Intel Core i7-13700K "Raptor Lake" CPU Review

TweakTown's Rating: 94%

The Bottom Line

Consumers wanting more than a pure gaming machine will want to look towards the Intel Core i7-13700K "Raptor Lake" CPU.

Pros

• + In Socket Upgrade
• + Efficiency (Perf Per Watt)
• + Pricing / Value
• + Gaming and productivity performance

Cons

• - Needs decent cooling
• - IPC unchanged

Should you buy it?

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Buy at Amazon

Introduction and Pricing

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We managed to get our hands-on a Core i7-13700K a few weeks post-launch. Assuming most of you know about the architecture changes and where this CPU lands in the new Intel Raptor Lake lineup, we will keep this review short and to the point. If you don't, you can read up on architecture in either of our two previous reviews - 13600K or 13900K.

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With that said, we haven't yet updated the BIOS of our Z790 AORUS Master, so we will be able to test our new to us 13700K on the same board and setup used for the initial reviews. This should keep things as consistent across the board as possible, as we use the same memory, GPU, PSU, etc.

All of that out of the way, the 13700K has the same core layout as the 12900K. This means we have eight performance cores and eight efficient cores, HT on the P-cores to give us a total of sixteen cores and twenty-four threads. Base and boost clocks have changed; the 13700K comes with 3.4GHz base on the P-cores, while E-cores run at a 2.5GHz base. Boost clock, on the other hand, gives us 5.4GHz on the P-cores and 4.2GHz for the E-cores. Power ratings are the same across the board, with a peak CPU power of 253W.

The Core i7 13700K MSRP is $449.99 with a one-year warranty.

Intel Core i7-13700K Desktop Processor

	Today	Yesterday	7 days ago	30 days ago
	$344.99	$344.99	$344.99	$364.99	Buy
* Prices last scanned on 4/17/2024 at 2:33 pm CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission.

Test System, and the 13700K

Test System

• Motherboard: Z790 AORUS Master BIOS F1
• GPU: GeForce RTX 3090Ti
• RAM: Corsair Dominator RGB DDR5 6000 CL30
• Cooler: 3x140mm Custom Water
• OS Storage: Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus Gaming 2TB
• Power Supply: AORUS GP AP1200PM
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11

Core i7 13700K

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Packaging for our 13700K was media packaging with the box above.

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Looking at the 13700K, we have model identification on the IHS.

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On the backside, 1700 pads ready for our LGA1700 socket in the AORUS Master.

Cinebench, Crossmark and AIDA64

Cinebench R23

Cinebench is a long-standing render benchmark that has been heavily relied upon by both Intel and AMD to showcase their newest platforms during unveils. The benchmark has two tests, a single-core workload that will utilize one thread or 1T. There is also a multi-threaded test that uses all threads or nT of a tested CPU.

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For the 13700K, we start with R23, as always. Performance rang up 1981 points in single thread, putting just under the 7700X.

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nT or multi-thread landed the 13700K just shy of 26K, scoring 25794, putting it just above the 13600K.

Crossmark

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CrossMark put the 13700K near the top, overall score at 2532, second to the 13900K.

AIDA64

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AES offered a score of 224404 for the 13700K.

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SHA3 landed the 13700K just in front of the 12900KS with a score of 6580.

WEBXPRT4 and UL Benchmarks

WebXPRT4, Procyon, and 3DMark

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Getting into more real-world workloads, we ran the 13700K through WebXPRT4 alongside some of its closest competitors. The 13700K pulled in a score of 326, second to the 13900K but miles ahead of any Zen 4 parts.

UL Procyon Suite

The UL Procyon Office Productivity Benchmark uses Microsoft Office apps to measure PC performance for office productivity work.

The Photo Editing benchmark uses Adobe® Lightroom® to import, process, and modify a selection of images. In the second part of the test, multiple edits and layer effects are applied to a photograph in Adobe® Photoshop®.

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Office Workload gave us a score of 9592 for the 13700K, just ahead of the 7700X.

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Photo scored 11109.

3DMark

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CPU Profile offered a single thread score of 1155 and 11114 for sixteen threads.

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Moving towards our gaming workloads, TimeSpy allowed a score of 21489, the highest we have hit with our 3090 Ti.

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Speed Way landed a score of 6246 for the 13700K, between the 12900 and 12700K.

Gaming and Power Consumption

Gaming Performance

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Starting things off with Far Cry, the 13700K is at the top with the 13900K. 198 FPS peak at 1080p, and 4K gave us 128 FPS.

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Cyberpunk offered up 204 FPS at 1080p and 107 FPS at 4K, the best of all Raptor Lake CPUs.

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Tomb Raider peaked at 259 FPS and 126 FPS at 4K.

Power Consumption

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Power numbers landed the 13700K at 240w, measured CPU only from the dual 8-pin connectors.

Value and Final Thoughts

Value

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Looking at Performance per Watt, the 13700K lands just shy of the 13600K at 97.2%

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Adding in the CPU cost, we have the 13700K near the top at 81%.

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Looking at gaming performance specifically, the 13700K is our third-best CPU at 98.5%.

Final Thoughts

Looking back at our results with the 13700K, I'm going to put more weight on CrossMark and Procyon, perhaps WebXPRT, alongside gaming, as they are all scripted workloads that use legit applications behind them.

This said, the 13700K does quite well. CrossMark put it above the 7700X by ~200 points, and the same can be said for Procyon Office and Photo workloads, both showing ~100 point lead on the 7700X. WEBXPRT4 offered 326 points, a substantial lead over the 303 points scored by the 7700X.

In gaming, the 13700K enjoyed a peak FPS of 198 in Far Cry 5 1080p, a hefty 30 FPS over the 7700X, and moving to Cyberpunk, the 13700K picked up 204 FPS at peak 1080p, 20 FPS more than the 7700X.

If we peek at the power draw, the 13700K used 240W measured at the dual 8-pin connectors, about 90 watts more than the 7700X. This pushes us into value, where the 13700K is hit-and-miss. For performance per watt, the 13700K lands second to the 13600K at 97.2% but adding in cost drops it to 81%.

Swapping our performance metric from productivity to gaming, the 13700K does jump back up to 98.5% third in our charts. The 13600K is still the best gaming CPU we have tested.