Intel Core i9-13900K gaming performance review — Framerates evolved

Pricing and conclusion

Intel’s delivering Raptor Lake at an interesting time when AMD has its latest Ryzen CPUs already out and there’s a new generation of graphics cards also rolling out. New levels of performance are already here or are about to become available, and the motherboard platforms behind both Intel and Ryzen are positioned well to keep up with demanding game requirements for years.

If you’re considering an upgrade or are already in the market for a new CPU, Intel’s 13th gen i9 feels entirely worth the money. Pricing is similar to the 12900K, but you get way more E-Cores, stable 5.5GHz frequencies on all P-cores, double the L2 cache, and a platform that operates better now than when Alder Lake first launched. The 13900K uses less energy for gaming and streaming since we tested Alder Lake last year, it’s often more responsive, and will keep up with future generations of graphics cards for years if you get a motherboard with PCIe 5.0 x16 to the primary graphics card slot.

If you’re using an AMD Ryzen 3000 or Intel 9th gen CPU or older, it’s definitely worth the upgrade to 13th gen. The i9 in particular can effortlessly do whatever you need. If you’re using a more recent CPU, you’ll need to make a decision based on how much performance you’re targeting. I can easily recommend the i9-13900K though if you can afford to match it with an RTX 3080 Ti or better. The RTX 4090 is the ideal pairing, which we also reviewed recently. In separate testing where we set all game settings to low, the framerates take off and show a glimpse of what this CPU can really do when unbound. You’ll be able to see those results soon enough, so check back within the next week or so if interested.

However, there is the downside that we don’t know if Intel will move to a new socket with its next-gen Meteor Lake CPU lineup, and it’s billed as another huge jump in performance. That means you may not be able to upgrade your CPU on the same motherboard. On the contrary, AMD is just getting started with its AM5 socket for Ryzen. You should be able to get a couple generational upgrade options on that platform. Intel’s i9-13900K is damn strong though. You won’t have any complaints about the performance anytime soon, which makes it a reasonable choice for those that buy entire new systems every three to five years anyways.

Looking back at the 12900K, the 13900K is better, sure, but it doesn’t invalidate the prior gen for gaming by any means. Raptor Lake just feels like an evolution of something that’s already great.

• Introduction, features, and specs
• Frequencies, power consumption, and temperatures
• Gaming performance and multi-tasking
• Pricing and conclusion