Intel rumored to enable 350 W power limit for i9-13900K Raptor Lake CPUs on select 700-series motherboards

A few weeks ago, we were reporting on an Intel Raptor Lake i9-13900K qualification sample that had its PL1 and PL2 unlocked manually to accept power loads of up to 4095.9 W and this maneuver essentially boosted the TDP to 345 W, which is around 100 W higher than the nominal PL2. A more recent report coming from Hungarian publication ProHardver suggests that this PL override is actually a feature easily accessible on the upcoming Intel 700 series motherboards. It looks like Nvidia and now Intel are going to ignore all the climate change concerns advocating for optimized power consumption just to get ahead of AMD.

Only select Intel 700 motherboard models are rumored to include this power override feature that raises the PL cap to 350 W. Additionally, this “Extreme Performance Mode” is said to require top-of-the-line AIO cooling solutions, and most likely a power supply upgrade too. Surely, not many were expecting a CPU with TDPs that match those of a high-end GPU so soon. Nevertheless, Nvidia’s upcoming RTX 4000 series is expected to raise the bar once again, so why would Intel sit on its hands?

Tests performed on the aforementioned i9-13900K qualification sample running at 345 W showed only 15% gains in multi-thread loads over samples running in 253 W PL2 mode. Not exactly worth the additional 100 W plus the costs of a new cooling system, new premium motherboard and eventually a new PSU, but, depending on how Intel polishes things for the rumored October launch, final Raptor Lake CPU versions could show better results.

Unfortunately, it looks like AMD is also choosing to raise the power limits, at least on its upcoming RX 7000 series, as it needs to provide competitive alternatives to Nvidia’s RTX 4000 models. Hopefully AMD will not do the same with the Ryzen 7000 processors.

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