The Intel Core i9-13900 surprises with very good performance

A leaked performance test has allowed us to see how an early engineering sample of the Intel Core i9-13900 behaves, and the truth is that the results it has obtained against the Intel Core i9-12900 are spectacular, especially since this sample only worked at 3.7 GHz in its high-performance cores, a speed that is well below the 5.1 GHz reached by the Alder Lake-S chip running from “stock” in turbo mode (with an active core).

The Intel Core i9-13900 will be a new generation high-end processor that will position itself just slightly below the Intel Core i9-13900K. The only differences between the two will be given by the working frequencies and because the second one will support overclocking (it will have the multiplier unlocked). both will have the same configuration and will use the same architecturewhich means that:

• They will use the Intel 7 node (10nm enhanced).
• They will have 8 high-performance Red Cove cores and 16 high-efficiency Gracemont cores.
• High performance cores will have HyperThreading, which in the end leaves us with 32 threads.
• They will have 32 MB of L2 cache and 36 MB of L3 cache in total.
• They will support AVX-AVX2 instructions on the high-efficiency cores.
• They will be compatible with DDR4 and DDR5 memory.

Intel Core i9-13900 sample features put to the test

As we have already said, the unit has 8 high-performance cores, 16 high-efficiency cores and 32 threads. Your cache amounts to a combined total (L2 and L3) of 68 MB, and runs at a speed of 3.7 GHz on high-performance cores and 2.76 GHz on high-efficiency cores. It goes without saying that these frequencies are well below the maximum we have seen in the Alder Lake-S series, and in its final version they should be close to 5GHz on high-performance kernels and well above 3 GHz in high-efficiency cores.

The configuration of RAM memory used has not been specified, so we do not know if it has been accompanied by DDR5 at 5,600 or another type of slower memory. In any case, the important thing is that the performance achieved by the Intel Core i9-13900 is, in general, very good, and it is more than enough to mark a notable generational leap.

In the single precision performance test (FP32) the Intel Core i9-13900 outperforms the Intel Core i9-12900 by 50%, while in double precision (FP64) it doubles the performance of the former. In general, this chip manages to outperform all processors of the comparison without any problem, and that, as we have already said, its working frequencies are quite low because it is an engineering sample.

When we look at the results under SIMD we find some not so positive results, as the Intel Core i9-13900 loses out to the Ryzen 9 5950X, and is only slightly above the Intel Core i9-12900. If we make an average assessment it is clear that the conclusions we can draw are positive. It will be interesting to see how the Intel Core i9-13900 performs in its final version, and what operating frequencies the chip giant is capable of achieving with this new generation. The first information predicted a significant improvement in performance.

I remind you, before finishing, that if everything goes according to plan Raptor Lake-S should be officially presented at the end of this year, probably between the months of October and November. This new generation will be compatible with the current LGA1700 600 series motherboards, although it will be accompanied by new motherboards with 700 series chipsets. It will also be compatible with DDR4 and DDR5 type memories, so we will not have to invest in new modules if we decide to upgrade. Its direct rival will be AMD’s Zen 4.