Product test
Intel knocks AMD off its throne: Core i9-13900K in test
by Samuel Buchmann
A lot of frames for your franc: Intel Core i5-13600K review
20.10.2022
Intel’s cheapest new processor surpasses the costly AMD competition when it comes to gaming. It also puts up a good fight against its older sibling, the i9 from the Intel family, as it stays cooler and is more economical.
Here are all the specs for the Intel Core i5-13600K, as well as its direct competitor and predecessor:
Test set-up and methods
I used the following components for this review:
All components were provided to me by the manufacturers for testing. My colleague Kevin used the same RAM, SSDs, cooling as well as graphics card in his tests of the new AMD processors and the latest Intel generation. These test results serve as comparative data.
I activated XMP in BIOS. Otherwise, I left everything at default.
I was running BIOS version 0502 and Windows 11 at version 21H2 (22000.1098).
Here’s an overview of the different benchmarks:
I ran all benchmarks three times and took the best result. For the games, I used the highest possible presets. Otherwise, I left everything at default except for the resolution.
Cinebench R23
Cinebench R23 tests how a processor performs when rendering 3D models. The benchmark creates scores for single and multi-core performance from these calculations.
In the benchmark, the 13600K achieved a single core score of 2,006 and a multi-core score of 23,368. It runs at a consistent 5.1 GHz with the performance cores and 3.9 GHz with the efficiency cores. This brings the single-core Intel processor on a par with AMD’s 7700X. In multi-core, it scores 16% more thanks to the four additional threads. Compared to its predecessor, the 12600K has seen a 4% increase in terms of single-core and 32% when it comes to multi-core.
CPU-Z
The CPU-Z benchmark tests a processor’s speed in both single and multi-core mode and uses this to calculate a total score.
In single-core, the 13600K scores 4% more than the AMD competition and 6% more than the predecessor. In multi-core, the lead over AMD increases to 18% and 34% over the predecessor.
7-Zip
7-Zip’s built-in benchmark tests a system for compressing and decompressing data. From this, it calculates a score in giga instructions per second (GIPS). I chose the default «dictionary size» of 32 megabytes.
The new Core i5 is also slightly faster in 7-Zip than the Ryzen 7 – scoring as it does 3% more. Compared with the predecessor, it’s even 75% faster.
Blender benchmark
Blender benchmark renders three scenes in its 3D graphics suite (version 3.3) and calculates three scores using them. I’ve added these up to give end scores for each.
Using Blender, Intel scores 5% better than AMD, and the performance increases by 33% compared with the previous generation.
Photoshop
Using the Photoshop benchmark from Puget Systems, I ran different workloads. You can find more detailed information on that here. At the end, the benchmark calculates a score based on the reference workstation.
In Photoshop, the 13600K is 5% slower than the 7700X. Compared with its predecessor, the score has increased by 17%.
Premiere
Using the Premiere benchmark from Puget Systems, I ran different workloads. You can find more detailed information on that here. At the end, the benchmark calculates a score based on the reference workstation.
In Premiere, Intel’s new processor is 2% faster than AMD’s 7700X. However, it’s not very meaningful that the score is 18% less than with its predecessor. I suspect that Premiere hasn’t been optimised for the new processors yet. Therefore, this information should be taken with a pinch of salt.
PCMark 10
The PCMark 10 benchmark tests diverse scenarios such as app loading times, the efficiency of spreadsheet calculations, web browsing and photo and video editing. In other words, it demonstrates how suited a processor is to office work. From that, it calculates a score.
In PCMark, the leading edge over AMD is 2%, while the lead over the latest generation Intel CPU is 16%.
Fire Strike, Fire Strike Ultra, Time Spy and Time Spy Ultra
These synthetic game benchmarks provided a first glimpse of in-game performance. I haven’t provided the overall score, which combines graphics card and processor performance. This is because I want to exclude the former from processor reviews.
Across all four benchmarks, the 13600K scores 6% higher than the 7700X. But compared to the previous processor, it achieves a noteworthy 16% higher rating across the four benchmarks.
But synthetic benchmarks have limited significance and don’t tell the whole story. What’s more important is how the processor fares in real games.
The games
Across all resolutions, the 13600K delivers more FPS than the competition and its predecessor on average. As expected, these differences became smaller at higher resolutions. At 1080p it was 7%, at 1440p 6%, and at 2160p 3% when compared to AMD’s 7700X. Compared with the 12600K, that’s 13%, 6% and 3%.
In «Gears 5» and «Shadow of the Tomb Raider», Ryzen 7’s new i5 barely has to admit defeat. And in the other games, it’s streets ahead. Even at 99% and 99.9%, it outpaces AMD competitors and its predecessor. These values show how much games can be affected by choppy video. The arithmetic averages at 99% across all games and all resolutions are 13% higher than with 7700X and 19% higher than with the predecessor. At 99.9%, the margin is as much as 21% and 33%.
Power consumption and temperatures
This makes Intel’s new mid-range processor efficient when compared with its performance-hungry older sibling, the i9-13900K. Power consumption is in the same range as the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, although the latter sometimes reaches 95°C at full load.
Verdict: best value for money
Samuel Buchmann
Senior Editor
Samuel.Buchmann@digitecgalaxus.chMy fingerprint often changes so drastically that my MacBook doesn't recognise it anymore. The reason? If I'm not clinging to a monitor or camera, I'm probably clinging to a rockface by the tips of my fingers.
