Question 13600k vs 13700k

eNtro

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Jul 13, 2014
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Hi,

I am building a computer and am debating whether to take the 13600k or 13700k.
As an Intel employee, the 13600K will cost me $200 and the 13700k will cost me $270.
It is important to me that the computer will serve me for a very long time, as evidence I now have an i5-4690k and according to what I saw in a search, if I had a fourth generation i7 instead, games would run much better for me today.
The graphics card in the build is a 2080ti, but as I said, I want it to serve me for a long time, so a graphics card upgrade will be on the table in a few more years, of course with the processor's enabling dependencies.

For these reasons I lean towards the 13700k, what bothers me is its high power consumption and heat compared to the 13600.

Another consideration is that I already have a 750w power supply, so if that's enough then I don't need to buy a new one.

What do you think?
 
Last edited:
Jan 7, 2023
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Both are good, 13600K is 14 cores, 20 threads, L3 cache 24mB, Passmark Score: 4216 & 38392 multi thread. 13700K is 16 cores, 24 threads, L3 cache: 30 MB. Passmark Score: 4,428 & 46,613. I think personally it depends on your requirements. I would have gone for 13700K.

Power consumption: 13700K upto 253W and 13600K 181W difference of 70W.

With a normal PC: MBD: 100W, SSD+RAM+HDD: 100W, GPU : 200W = 400W + CPU 253W = 653W is sufficient so you should take 750W is enough.
 
It depends on what you are going to do. If you do something like compile code the 13700k will run must better and of course use more power and produce more heat.
If you are playing games the cpu load will be fairly low since your video card is the limit. Even if you have a very fast video card you are in almost all cases GPU limited because only a tiny number of people run extremely expensive CPU and GPU at 1080p. Most are running at 2k or 4k and the cpu is not fully being utilized.
If the difference in cost between the 2 cpu was higher you might consider putting the money into a better video card but a better video card than a 2080ti is many hundreds of dollars.

Your current power supply is fine for now. If you upgrade the video card then you need to look at it.

It all comes down to how hard you push the cpu. This is why many people use air coolers on 13700k since their normal day to day work load does not actually use the massive amounts of power and heat
 
As a general principle, I have found that when presented with two choices, one at lower cost and one that is better that costs more, I opt for the better unit.
If you do not, you will forever be second guessing yourself, wondering if you did the right thing.

I would not worry about the heat that the 3700K can potentially generate unless you run multithreaded batch apps that can fully load all threads.
Normal use will make use of the turbo mechanism which boosts a few cores to high multipliers.
It will be a major upgrade over your 4690k

In a good case, a top air cooler will do the job.

The power you need is mostly gated by the graphics card.
750w is fine for a 2080.

But, if you later upgrade to a 3000 or 4000 series card, you will want a new psu.
Newer 3000 and 4000 series cards can have temporary power spikes that can double the power needed for a very short instant. Not all powersupplies can handle that. You may be looking at a 1000w unit.
 
As @geofelt succinctly put, you'll second guess yourself if you don't buy the top chip. Given you get them at a discount it's even more of an incentive to do so.

Personally I always go for the i7 or i9, performance years later has vindicated that decision. What I would suggest though is you get a 360mm AIO and a Z790 motherboard, I would look into undervolting the P cores to bring the power and temps down if your comfortable doing so.

If not you can always just set a power limit in the bios that will keep the temps at a reasonable level.