The Thirteenth-Gen Intel $409 Core i7-13700K slots into the center of Intel’s Raptor Lake product stack (or a minimum of its product stack as of late October 2022), delivering the lion’s share of the gaming efficiency of its market-leading counterpart, the $589 Core i9-13900K, in tandem with greater than sufficient horsepower in productiveness workloads for many customers — however for $180 much less. It additionally simply outperforms the competing AMD Ryzen 7000 chip, making it one of many best CPUs for gaming and a chart-topper in our CPU benchmark hierarchy.
The Core i7-13700K’s efficiency stems from its 5.4 GHz increase clock, a document for the i7 household, and Intel’s addition of 4 extra e-cores, bringing the chip to 16 complete cores and 24 threads. Although Intel nonetheless makes use of the ‘Intel 7’ course of node, it leveraged a more moderen revision of the silicon to push clock speeds increased whereas enhancing energy effectivity. Intel additionally etched the cores on a brand new, bigger die and added extra L3 and L2 cache.
| Worth | Cores / Threads (P+E) | P-Core Base/Increase (GHz) | E-Core Base/Increase (GHz) | Cache (L2/L3) | TDP / PBP / MTP | Reminiscence | |
| Core i9-13900K / KF | $589 (Ok) – $564 (KF) | 24 / 32 (8+16) | 3.0 / 5.8 | 2.2 / 4.3 | 68MB (32+36) | 125W / 253W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-5600 |
| Core i7-13700K / KF | $409 (Ok) – $384 (KF) | 16 / 24 (8+8) | 3.4 / 5.4 | 2.5 / 4.2 | 54MB (24+30) | 125W / 253W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-5600 |
| Core i5-13600K / KF | $319 (Ok) – $294 (KF) | 14 / 20 (6+8) | 3.5 / 5.1 | 2.6 / 3.9 | 44MB (20+24) | 125W / 181W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-5600 |
Intel’s continued aggressive chip pricing and choices for lower-priced platforms and reminiscence make the Core i7-13700K a strong, but extra inexpensive choice: The Core i7-13700K is the best CPU for gaming at its value level and likewise gives main efficiency in our utility benchmarks at a considerably cheaper price than AMD’s competing Ryzen 7 7700X, and it even challenges the $549 Ryzen 9 7900X in most work.
Intel Core i7-13700K Specs and Pricing
Similar to the previous-gen chips, the Thirteenth-Gen Raptor Lake processors include a mixture of each massive efficiency cores (p-cores) for latency-sensitive work and small effectivity cores (e-cores) for threaded and background functions. The e-cores persist with the identical Gracemont structure as earlier than, however the p-cores transfer from the Golden Cove design to Raptor Cove. For far more on the structure, try our Intel Core i9-13900K and Core i5-13600K overview.
| Worth | Cores / Threads (P+E) | P-Core Base/Increase (GHz) | E-Core Base/Increase (GHz) | Cache (L2/L3) | TDP / PBP / MTP | Reminiscence | |
| Core i9-13900K / KF | $589 (Ok) – $564 (KF) | 24 / 32 (8+16) | 3.0 / 5.8 | 2.2 / 4.3 | 68MB (32+36) | 125W / 253W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-5600 |
| Ryzen 9 7950X | $699 | 16 / 32 | 4.5 / 5.7 | – | 80MB (16+64) | 170W / 230W | DDR5-5200 |
| Core i9-12900K / KF | $589 (Ok) – $564 (KF) | 16 / 24 (8+8) | 3.2 / 5.2 | 2.4 / 3.9 | 44MB (14+30) | 125W / 241W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-4800 |
| Ryzen 9 7900X | $549 | 12 / 24 | 4.7 / 5.6 | – | 76MB (12+64) | 170W / 230W | DDR5-5200 |
| Core i7-13700K / KF | $409 (Ok) – $384 (KF) | 16 / 24 (8+8) | 3.4 / 5.4 | 2.5 / 4.2 | 54MB (24+30) | 125W / 253W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-5600 |
| Core i7-12700K / KF | $409 (Ok) – $384 (KF) | 12 / 20 (8+4) | 3.6 / 5.0 | 2.7 / 3.8 | 37MB (12+25) | 125W / 190W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-4800 |
| Ryzen 7 7700X | $399 | 8 / 16 | 4.5 / 5.4 | – | 40MB (8+32) | 105W / 142W | DDR5-5200 |
