Intel Raptor Lake is the follow-up to the Alder Lake series of CPUs, the latter of which is the architecture behind the chips in our Intel Core i9-12900K and Core i5-12600K review. This launch is particularly important because it’ll determine whether Intel can compete against the AMD Zen 4 processors.
Intel announced their new 13th-generation processors on September 27, the same day that the AMD Ryzen 7000-series went on sale. As usual, Intel is pretty tight-lipped about a release date and pricing, but we should be hearing more about these sooner rather than later. Team Blue made some serious boasts about the new processors' performance, which we'll need to verify ourselves once we get the new chips in for review.
In the meantime, however, Intel has supplied us with some concrete details, and they can certainly give a resurgent AMD a good brushing back if Raptor Lake is as good as Intel makes them out to be. So what do we know so far? Lets dig into the known details and look at what we should expect from Intel Raptor Lake.
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Cut to the Chase
- What is it? Intel’s next processor architecture
- When is it out? Announced on September 27, initial launch lineup on sale on October 20
- What will it cost? Ranging from $167 to $589 (about £140 to £500 / AU$240 to AU$850)
Intel Raptor Lake release date
The initial launch lineup of Intel Raptor Lake will go on sale October 20, and will include the following processors:
- Intel Core i9-13900K
- Intel Core i9-13900KF (no UHD graphics)
- Intel Core i7-13700K
- Intel Core i7-13700KF (no UHD graphics)
- Intel Core i5-13600K
- Intel Core i5-13600KF (no UHD graphics)
Intel Raptor Lake price
The pricing of the initial launch lineup of Intel Raptor Lake has also been revealed for both K and KF variants, and are as follows:
| Model | US pricing | UK pricing (estimated) | Australia pricing (estimated) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Core i9-13900K | $589 | £500 | AU$850 |
| Core i9-13900KF | $564 | £480 | AU$815 |
| Core i7-13700K | $409 | £350 | AU$590 |
| Core i7-13700KF | $384 | £325 | AU$555 |
| Core i5-13600K | $319 | £270 | AU$459 |
| Core i5-13600KF | $294 | £250 | AU$425 |
Intel Raptor Lake specs
We've gotten a lot more info from Intel during the Raptor Lake launch announcement about the initial launch lineup's specs, including core counts, core speeds, L3 cache details, and more.
| Header Cell - Column 0 | Intel Core i9K and i9KF | Intel Core i7K and i7KF | Intel Core i5K and i5KF |
|---|---|---|---|
| Max Turbo Frequency [GHz] | Up to 5.8 | Up to 5.4 | Up to 5.1 |
| Intel Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 Frequency [GHz] | Up to 5.7 | Up to 5.4 | n/a |
| Performance-core Max Turbo Frequency [GHz] | Up to 5.4 | Up to 5.3 | Up to 5.1 |
| Efficient-core Max Turbo Frequency [GHz] | Up to 4.3 | Up to 4.2 | Up to 3.9 |
| Performance-core Base Frequency [GHz] | 3.0 | 3.4 | 3.5 |
| Efficient-core Base Frequency [GHz] | 2.2 | 2.5 | 2.6 |
| Processor Cores (P-cores + E-cores) | 24 (8P+16E) | 16 (8P+8E) | 14 (6P+8E) |
| Total Processor Threads | 32 | 24 | 20 |
| Intel Smart Cache (L3) Size [MB] | 36 MB | 30 MB | 24 MB |
| Total L2 Cache Size [MB] | 32 MB | 24 MB | 20 MB |
| Enhanced Intel UHD Graphics driven by Xe Architecture | i9K: Intel UHD Graphics 770 i9KF: no | i7K: Intel UHD Graphics 770 i7KF: no | i5K: Intel UHD Graphics 770 i5KF: no |
Obviously, we won't know how these fare against AMD's Ryzen 7000 series launch lineup until we test them, but Intel has a real high bar to clear given how incredible the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and AMD Ryzen 7 7700X performed in our reviews, and as we test the remaining chips, we'll have a more complete picture of what Intel is up against when these chips go on sale.
