Intel Raptor Lake Core i9-13900 ES shown to be 20% faster than Core i9-12900K in Cinebench multi-core but single-core and gaming take a hit

Intel is expected to introduce the Raptor Lake generation of processors in the next few months, but Engineering Samples (ES) seem to have already landed in the hands of a few testers. We recently reported on early SiSoft performance numbers from the Raptor Lake Core i9-13900. We now get to see the Core i9-13900 perform in Cinebench R20, Cinebench R23, and other benchmarks.

The Core i9-13900 ES1 sample sports eight Performance cores (P-cores) and 16 Efficiency cores (E-cores). The P-cores now graduate to the newer Raptor Cove architecture while the E-cores continue to be based on Gracemont. The Core i9-13900 also features 36 MB cache, which is 6 MB higher than the Alder Lake Core i9-12900K.

This particular Core i9-13900 sample is a non-K part, which means no overclocking support. CPU-Z leaks indicate that the processor will be rated at a 65 W TDP. Intel recently confirmed that Raptor Lake will support new XTU features such as Efficient Thermal Velocity Boost and per-core/package TVB, which should result in 6 GHz boosts. However, it is not clear whether the non-K parts get to use these features.

By virtue of being an ES, the Core i9-13900 sample in question is limited to boosts of up to just 3.8 GHz for the P-cores. The E-cores seem to be somewhat inconsistent with respect to their boost frequencies with one cluster running at 1 GHz and the other clocked at 2.8 GHz.

Expreview, the Chinese site that got hold of the Core i9-13900 ES, compared Raptor Lake's performance with the Core i9-12900K that had all cores locked at 3.8 GHz for a fair comparison. The platform used was an Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme with 32 GB DDR5 memory and an early BIOS version.

According to Expreview's numbers, the Core i9-13900 ES scores 1334 points in Cinebench R23 single-core and 26,748 points in the multi-core test. The Core i9-12900K seems to lead the single-core test by 12% but the Raptor Lake ES gains advantage in multi-core with a 20% lead. Similar results were also obtained by the publication in Cinebench R20.

That being said, the Core i9-13900 showed tangible gains over the Core i9-12900K in most other CPU tests including x264, Corona 1.3, 7-zip, and more. Gaming benchmarks at 1080p seemed to show a regression with the Core i9-13900, but they seem to be mostly within the margin of error. Expreview managed to perform a battery of tests on this processor, which can be viewed at the source link below.

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