The supercharged version of Intel’s flagship Raptor Lake – a refreshed processor expected to hit the market in early 2023 – is subject to a leaked new benchmark and shows a really fast processor.
How Tom’s gear (opens in a new tab) The Core i9-13900KS – note the extra ‘S’ that sets it apart from the 13900K limited edition – has been noted to increase to 6GHz out of the box, and now we saw its supposed performance in an actual test by HXL on Twitter.
Before we proceed, the CPU-Z benchmark in question comes from the Chinese forum Bilibili (opens in a new tab) and there is certainly a possibility that the provided screenshot is a fake. Therefore, we advise you to proceed with more caution than usual with this particular rumor.
The results shown for the Core i9-13900KS pre-release sample are single-threaded of 982 and 18,453 for multi-threaded. Presumably, these results were achieved using the “turbo mode” for Raptor Lake’s flagship refresh (which draws 350W of power, which is quite a terrifying amount).
As Tom emphasizes, compared to 893 and 16,877 (in an earlier leak) respectively for the vanilla 13900K, and if we look at AMD’s new flagship, the Ryzen 9 7950X, which hits 787 and 15 663.
Analysis: Promising result, but keep your horses for a while
With a quick bit of math on a napkin, the 13900KS is around 10% faster on a single thread and 18% faster on a multi thread than the 13900K. This is too much of a leap for us, and there are indeed some reservations.
First, it’s a rare leak and all we see are naked results, knowing nothing about the computer the CPU is in, or what is cooling it down. Also, keep in mind that this is only a single benchmark, and we should never delve too much into a single metric – CPU-Z is also far from our first choice when it comes to comparing performance levels. Additionally, we’ve seen faster results leaks for 13900K elsewhere, so the difference is likely not going to be as big as indicated here.
All that said, this fresh leak – if it’s true – certainly points to lightning-fast performance compared to the Ryzen 9 7950X (showing 13900KS as 25% and 18% faster for single- and multi-threaded). And these two processors probably won’t be that far apart, and the 13900KS could be 5% to 10% more expensive most likely. (While it’s possible that Intel may be pushing down more prices if the company thinks it can get away with it with the limited edition processor.)
So in high-end Intel could potentially have a winner – albeit with a different price for very high power consumption when operating at full tilt – but as we said, we will need plot more than a leaked CPU-Z score to get a complete picture. And of course, when it comes to gaming, a lot of people are waiting for AMD Ryzen 7000 3D V-cache processors, with this innovative technology that can make a difference.
Indeed, this is the reason Intel is preparing the 13900KS for launch fairly early in 2023, by all accounts, as that is when the 3D V cache will reportedly arrive (it is believed that the January CES disclosure is a plan for Team Red). And most importantly, speculation indicates that there is a 7950X3D (in other words, a new flagship with V-cache 3D memory) that will really make a sensation at the highest level.
It is also worth remembering that it is the average battle of next-generation processors that will take place, and models such as the 7950X and 13900K and the KS are relatively niche propositions. In the middle of the pack, the AMD 7700X is already on the shelves and looks really tempting. As we noted in our review, this is an outstanding processor – with some caveats about upgrade costs, be warned.