Purported 5.7 GHz Intel Core i9-13900K Spotted at Geekbench

Intel Core CPU
(Image credit: Intel)

A Geekbench run featuring a purported Intel Core i9-13900K has been spotted on the Geekbench online database. This flagship 13th Gen Core processor sample, with 24 cores and 32 threads, looks like it runs at a base clock of 3.0 GHz, a 5.5 GHz 5.5 GHz, and ran as fast as 5.7 GHz during a single-core portion of the test suite.

(Image credit: Future)

Above you can see a screenshot from the Geekbench page recording the score of a system packing an alleged upcoming Raptor Lake flagship CPU. Starting at the top we see the single thread / multi thread scores of 2,133 / 23,701. Benchleaks found this entry and highlighted that, if this is a genuine result, the new Core i9-13900K would be about 23% faster in single thread and 120% faster in multi-thread tests compared to AMD’s 5800X CPU. We've added a couple more scores from the database to present a comparison table for quick reference.

Swipe to scroll horizontally

CPU

Intel i9-13900K*Intel i9-12900K

AMD 5800X

AMD 5950X

Core config

24C/32T

16C/24T

8C/16T

16C/32T

1T score

2,133

1,987

1,670

1,686

nT score

23,701

17,272

10,329

16,508

* take this single leaked result with a pinch of salt

Considering the chart results above, the next-gen flagship is about 7% faster in single thread tests compared to its predecessor, and about 37% faster in the multi-threaded tests. Of course, the i9-13900K has an extra eight efficiency cores compared to its Alder Lake ancestor, widening the distance in the multi-thread tests generation-to-generation.

Just a couple weeks ago, we reported on a new Core i9-13900K Engineering Sample being tested in China. So this could be one of those ES3 chips, or it might be an even further advanced model. As a reminder, the ES3 was supposed to have a max turbo boost of 5.3 GHz. However, this fresh Geekbench data suggests a turbo boost of 5.5 GHz, and the data log shows that the ‘Asus’ system tested reached 5.7 GHz in a single-core load.  

Another possibility behind the increased performance is that it could be a result of the new Asus Z600 BIOS files being distributed with Raptor Lake support. A new BIOS, v 1601, became available for the ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme motherboard used in this test.

The processor tested here may well be another engineering sample, so there could be better speeds to come, and improved overall performance. It would be good to get single-thread performance uplifts into double figures, but all-thread performance boost is still impressive.

Intel Raptor Lake is expected to launch this October, alongside a raft of Intel 700 series motherboards. AMD is also gearing up for a CPU refresh with Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 processors this fall.

Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

  • rmcrys
    The results represent very little until it is known how much energy is being pulled out from the wall. Intel is known to improve the handling of the heat, not improving the consumption but the speed with increasingly energy use. AMD and Apple seem to improve instruction speed per watt, Intel seems to go more speed, more energy, more heat dissipation. I don't want to burn my house or increase my energy bills.
    Reply
  • jkflipflop98
    On the other hand, I couldn't care less how much energy it draws from the wall. I just want to go fast. My house is up to fire code and I can afford the extra ~$10 a year in electricity.
    Reply
  • cowhow
    Someone tell me that there is CPU technology that dwarfs this i9, or did we just give China another chunk of our technology to copy.
    Reply
  • Sippincider
    jkflipflop98 said:
    On the other hand, I couldn't care less how much energy it draws from the wall. I just want to go fast. My house is up to fire code and I can afford the extra ~$10 a year in electricity.

    For me it's not the energy from the wall, it's getting the heat out of the case!

    Somewhere there has to be a practical limit of how many BTUs can be extracted from a given surface area of silicon.
    Reply
  • spentshells
    Well, Pentium 4 was ideally going to be worked up to 8Ghz, clearly that couldn't happen.

    I hope to see these chips hit a "common" 6Ghz on water... that would be cool.

    It leaves me to wonder how many more years it will take to hit 8Ghz.

    All very exciting.
    Reply
  • shady28
    Sippincider said:
    For me it's not the energy from the wall, it's getting the heat out of the case!

    Somewhere there has to be a practical limit of how many BTUs can be extracted from a given surface area of silicon.


    Ya but just exactly how often will you push that CPU to its multi-core limits? I have a 10850K, arguably it has the potential to be one of the most power hungry chips on the planet when it is power unlocked and overclocked.

    But, to actually see that power ramp, you have to be running something that pegs all cores. How often is that?

    Most sites, Tom's included, don't do much power testing for the real world. They run y-cruncher, AIDA stress test, Blender, Handbrake. I don't run any of those normally, nor do I run anything like those, and the only person I know who does run anything like those at all makes a living doing photography - and she uses a Mac.

    The most stressful thing most people here will do on their PC is game - and if you have a GPU powerful enough to make a 12900K or this new 13900K start to pull down on the power, you're clearly not someone who cares much about power. That GPU is going to pull way more power than your CPU.

    If you don't have such a GPU (like at least a 3080), and you're not doing rendering and encoding on a regular basis, it's going to be extremely rare to see your CPU draw down a lot of power during actual use.
    Reply
  • Lafong
    shady28 said:


    If you don't have such a GPU (like at least a 3080), and you're not doing rendering and encoding on a regular basis, it's going to be extremely rare to see your CPU draw down a lot of power during actual use.

    Yep. I've been musing about that. I doubt if my PC (excluding monitor) uses 150 watts more than 20 hours a year....out of about 5000 hours on per year. Typically in the 50 to 75 watt bracket.
    Reply
  • shady28
    Lafong said:
    Yep. I've been musing about that. I doubt if my PC (excluding monitor) uses 150 watts more than 20 hours a year....out of about 5000 hours on per year. Typically in the 50 to 75 watt bracket.

    Exactly, I've actually gone so far as to use the performance monitor to model my usage for days at a time. There are, literally, like 2-3 minutes a day where I can see more than 2-3 cores going to high usage. I figured out that 2-3 minutes is during patching - either the OS, via steam, or whatever. It's literally like 10 hours per year if I were to spend 15 hours a day on my computer - which would be 4500 hours - and I don't average anywhere near that.

    Now, if I had a more powerful GPU (I have a 2060 KO) I'd probably see more CPU usage. But this kinda baits the point, I need a 350W GPU to see my CPU go over 150W more than 2 minutes a day?
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    Sippincider said:
    For me it's not the energy from the wall, it's getting the heat out of the case!

    Somewhere there has to be a practical limit of how many BTUs can be extracted from a given surface area of silicon.
    You are not forced to run an intel CPU at full overclock mode...it's a couple of clicks in the bios to rein it in, the same way it's a few clicks for ryzen to enable PBO.
    Even locked at 125W the 12900k does very well against the top ryzen CPUs and is more than 10 degrees cooler with the same cooling and using the same amount of power...So guess which one is going to pump more heat into your room.
    If we are pretending to be enthusiasts here a few clicks in the bios shouldn't be an issue.
    https://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.php/artikel/hardware/prozessoren/57430-core-i9-12900k-und-core-i5-12600k-hybrid-desktop-cpus-alder-lake-im-test.html?start=8And you are also not forced to use it at 125W only, you can go as high or as low as YOU want because no company can force you how to use YOUR PC.
    Reply
  • reinsuld
    It's not impressive at all - same motherboard with 12900KS runs 4 cores at 5.7 using Asus AI OC only.
    Reply