News Intel Core i9-13900KS Review: The World's First 6 GHz 320W CPU

[Kona45primo]

Intel is Rolling Coal now!

 

[PCWarrior]

67 watt for 200MHz higher boost clock is crazy and surely not innovative!
It would be better if Intel had the same speed as the last 13 cpu but with 67W less power.

No. You make the mistake of only comparing single-threaded turbo boosts. But the additional power is not for that. The additional power is for the all-core turbo boost which goes from 4.9GHz on the 13900K to 5.6Ghz for the 13900KS. That’s 700MHz, not just 200MHz. And, yes, due to thermal throttling in cases of insufficient cooling the all-core of the 13900KS may drop to 5.4GHz but so does the power consumption from 320W to 280-295W. Still even in the worst case it is 500MHz for an extra 30-40W.

 

[bolweval]

That power consumption @.@
Thank goodness no normal consumer needs a thing like that...

It only uses those high watts when you're bench-marking, how often does a normal person do that, an hour every couple of months?

 

[emike09]

Finally! Some Flight Simulator benchmarks. No game pushes the CPU light flight sim does. It'd be nice if Asobo included a built-in benchmarking tool instead of using dev options, but thanks TH for including Flight Sim in your benchmark results. Honestly, this is the only game my i9-10920X struggles with.

 

[pointa2b]

The problem with high-end gaming CPU is that there are no games for them. Most i5 are good enough nowadays to run anything.

Factorio benefits massively from single thread performance/cache/memory latency, the 5800X3D outperformed most/all newer CPUs in benchmarks with it. That along with the fact their expansion will probably release later this year, I'm going with one of the newer X3D's coming out... not sure which model yet. It'll be interesting to see how the 3 compare performance-wise.

 

[truerock]

Obviously all of the low-performance cores and the built-in graphics on this CPU are irrational. There is no reason for them to be on the chip. Intel is selling notebook CPUs for desktop PCs which is not particularly a logical thing to do.

For this market segment, I think a Xeon CPU with 16 high-performance cores that can bost to 5.6GHz would be more logical.

 

[thestryker]

The KS SKUs have always been premium priced best bins since the introduction and nothing is changing here.

If I wasn't so annoyed by the inefficiencies going on this generation in general I would consider one of these just the same. My current system is over 6.5 years on the same platform so for me spending the extra money doesn't really matter if I was already looking at 13900K. I'd be perfectly happy getting a guaranteed better binned chip I can tweak efficiency on. I'm certainly not suggesting the KS is a good value or most people should consider it, but that there are other reasons to pick one up.

Unfortunately, or fortunately for my wallet, both AMD and Intel have chosen to sell products which break their own efficiency curve in stock operation. While it's certainly possible to fix efficiency on them you are then paying for performance you're not getting and that fundamentally rubs me wrong. That leaves one with the only products that make sense being the i5-13600K and the single CCD AMD parts. Personally I'm looking for a bigger performance jump than that so as long as my setup works I'm content waiting.

 

[CelicaGT]

It's only a $110 premium over the K series. For a ~2% gain. Gen-to-Gen it's actually cheaper.

Not a value proposition to be sure but, in a high-end system where else are you going to spend $110 and get a much better return ?

DDR5 over DDR4 seems similar - A few percent for a few hundred $.
Premium SSD over Main Stream SSD - Same
3rd party GPU card over a reference GPU - Similar
AIO over Big Air - Close
Water cooling vs AIO - ?


I'm not sure why there is a lot of hate for this chip ?

There's hate because it is purely for marketing and most people see right through it. Most people (myself included) would like to see Intel bring something better to the table than "MOAR POWAH" for something like this. I mean, the 5800X3D was kinda the same thing in a way, but it brought something new and innovative at the same time so it was at least interesting (If grossly overpriced at the time). This thing only smells of Pentium 4 Extreme Emergency Edition and that abomination that was the 9000 series from AMD to me.

