Intel Core i9-13900K produces up to 80% more minimum FPS than the Core i9-12900KF in early gaming review

We reported a few days ago that the 13^th gen Intel Core i9-13900K “Raptor Lake” processor had been tested by Chinese reviewer Extreme player. Compared to the 12^th gen Intel Core i9-12900KF, the Core i9-13900K scored about 10% more in single-threaded and an average of >35% in multi-threaded synthetic workloads.

Extreme Player is at it again and this time has tested the gaming performance of the Raptor Lake chip. Paired with an MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ti SUPRIM X, 32 GB of 6400 MT/s DDR5 memory, and an ASUS ROG Z690 Extreme motherboard, the Core i9-13900K was pushed in titles such as Horizon Zero Dawn, Forza Horizon 5, and FarCry 6 among others. Finally, the reviewer also benchmarked the chip in 3DMark TimeSpy and FireStrike tests.

Right off the bat, we can see that the Core i9-13900K came out on top in almost all tests. In the 3DMark FireStrike Extreme Physics benchmark, the Raptor Lake part was more than 38% faster than the Core i9-12900KF. Similarly, in 3DMark TimeSpy Extreme CPU, the Core i9-13900K commanded a 37% lead. Gaming performance followed the same pattern with the Core i9-13900K proving to be substantially faster in more CPU-bound scenarios.

In Horizon Zero Dawn, the Core i9-13900K managed a 4% better average FPS at 1080p and an 11% improvement in minimum FPS compared to Core i9-12900K. At 1440p and 4K, the FPS numbers were much closer.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, the Raptor Lake CPU produced almost 80% and 77% more minimum FPS than the Alder Lake chip at 1080p and 1440p respectively.

Courtesy of @harukaze5719, we have a chart that arranges the numbers measured by Extreme Player by resolution and average, min, and max FPS. On average, the Core i9-13900K produced 28% more min FPS than the Core i9-12900K at 1080p, 22% at 1440p, and almost 12% at 4K. The average FPS for the Core i9-13900K across the tested games at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K stood at 4.46%, 7%, and 3% better than the Alder Lake Core i9 respectively.

The same goes for the max FPS where, once again, the Core i9-13900K proved to be faster across the board. However, this increased performance comes at a cost.

The Raptor Lake CPU consumed more power than the Core i9-12900KF in almost all test scenarios. For instance, in Horizon Zero Dawn, the chip consumed 157 W compared to 113 W of the Alder Lake CPU at 1080p.

In conclusion, Intel’s Raptor Lake Core i9 looks like a worthy successor to the Core i9-12900KF in these preliminary benchmarks. But if the power consumption readings are reliable, the CPU will guzzle a lot of juice and, consequently, require a beefy cooler.

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