise their performance
It is a different animal
People who need those features would never consider consumer class CPU in the first place.
Just like my home server running the 3955wx
Yes the 12900k is 'better' in terms of single and multicore performance, and far cheaper than the 3955wx
But nope it isn't what I needed.