 

[hotaru251]

so basically Intel's going Nvidia route: forget keeping power as an issue and just pump it up for lil speed gain?

that won't last long as you reach points of not being able to cool it w/o some elaborate solution (which most ppl wont care to deal with)

 

[DavidLejdar]

Just because a CPU exists, that doesn't necessarily mean that it is always designed for gamers in particular. Also business exists, where some companies may be even having dual-CPU mainboards in a department to run their (multithreaded) company software on. And even 3 kWh per computer might not really be as much the issue as shortening the time it takes for a run of calculations.

But sure, for casual use or for merely some 2% more FPS, this CPU doesn't seem to be great value.

 

[Tom Sunday]

It's only a $110 premium over the K series. Not a value proposition to be sure but, in a high-end system where else are you going to spend $110 and get a much better return ? I'm not sure why there is a lot of hate for this chip ?

I concur that the KS comes with a relatively small performance advantage over the 13900K. But for people who generally would buy a 13900K a mere $110 is practically meaningless! As to AMD’s next move into the now touted 7000X3D chip…my opinion: “It’s not over until it’s over!” Not exactly that AMD has had a sterling 2022 having produced a Zen4 sales dilemma besides forcing the masses to buy a new MB along with DDR5. Thus despite immediate price cuts the Ryzen 7000 remained a failure. Quickly following just in time before year-end were the RX 7900 XT/XTX with their excessively high temperature issues and with refunds and exchanges running rampant! All good things come in three’s, so let’s see if AMD will get it right the third time around with the 7000X3D!

.

 

[Vanderlindemedia]

It sure took a while, but we got there:
2004 - first chip pushed past 6GHz using LN2, extreme overclocking world record.
2023 - 6 GHz from an off-the-shelf chip with an off-the-shelf cooler, not even subambient.

I dont think thats fair to say. That 6GHz turbo is adaptive and only on 2 cores? What matters more is the consistent (base) clock speed or simply put all core speeds. Id prefer buying a chip that has a solid speed instead of this base / turbo / max boost state.

They learned a trick to not to destroy those chips while consuming either high current (= lower clocks) or lower current (= higher clocks).

 

[derekullo]

I was promised a 10 gigahertz CPU by 2005 !

https://www.anandtech.com/show/680/6

WHERE'S MY 10 GIGAHERTZ CPU ?

 

[PEnns]

But in normal consumer use it would be more effcient than other chips. It will actually use less power.

Ha!! What is exactly "normal consumer use"?? You mean like playing Solitaire or reading the news??

Why do you think people buy this monster for?? Do enlighten us, please!!

 

[blppt]

I remember when I thought my 9590 was a blast furnace at 230W TDP.

At least this CPU puts up the real world performance numbers though, unlike that legendarily bad cpu.

 

[blppt]

The problem with high-end gaming CPU is that there are no games for them. Most i5 are good enough nowadays to run anything.

I can say without a shred of doubt that quite amusingly, its the older MMOs like Guild Wars 2 which still see noticeable gains every time we get a new monster CPU with great single core performance.

So if Intel releases an i5/i7 that can match this bad boy at 6ghz, then yeah, it would make the 13900KS somewhat useless for gaming. But short of overclocking it yourself, they don't.

 

[blppt]

Bulldozer deja vu but from team Blue.

Quite different. Bulldozer was a chip too far ahead of its time---poor single thread performance, great for highly threaded workloads. Which even today just about any game would still run better on an Ivy Bridge/Sandy Bridge i7 (its main competitors) than a 9590. At like half the power consumption.

In real life it (Bulldozer) was often significantly and noticeably slower in games. This chip (13900KS) eats a lot of power like the higher end Bulldozers, but it is also extremely fast in just about any situation.

 

[KyaraM]

Yes - and everything else up to the capabilty of the standard K chip.

My response is to the post that implied that such a chip is power wasteful especially if an "average person" were to use it. For those really concerned about power consumption it might be a very appropriate purchase based on the "Task effcientcy".

