Intel 13th gen Core desktop processors

A lukewarm upgrade on paper, but in practice this is a stunning performance leap for a single generation

- PAUL ALCORN

Intel's 12th generation Alder Lake processors brought the biggest since the range's launch in 2008, with an ARM-like division into "big" Performance cores (P-cores) and "little" Efficiency cores (E-cores). Alder Lake was a huge success, largely outperforming AMD's Ryzen 5000 CPUs, only for AMD to retake the lead with the Ryzen 7000 series (see p44).

There's nothing so revolutionary about this 13th generation of Core chips, codenamed Raptor Lake, yet thanks to a mix of frequency increases, extra cache and improvements to DDR5 throughput, the end result is still dramatic: Intel claims a 15% improvement in single-threaded performance and 41% for multithreaded performance. Claims that our tests largely confirm.

While Intel has released only three unlocked "K" chips so far, the family will extend to 22 desktop chips - not to mention mobile versions. It also marks a different approach to E-cores. While these are largely unchanged from Alder Lake, most 13th gen Core chips will include more E-cores than their 12th gen equivalents (including non-K Core is models and Core i3 chips, which didn't include E-cores at all), and that alone will significantly boost real-world performance.

Like its predecessor, Raptor Lake supports the latest connectivity standards, including PCI-E 5.0 and DDR5, now at speeds of up to DDR5-5600. Intel also preserves DDR4 support for less expensive build options - a pronounced advantage over AMD's Ryzen 7000, especially for midrange systems.