Intel Core i9-13900K & Core i5-13600K Review: Raptor Lake Roars
LAME XP Audio Encoding
For this test, we created 16-copies of our own 223MB WAV file (an 11 minute Grateful Dead jam) and converted it to the MP3 format using the multi-thread capable LAME XP tool. Processing times are recorded below, listed in minutes:seconds. Shorter times equate to better performance.
Intel's architectures have traditionally performed well with the LAME audio encoder, but the Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 series was able to catch the Alder Lake-based 12th Gen Core processors. Raptor Lake reclaims the crown, however, with the Core i9-13900K taking the lead and the Core i5-13600K outpacing the higher-priced Ryzen 7 7700X.
x265 Video Encoding Benchmark
The multi-threaded HWBOT x265 Benchmark is based on the open source x265 encoder that leverages modern CPU instructions to speed up video encoding. We tested the CPUs represented here with the 64-bit encoder using the default 1080p and 4K workloads.
The x265 video encoding benchmark is the only test we ran that requires enabling the High Precision Event Timer (HPET). And it is also the only benchmark we ran to display any strange behavior with Raptor Lake-S. No matter what we did here, were weren't able to get the Core i9-13900K or Core i5-13600K to perform as expected. We've alerted Intel, however, and will update this section when we know more. There's either some sort of incompatibility with the benchmark itself, or enabling HPET does wonky things that will need to be addressed.
The x265 video encoding benchmark is the only test we ran that requires enabling the High Precision Event Timer (HPET). And it is also the only benchmark we ran to display any strange behavior with Raptor Lake-S. No matter what we did here, were weren't able to get the Core i9-13900K or Core i5-13600K to perform as expected. We've alerted Intel, however, and will update this section when we know more. There's either some sort of incompatibility with the benchmark itself, or enabling HPET does wonky things that will need to be addressed.
Blackmagic RAW Video Encoding Speed
The Blackmagic RAW Speed Test is a CPU and GPU benchmarking tool that tests full-resolution Blackmagic RAW video decode performance. The tool can be used to evaluate the performance at various resolutions and bitrates on the CPU or using OpenCL on a GPU. We're reporting two results here, both using 8K resolution, but at differing bitrates and compression levels.
In the Blackmagic RAW speed test the Core i9-13900K was back to its winning ways, taking the top spot over the Core i9-12900K by a wide margin. The Core i5-13600K also performed well, once again outpacing the more expensive Ryzen 7 7700X.
Cinebench R23 Rendering Benchmark
Cinebench rendering performance test based on Cinema 4D from Maxon. Cinema 4D is a 3D rendering and animation tool suite used by animation houses and producers like Sony Animation and many others. It's very demanding of system processor resources and can utilize any number of threads, which make is an excellent gauge of computational throughput. This is a multi-threaded, multi-processor aware benchmark that renders and animates 3D scenes and tracks the length of the entire process. The rate at which each test system was able to render the entire scene is represented in the graphs below.
The Core i9-13900K and Core i5-13600K kicked some butt in Cinebench as well. The 13900K put up the best single and multi-threaded scores of the bunch, and the 13600K clearly outran the Ryzen 7 7700X and nearly caught the previous-gen flagship Ryzen 9 5950X.
POV-Ray CPU Ray Tracing Benchmark
POV-Ray, or the Persistence of Vision Ray-Tracer, is an open source tool for creating realistically lit images. We tested with POV-Ray's standard 'one-CPU' and 'all-CPU' benchmarking tools on all of our test machines and recorded the scores reported for each. Results are measured in pixels-per-second throughput; higher scores equate to better performance.
POV-Ray tells essentially the same story as Cinebench, with the Core i9-13900K taking the lead on all fronts and the Core i5-13600K punching well above its price point.
Blender Rendering Benchmarks
Blender is a free and open source 3D creation suite that can handle everything from modeling, rigging, and animation to simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking. It has a purpose-built benchmarking tool that will track the time it takes to complete rendering a particular model (or models). We used the CPU-focused benchmark with all three models currently available...
The Ryzen 9 7950X was able to score another victory over the Core i9-13900K in Blender, but Intel's chip wasn't too far behind. The Core i5-13600K performed roughly on-par with the Core i7-12700K, just ahead of—you guessed it—the Ryzen 7 7700X.
Y-Cruncher Multi-Threaded Pi Calculator
Y-Cruncher is a multi-core-capable tool that calculates the value of pi to a specified number of digits. In this case, we ran the tool on all threads and had the application calculate the value of pi to 1 billion digits. The values below are the time required to perform the calculation expressed in seconds. As a result, lower values indicate better performance.
Things are probably getting a little repetitive at this point, but the numbers are what they are. The Core i9-13900K returned to its winning ways in Y-Cruncher, besting all of the other systems we tested, and the Core i5-13600K landed in-between the Core i9-12900K and Ryzen 7 7700X.
Things are probably getting a little repetitive at this point, but the numbers are what they are. The Core i9-13900K returned to its winning ways in Y-Cruncher, besting all of the other systems we tested, and the Core i5-13600K landed in-between the Core i9-12900K and Ryzen 7 7700X.
STARS Euler3d Multi-Threaded CFD Benchmark
STARS Euler3d is a computational fluid dynamics benchmark which uses a CFD grid that contains 1.23 million tetrahedral elements and 223 thousand nodes. The benchmark executable advances a mach 0.50 Advisory Group for Aerospace Research, or AGARD, flow solution for an aeroelastic test wing. The benchmark score is reported as a CFD cycle frequency in Hertz.
This benchmark ran exceptionally well on the Raptor Lake-S 13th Gen Core processors, thanks to their larger caches, higher-clocks, and increased memory bandwidth. As such, the Core i9-13900K jumps out to a massive lead over all of the other chips, with the Core i5-13600K landing in third, ahead of all of the Ryzen 7000 series processors and all of the previous-gen chips, save for the 12900K.
This benchmark is multi-threaded, but is also dependent on platform bandwidth, and cache and memory latency, so the final results are not determined by compute performance alone. Cache sizes / speed and memory bandwidth affect the score as well...
This benchmark ran exceptionally well on the Raptor Lake-S 13th Gen Core processors, thanks to their larger caches, higher-clocks, and increased memory bandwidth. As such, the Core i9-13900K jumps out to a massive lead over all of the other chips, with the Core i5-13600K landing in third, ahead of all of the Ryzen 7000 series processors and all of the previous-gen chips, save for the 12900K.