Is it cost effcient ? Probably not.

My Take -

Does your build plan already include a mid-to-high end Z board, generously sized power supply and a AIO CPU cooler? If yes, Then the KS may be for you.

If you buy this CPU for anything else than actual high-end tasks, you are doing something fundamentally wrong, sorry. Speaking solely of Intel here. If all you do is browsing the web, you want a low-end CPU like an i3 or lower, not this thing. If you game, you want an i5 or i7, not this thing. The only use case for this CPU is high-end computing. And there, AMD is significantly more power efficient for similar results. In almost all scenarios, for that, not just Prime 95 or power viruses. Don't believe me, go back and take a real close look at the charts again.

No, just because you have a "mid-to-high end Z board, generously sized power supply and a AIO CPU cooler" in your build already, it does not mean this CPU "might be for you". As it is, the only reason for you to buy this CPU is if for whatever reason you want an Intel-CPU. Or maybe if you do a lot of high-end stuff that require single-core performance that isn't gaming. And before you call me an AMD-fanboy or some bs like that... 2/3 of my systems are Intel and the only one that isn't is a laptop. It's just, there is sensible, and then there is bonkers. This thing is bonkers.

It only uses those high watts when you're bench-marking, how often does a normal person do that, an hour every couple of months?

If you aren't doing stuff that needs this performance why the heck do you buy a 12900K/KS or similar CPUs in the first place?!?
If you do, AMD provides better performance/watt.

 

[Geef]

Your forgetting who (besides mega video editors) this is aimed at.

Rich dudes who want to show off their PC to their (imaginary) friends!

 

[TerryLaze]

A lot of the articles show the performance of the 13900k with a max 330W power draw while only having a 253W max allowed by intel, which means you are losing your warranty.
The 13900ks has 320W under warranty.

So what the extra money gets you is the "real" performance of the 13900k (plus a couple hundred Mhz) but still under warranty. Might be the same amount of no-care for most people but a lot of people also do care about warranty and piece of mind.

Spoiler

https://www.anandtech.com/show/17641/lighter-touch-cpu-power-scaling-13900k-7950x/3

 

[TheOtherOne]

That power consumption @.@
Thank goodness no normal consumer needs a thing like that...

 

[atomicWAR]

Pentium 4²

 

[KyaraM]

Are you just going to call me a sheep, or making actual arguments to why I'm wrong here, especially also taking into account my second post? I'm really looking forward to your opinion.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

If you buy this CPU for anything else than actual high-end tasks, you are doing something fundamentally wrong, sorry. Speaking solely of Intel here. If all you do is browsing the web, you want a low-end CPU like an i3 or lower, not this thing. If you game, you want an i5 or i7, not this thing. The only use case for this CPU is high-end computing. And there, AMD is significantly more power efficient for similar results. In almost all scenarios, for that, not just Prime 95 or power viruses. Don't believe me, go back and take a real close look at the charts again.

No, just because you have a "mid-to-high end Z board, generously sized power supply and a AIO CPU cooler" in your build already, it does not mean this CPU "might be for you". As it is, the only reason for you to buy this CPU is if for whatever reason you want an Intel-CPU. Or maybe if you do a lot of high-end stuff that require single-core performance that isn't gaming. And before you call me an AMD-fanboy or some bs like that... 2/3 of my systems are Intel and the only one that isn't is a laptop. It's just, there is sensible, and then there is bonkers. This thing is bonkers.


If you aren't doing stuff that needs this performance why the heck do you buy a 12900K/KS or similar CPUs in the first place?!?
If you do, AMD provides better performance/watt.

Well said!

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

so let’s see if AMD will get it right the third time around with the 7000X3D!

Eh, I'm not quite following you here? Third time around? The 5800x3d is the first iteration. The 7xx0x 3d etc is the second time around, and IMO the first round was a win!

Care to elaborate?