| Ryzen 5 7600X | $299 | 6 / 12 | 4.7 / 5.3 | – | 38MB (6+32) | 105W / 142W | DDR5-5200 |
| Core i5-13600K / KF | $319 (Ok) – $294 (KF) | 14 / 20 (6+8) | 3.5 / 5.1 | 2.6 / 3.9 | 44MB (20+24) | 125W / 181W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-5600 |
| Core i5-12600K / KF | $289 (Ok) – $264 (KF) | 10 / 16 (6+4) | 3.7 / 4.9 | 2.8 / 3.6 | 29.5MB (9.5+20) | 125W / 150W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-4800 |
The 16-core, 24-thread $409 Core i7-13700K contends with the eight-core 16-thread $399 Ryzen 7 7700X. Intel bumped the 13700K’s p-core increase frequency up by 400 MHz over its predecessor, bringing it as much as 5.4 GHz. Intel additionally threw in an extra 4 e-cores for a complete of eight, and a 400 MHz enhance to the e-core increase brings it to 4.2 GHz. The mix of upper clocks and extra cores delivers a sizeable leap ahead in multi-threaded workloads.
The Core i7-13700K has the identical 125W Processor Base Energy (PBP – the quantity of energy the chip pulls when it is not in a completely boosted state) because the previous-gen Core i7-12700K. Nevertheless, Intel elevated the Most Turbo Energy (MTP), the utmost quantity of energy the chip can draw when in a boosted state. The brand new 253W restrict is a whopping 63W enhance over the prior-gen Core i7-12700K (33% enhance).
Intel’s new chips are its most power-efficient but. However like AMD, Intel has taken a power-be-damned strategy to regain management, dialing up the ability limits for all of the desktop PC chips. The warmth may be onerous to regulate, so that you’ll must plan for a beefy chip cooler. Intel doesn’t embrace a cooler with the Core i7-12700K however recommends a 280mm AIO watercooler or air equal (or higher). Present LGA 1700 coolers are appropriate with the brand new motherboards. Keep in mind that your cooler’s efficiency can considerably restrict the chips’ efficiency, so it is best to overprovision, particularly should you plan on overclocking.
On the flip aspect, now you can simply overclock to the best clock charges we’ve ever seen, and that is even with out utilizing unique cooling. As an example, we dialed in a 5.5 GHz all-core overclock with an AIO watercooler with the Core i7-13700K.
Intel additionally elevated the 13700K’s L2 cache from 1.25MB to 2MB for every p-core and doubled the quantity of L2 cache for every cluster of e-cores to 4MB. Intel additionally added 5MB of extra L3 cache.
Intel has elevated its DDR5 reminiscence help as much as 5600 MT/s should you use one DIMM per channel (1DPC), an enormous enhance over the prior 4800 MT/s velocity with Alder Lake. Simply as importantly, Intel elevated 2DPC speeds as much as 4400 MT/s, an enchancment over the previous-gen 3600 MT/s. In contrast to AMD’s all-in strategy with DDR5, Raptor Lake additionally helps DDR4-3200 reminiscence, making certain a worth choice for Intel platforms.
Raptor Lake drops into motherboards with the LGA 1700 socket, so it can work with current 600-series or new 700-series chipsets. Intel says that, on a like-for-like foundation, you shouldn’t see any efficiency variations should you use a previous-gen 600-series motherboard for Raptor Lake. As traditional, Intel has Z-series (Z790, on this case) motherboards accessible at first, with the value-centric B- and H-series coming when it launches the remainder of the Raptor Lake lineup.
The 700-series motherboards deliver minor enhancements over the 600-series, however Intel has elevated the variety of PCIe 4.0 lanes hanging off the chipset to twenty, a rise of eight extra lanes, and help for yet one more USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 200Gps port, bringing the overall to 5. As earlier than, the Raptor Lake chip itself helps 16 lanes of PCIe 5.0 and 4 PCIe 4.0 lanes for a storage machine.
