Intel Raptor Lake-HX flagship Core i9-13980HX in MSI Raider GE78 HX within striking distance of 170 W Ryzen 9 7950X and 51% faster than leaked Apple M2 Max

An MSI Raider GE78 HX powered by the Intel Core i9-13980HX has made its way to Geekbench. The model number increment from the Raider GE77 HX to the Raider GE78 HX suggests that we might see some chassis design changes as well.

The Core i9-13980HX is a 24-core 32-thread part with boosts up to 5.6 GHz. The Raptor Lake-HX Core i9-13980HX in the MSI Raider GE78 HX seems to have scored 2,097 points in single-core and 22,062 points in multi-core tests, the latter of which seems to be among the highest scored by this processor in the database so far. The processor is seen boosting up to 5.56 GHz during this run.

Earlier, we had also reported about a Core i9-13980HX-powered Asus ROG Strix G814JZ, which is touted to be an 18-inch Strix, also reporting its presence on the benchmarking site with single-core and multi-core scores of 2,139 and 21,303, respectively.

This score makes the Core i9-13980HX about 12% and 45% faster than an average Core i9-12950HX in single-core and multi-core Geekbench tests, respectively. In fact, this Raptor Lake-HX flagship part is only about 6.4% and 8% slower a 170 W desktop AMD Ryzen 9 7950X processor.

An interesting comparison here would be with respect to the upcoming Apple M2 Max chip. Going by a recent Geekbench leak of the 12-core M2 Max, we find that the Core i9-13980HX is about 11% faster in single-core with a massive 51% lead in multi-core — not suprising, considering that the Core i9-13980HX has double the core count of the tested M2 Max SoC.

Of course, the M2 Max is not yet official but this early comparison does help get a perspective of where things would likely stand in 2023. It will be interesting to see how a TDP-limited Core i9-13980HX would perform in comparison to Apple's offerings.

Intel introduced the Alder Lake-HX BGA platform earlier this year that brought desktop-class CPU processing to laptops. The upcoming Raptor Lake mobile lineup will also include HX parts, specifications of which leaked recently. While Alder Lake-HX had the Core i9-12950HX as its flagship part, Raptor Lake-HX will be lead by the Core i9-13980HX.

We've seen only a couple of Core i9-12950HX-powered laptops this year including the Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 SE and the Dell Precision 7670. Hopefully, 2023 will see more laptops with flagship Raptor Lake-HX processors. 

Buy the MSI Raider GE67HX with Core i7-12800HX and RTX 3070 Ti on Amazon