Performance & Test Bench
The test bench used for this system features the i9-13900KF paired an ASUS ROG STRIX B660-F GAMING WiFi board. Memory wise, we see 32GB of DDR5 RAM along with AMD’s RX 6500 XT on the Windows 11 OS. The CPU reportedly reaches near 6.0GHz levels which is insane considering the motherboard used. This shows that high clock speeds for Raptor Lake CPUs are not limited to the enthusiast class Z-x90 chipsets. The temperature remains at just 68C on using an AIO water cooler. As for the performance metrics, the CPU scores around 2333 points in the Cinebench R23 single-core test. This alone grants it an 11% performance uplift over AMD’s R9 7950X.
The i9-13900KF
The Intel Core i9-13900KF powered by 24 (8P + 16E) cores and 32 threads. Out of the box, you can experience a base frequency of 3.0GHz and 2.2GHz across the performance and efficient cores, respectively. If you have a capable enough motherboard, Intel’s Thermal Velocity Boost can pump up the clocks to an insanely fast 5.8GHz across a single Performance core on the 13900K. That is 10% higher than the i9-12900K. Intel’s Thermal Velocity Boost is exclusive to the i9-12900KS and the i9-13900K. The 13900K/KF is fueled by 32MB of L2 Cache (2.2x more than the 12900K) and 36MB of L3 Cache (1.2x more than the 12900K). This amounts up to a total of 68MB of cache which is slightly lower than AMD’s Ryzen 9 7950X (80MB). All this power, comes in at the same TDP of 125W (Max Turbo Power of 253W). The i9-13900KF will cost you $25 less than the base variant, coming in at $564.
