Intel 13th-Gen Raptor Lake Release Date, Specifications, Price, and Benchmarks

Ounce Intel’s 12^th generation Alder Lake CPUs came in full force, it quickly dethroned AMD and took over as the best performance-per-dollar lineup in the CPU world. Alder Lake CPUs are fast in gaming and very effective at productivity tasks, thanks to that split between performance and efficiency cores.

The successor to Alder Lake will be Raptor Lake, Intel’s 13^th-generation processors that should bring a solid upgrade over the 12^th gen CPUs. Faster, more efficient, and overall better than current offerings.

At the time of writing, information on Raptor Lake is scarce, but we’ve collected leaks, rumors, and other data to give you some expectations on these new CPUs.

Let’s have at it!

Release Date

We can’t give you an exact release date for Intel’s 13th generation of CPUs because no such date has been announced by Intel.

Supposedly, Raptor Lake should release in 2H of 2022 to compete against AMD’s Ryzen 7000 processors.

However, we’re nearing the second half of 2022, and Intel still has not published anything regarding these new processors. But, Alder Lake did release in November 2021, so it fits the timeline for Raptor Lake to release in November 2022.

Specifications

Intel’s 13^th generation of processors will have the same big.LITTLE architecture on the 10nm Enhanced Superfine node (Intel 7).

Usually, without a node shrink, the generational performance difference is minimal. Intel’s last couple of CPU generations are an excellent example of that. The difference between Intel’s 10^th and 11^th generation SKUs is negligible, especially between the high-end SKUs.

However, this new big.LITTLE architecture still has a lot of room to mature, leaving space for Intel to find more significant performance uplifts (think Zen 2 vs. Zen 3, both on 7 nm). Still, it will not be easy for Intel to stay competitive because AMD is switching to TSMC 5nmgiving them an advantage.

Here’s a table of (potential) Raptor Lake SKUs:

Raptor Cove And Core Count

But, Intel does have a few aces up its sleeve. In this new generation of processors, Intel will also introduce the new high-performance (P-Cores) core, Raptor Cove, which will replace Golden Cove cores from Alder Lake.

There will also be an increase in core count, but the maximum Raptor Cove cores will be 8, while E-cores will go up to 16. Intel will continue using the same E-cores (Gracemont) from Alder Lake.

So, flagship SKUs like the i9-13900K can have up to 24 cores and 32 threads. A solid jump from the 16 cores (24 threads) in the 12900K.

Here’s an AdoredTV video showing the possible core/thread combinations for all Raptor Lake SKUs:

https://youtu.be/NQNd0_X6Ca8?t=432

Boost core clocks will most probably be improved well. Raichu, a known leaker, mentioned that the Raptor Lake SKU (i9-13900K/KS) will boost 200-300MHz over the i9-12900KS.

RPL will over the new highest freq which was created by 12900KS.
More 2-300 MHz is possible.

—Raichu (@OneRaichu) April 13, 2022

The 12900KS already clocks pretty high (up to 5.5 GHz), which means the new flagship may boost up to 5.8 GHz or higher. Intel will have a strong contender for the fastest gaming CPU title with a supposed IPC increase and this kind of boost clock.

More Cache

AMD’s flagship gaming CPU, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, has a considerable performance gain over the regular 5800X thanks to the new 3D V-Cache technology. AMD managed to cram 96MB of L3 cache in one CPU with this technology.

So, it’s apparent that cache memory can significantly impact gaming performance. Maybe that is why Intel is also planning to bump up L2 and L3 cache. At least that’s what the leaks suggest.

So, each Raptor Cove core will get 2Mb of L2 cache (compared to 1.25Mb for Golden Cove), while each Gracemont Cluster may have between 2MB to 4MB.

L3 Cache will also be upgraded to 3Mb per P-Core and 3Mb per Gracemont Cluster. So, potentially that’s 32MB of L2 cache + 36MB of L3 cache, which amounts to 68MB of cache.

Socket

Intel is well known for changing its socket/platform too frequently, but, fortunately, this new generation of CPUs will fit in the same LGA1700 socket that Alder Lake used.

So, if anyone is looking to upgrade from Alder Lake to a Raptor Lake chip, any of the old motherboards will suffice. But, of course, with the right BIOS version.

However, it’s not certain whether Raptor Lake will DDR4 memory support. If this 13^th gen supports DDR5 RAM only, any LGA1700 motherboards with DDR4 support will not work. Hopefully, that won’t be the case, but it is not unlikely.

Price

Intel’s 12^th generation CPUs were priced accordingly and delivered a great performance-per-dollar, easily taking down previous Ryzen best value processors. If Raptor Lake truly stays on 10nm, pricing shouldn’t deviate too much.

Here are our Intel 13^th Gen price estimates:

• Intel i9-13900K – $589
• Intel i7-13700K – $409
• Intel i5-13600K – $289
• Intel i5-13400 – $209
• Intel i3-13100 – $139

We’re basing these estimates on their predecessors. We believe the price of all of these SKUs will remain mostly intact. But, if AMD introduces exceptionally competitive pricing, Intel will have to cut down on pricing.

Final Words

Rocket Lake isn’t supposed to shake the CPU world as Alder Lake did. Alder Lake brought a brand new architecture and a much smaller fabrication node than previous generations. This allowed Alder Lake to surpass Ryzen in productivity and gaming workloads.

Since Raptor Lake will use that same architecture and fab node, we expect a performance difference between 10% and 20%. Of course, it’s still only a guess for now.

Once Intel releases more specifications and other information regarding Raptor Lake, be sure that we’ll update this article with the necessary data.