I have seen the improvements of this generation of processors in the previous article,And Intel claims that the multi-core performance of the 13th generation CPU has increased by 41% compared with the previous generation. Is the actual performance so strong? In this test, in addition to the protagonists Core i5-13600K and Core i9-13900K, we also found the previous generation Core i5-12600K and Core i9-12900K to compare the old and new generations.
testing 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
Storage: 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 exceeded the 10,000 mark, nearly 10% higher than that of the Core i9-12900K. The subdivisions increased by 6% to 13%, with Digital Content Creation taking the lead.
The Core i5-13600K’s overall score 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% behind the Core i9-12900K. In the CPU-Z theoretical test, the Core i9-13900K single core is 11% higher than the 12900K, and the multi-core growth is 49%, which is better than the 41% claimed by Intel. Core i5-13600K single-core performance increased by 8%, multi-core by 40%, the growth is also considerable.
ROUND 2: Rendering and Compression Test
Next 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 leads 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 leads the 12900K by 45% to 48%, and the Core i5-13600K leads the 12600K by 36% to 39%, which shows that the progress of this generation is very obvious. Finally, in the 7-Zip test, the performance of the two 13th generation CPU compressed files is more than 30% higher than that of the 12th generation, and the decompression performance is even more amazing. The 13900K leads 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 in the Fire Strike series, falling back by 1% to 8%, until Time Spy finally recorded a 4% lead, while Time Spy Extreme led by nearly 10%. The Core i5-13600K outperformed the 13900K in Fire Strike, 32% ahead of the previous generation 12600K. As for the Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme scores, the 13600K is about 10% ahead of the 12600K.
Next up are three real-world gaming tests, where the Core i9-13900K leads the 12900K by anywhere from 14% to 23% at 1080p, still 6% to 18% at 2K. But coming to 4K resolution, the 13900K recorded only a slight increase of 2% to 3% over the 12900K. The Core i5-13600K is 18% to 24% ahead of the 12600K at 1080p resolution, still has a 9% to 21% increase in 2K, and a 3% to 10% lead 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 outstanding.
ROUND 4: Photo-cutting test
In the PugetBench for Premiere Pro video processing test, the Core i9-13900K scored 15% higher than the 12900K in total, with Export leading by 23%. The total score of the Core i5-13600K is 10% higher than that of the 12600K, and the item with the largest lead is also Export, which recorded an increase of nearly 20%.
Next is the PugetBench for Photoshop test. The two 13th-generation CPUs are about 11% ahead of the previous generation. Among them, the Filter project has a greater advantage, reaching 12% to 13%. The Core i5-13600K is only 1% to 3% behind the Core i9-12900K in the two tests in this round. It can be seen that the performance of the current-generation Core i5 almost catches up with the previous-generation Core i9, which is eye-catching.
ROUND 5: Temperature and Power Consumption Test
Finally, the temperature and power consumption test. When using AIDA64 for CPU Stress test, the full load temperature of Core i9-13900K (Unlock Power Limit) reaches 80 degrees, which is much higher than the previous generation 12900K. The maximum clock frequency of P-Core is 5.5GHz, and that of E-Core is 4.3 GHz. The Package Power of 13900K recorded 208W, which is 80W higher than the previous generation, which is also reflected in the total power consumption of the platform, which is nearly 100W higher than the previous generation.
The full load temperature of the Core i5-13600K (Unlock Power Limit) reaches 56 degrees, which has reached the level of the previous generation Core i9-12900K. Its Package Power recorded 110W, which was 32W higher than the previous generation 12600K, and the total power consumption of the platform also increased accordingly, from 178W to 211W.
During the FPU Stress test, the temperature of the Core i9-13900K (Unlock Power Limit) was as high as 98 degrees, which was 11 degrees higher than the 12900K. It seems that the 360mm integrated water cooling with 100% fan speed is just barely enough to suppress the 13900K. The Package Power of the 13900K is as high as 287W, which is 60W higher than that of the 12900K, and the total power consumption of the platform is as high as 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 higher than the previous generation 12600K, and the total power consumption of the platform reached 310W, 67W higher than the previous generation.
Significantly improved performance
The 13th-generation Core series officially debuted, which can be said to be a “big package” work. The L2 Cache has been greatly 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 Turbo clock, the performance of the 13th-generation CPU in multi-threading has been significantly improved, which is of great help to Content Creator, but brings relatively little growth to gamers. Due to the “big package” specifications, the operating temperature and power consumption of the 13th-generation CPU have risen in an all-round way.
The most eye-catching thing in this test is the Core i5-13600K. The performance of some projects is enough to match or even surpass the previous generation Core i9-12900K, but the price is two levels higher. It is really worth considering for builders with limited budgets. .