The Core i9-13900K, Intel's next-generation flagship CPU (supposedly), might attain Turbo rates that are far greater than the formidable 12900KS.
The Core i9-12900KS is a newly announced supercharged variation of the 12900K, with a clock speed of 5.5GHz out of the box.
However, hardware leaker Raichu on Twitter claims that Intel's 13th-gen Raptor Lake chip will be capable of clock rates 200MHz or 300MHz faster than this.
RPL will over the new highest freq which was created by 12900KS.
— Raichu (@OneRaichu) April 13, 2022
More 2-300 MHz is possible.
In theory, the Raptor Lake flagship might touch 5.7GHz or 5.8GHz out of the box, which would be mind-blowing speeds without any tinkering or prior knowledge of overclocking.
Of course, we're talking about the performance cores' boost – the efficiency cores would still run slower – as well as the highest speed for a pair of cores (you won't get full pelt across all cores, of course; with the 12900KS, all-core boost bottoms out at 5.2GHz, 300Hz shy of the maximum Turbo).
Raptor Lake has the potential to pack a punch, but will Zen 4 be the first to strike?
What's unclear is if Raichu is referring to the Core i9-13900K or a future higher-binned 13900KS model — assuming Intel even goes that route. (It doesn't usually create a 'KS' edition of the flagship; in fact, the most recent one before the 12900KS was the 9900KS, which was three generations ago.)
Whatever the case may be, based on this report, we can expect Raptor Lake to give a big improvement in clock speeds, but that won't be the only benefit. Even if Raptor Lake is just a straight refresh of Alder Lake, it has some interesting trimmings on the side. A new generation will inevitably bring an IPC uplift (more Instructions per Clock means you get even more out of faster clock speeds), and even if Raptor Lake is only a straight refresh of Alder Lake, it has some interesting trimmings on the side. For example, a significant on-board cache increase to improve gaming frame rates.
Remember that the 13900K is expected to increase the efficiency cores from 8 to 16 (while maintaining the same 8 performance cores), making the flagship CPU a 24-core beast (with 32 threads, because efficiency cores don't have hyper-threading). Also, the CPU should get a bit extra punch as a result of this.
In theory, Raptor Lake might smooth out any rough edges in Alder Lake – which, of course, is Intel's first genuine attempt into hybrid cores, Lakefield apart – to offer quite a punch, despite being simply a basic upgrade. Let's hope so, yet another concern is if AMD will gain the jump on Raptor Lake by releasing Zen 4 first.
While Intel's Raptor Lake has been reported to make its debut in Q3 (on numerous occasions), that isn't guaranteed, and other conjecture has suggested that AMD may be planning to release next-generation Zen 4 CPUs in Q3, maybe to beat Intel to market. Which, to be fair, Team Red should do if at all possible, because if Intel's 13th-gen range debuts first, AMD's Ryzen 5000 series will appear to be woefully weak.