Core i7 Raptor Lake ES Hits Highly Coveted 6GHz Clock in CPU-Z

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It seems the rumors were true after all

Alder Lake
(Image credit: Shutterstock)

According to a report by VideoCardz, the news outlet received an anonymous tip with evidence showcasing an engineering or qualifying sample Core i7-13700K Raptor Lake CPU running at a whopping 6GHz flat in CPU-Z. 

The chip also scored one of the highest CPU-Z single-core benchmark results we've ever seen at 983.3 points. The chip was reported to focus exclusively on hitting 6GHz alone, with the E-cores disabled entirely. Voltages were reported to be in the 1.42v range, but temperatures under load were not listed. The board used was a Mini-ITX Z690I Unify from MSI.

Another source, @esperonslaie on Twitter, also reported similar findings with another Core i7-13700K, but this time with the E-cores enabled. His or her results do come shy of the 6GHz mark but are just as impressive with a 5.8GHz core clock running on all 8 P-cores (again with the E-cores enabled as well). The CPU-Z single-threaded score is also just as fast at 947 points, which comes just shy of the 6GHz result by 3%.

This news seemingly proves all the previous rumors we've seen over the months, indicating that Raptor Lake's clock speed target would be north of 5.5GHz, and somewhere around the 5.8GHz territory. Anything beyond 5.6GHz on Intel's previous architectures – including Alder Lake, was effectively impossible to hit without the aid of sub-ambient cooling.

The CPU-Z results also seem to reflect this, with scores much higher than anything we've seen out of Intel's current processors. It also ensures these chips are running normally, without the current clock stretching phenomenon potentially faking the results.

In CPU-Z the Core i9-12900KF features the fastest official benchmark scores on the platform, with a single thread score of 819 points. This score is already very fast, by today's standards, and dwarfs other chips such as the 5900X with a single-threaded score of 647 points.

But the new Raptor Lake parts at 5.8GHz and 6GHz blow that 819-point result out of the water, with scores that are 18% to 20% faster, respectively. Take this news with a grain of salt as always – Raptor Lake is still in development, but the future is looking bright for Intel's new speed demon.

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Aaron Klotz
Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

2 Comments Comment from the forums
  • watzupken
    The question is at what cost? To get to 6 GHz, it’s going to require substantially more power. Even if Intel claims that they have improved on the fab for Raptor Lake, fundamentally it’s still 10nm, and with increase in E-cores (which likely are clocked higher), cache and clock speed, I highly doubt it will stay in the same power envelope.
    Reply
  • spongiemaster
    watzupken said:
    The question is at what cost? To get to 6 GHz, it’s going to require substantially more power. Even if Intel claims that they have improved on the fab for Raptor Lake, fundamentally it’s still 10nm, and with increase in E-cores (which likely are clocked higher), cache and clock speed, I highly doubt it will stay in the same power envelope.
    240W for this overclock. Big asterisk though, hyper threading and eCores were disabled. Chances are disabling them were necessary for stable 6Ghz. Time will tell if retail i9's will hit 6Ghz without anything disabled.
    Reply