I saw the improvements of this generation of processors in the previous article,And Intel claims that the 13th generation CPU’s multi-core performance has increased by 41% over the previous generation. Is the actual performance that high? In this test, in addition to the Core i5-13600K and Core i9-13900K protagonists, we also found the previous generation Core i5-12600K and Core i9-12900K to compare old and new generations.
test platform
CPU: Intel Core i5-12600K, Core i9-12900K, Core i5-13600K, Core i9-13900K Motherboard: ASUS Maximus Z790 Extreme
Memory: Kingston DDR5-6000
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Founders Edition
Memory: WD_Black SN850 2TB
Cooler: ASUS ROG Ryujin II 360 (100% fan speed)
Fire Bull: ASUS ROG Thor 1000W Platinum II
Operating system: Windows 11 Home
Driver: NVIDIA Game Ready Driver v522.25
ROUND 1: Theory test
The first is the PCMark 10 theoretical test, which simulates the performance of running different software. The total score of the Core i9-13900K surpassed the 10,000 mark, nearly 10% higher than that of the Core i9-12900K. Splits rose 6% to 13%, with digital content creation leading the way.
The overall score of the Core i5-13600K is 7% higher than the previous generation 12600K, and the Productivity segment is slightly behind by less than 1%, but the other two are ahead by more than 10%. It is worth noting that the overall score of the Core i5-13600K is only less than 1% compared to the Core i9-12900K. In the CPU-Z theoretical test, the single core i9-13900K is 11% higher than the 12900K, and the multi-core growth is 49%, which is better than the 41% reported by Intel. Core i5-13600K single-core performance increased 8%, multi-core 40%, the growth is also considerable.
ROUND 2: Rendering and compression test
Next up is the Cinebench rendering test – the single-core performance of the Core i9-13900K is 14% better than that of the 12900K, and the multi-core performance is improved by 46%. The Core i5-13600K has a 6% increase in single-core and 37% in multi-core, and the performance improvement is quite significant.
In the V-Ray CPU test, the Core i9-13900K surpasses the 12900K by 45%, while the Core i5-13600K is also 36% higher than the 12600K. In the Blender rendering test, the Core i9-13900K surpasses the 12900K by 45% to 48%, and the Core i5-13600K surpasses the 12600K by 36% to 39%, which shows that this generation’s progress is a lot evident. Finally, in the 7-Zip test, the performance of the two compressed files of the 13th generation CPU is more than 30% higher than that of the 12th generation, and the decompression performance is even more amazing. The 13900K surpasses the 12900K by 55%. , and the 13600K is also 40% faster than the 12600K.
ROUND 3: Playtest
In the 3DMark test, the Core i9-13900K underperformed the 12900K of the Fire Strike series, dropping 1% to 8%, until Time Spy finally registered a 4% lead, while Time Spy Extreme drove by almost. 10%. The Core i5-13600K topped the 13900K in Fire Strike, 32% higher than the previous generation 12600K. As for the Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme scores, the 13600K is about 10% higher than the 12600K.
The next are three real-world gaming tests, where the Core i9-13900K leads the 12900K by 14% to 23% at 1080p, still 6% to 18% at 2K. But when it comes to 4K resolution, the 13900K only experienced a slight 2% to 3% increase over the 12900K. The Core i5-13600K is 18% to 24% higher than the 12600K at 1080p resolution, still has a 9% to 21% increase in 2K and a 3% to 10% advantage in 4K. It is worth mentioning that the performance of the Core i5-13600K has already surpassed that of the Core i9-12900K, which is great.
ROUND 4: Photo cut test
In the PugetBench video processing test for Premiere Pro, the Core i9-13900K scored 15% higher than the 12900K overall, with Export leading 23%. The total score of the Core i5-13600K is 10% higher than that of the 12600K and the element with the biggest advantage is also Export, which has seen an increase of almost 20%.
Next is the PugetBench test for Photoshop. The two 13th generation CPUs are about 11% more than the previous generation. Among these, the Filter project has a greater advantage, coming in from 12% to 13%. The Core i5-13600K is only 1% to 3% behind the Core i9-12900K in the two tests this round. It can be seen that the performance of the current generation of Core i5 almost catches up with the Core i9 of the previous generation, which is eye-catching.
ROUND 5: Temperature and energy consumption test
Finally, the temperature and energy consumption test. When using AIDA64 for CPU Stress test, the full load temperature of the Core i9-13900K (Unlock Power Limit) reaches 80 degrees, which is much higher than the previous generation 12900K. The maximum clock rate of the P-Core is 5.5 GHz and that of the E-Core is 4.3 GHz. The 13900K Package Power recorded 208 W, 80 W more than the previous generation, which is also reflected in the total power consumption of the platform, which is nearly 100W more than the previous generation.
The full load temperature of the Core i5-13600K (Unlock Power Limit) reaches 56 degrees, which reached the level of the previous generation Core i9-12900K. Its Package Power recorded 110W, 32W more than the previous generation 12600K, and the platform’s total power consumption also increased accordingly, from 178W to 211W.
During the FPU stress test, the Core i9-13900K (Unlock Power Limit) temperature was 98 degrees, 11 degrees higher than the 12900 K. It appears that the integrated 360mm water cooling with 100% fan speed is just barely enough to suppress the 13900K. The package power of the 13900K is 287W, 60W more than that of the 12900K, and the total power consumption of the platform is 447W.
The full load temperature of the Core i5-13600K (Unlock Power Limit) also reaches 83 degrees, which is much higher than the previous generation 12600K. Package Power recorded 190W, 60W more than the previous generation 12600K, and the total power consumption of the platform reached 310W, 67W more than the previous generation.
Significantly improved performance
The 13th generation Core series officially debuts, which can be said to be a “great package”. The L2 cache has been significantly improved and the number of E-Cores has doubled compared to the previous generation. Benefiting from the overall increase in the number of cores, threads and even Turbo clock, the performance of the 13th generation CPU in multi-threading has been significantly improved, which is a great help for Content Creator, but brings relatively little growth to players. Due to the specifications of the “big package”, the operating temperature and power consumption of the 13th generation CPU have increased 360 degrees.
The most eye-catching thing in this test is the Core i5-13600K. The performance of some designs is enough to match or even surpass the previous generation Core i9-12900K, but the price is two levels higher – it’s really worth considering for builders with limited budgets. .
