After 12th gen Alder Lake processors, Intel 13th gen Raptor Lake CPUs are up next on the line. Currently, various rumors, speculations, leaks, and reveals about the upcoming Raptor Lake CPUs are spreading across the internet. Intel itself has also teased some advanced technologies that the 13th gen Core series CPUs will pack.
This article will take a deep dive into the upcoming Intel 13th gen Raptor Lake CPU lineup for desktop and laptop, their architecture, specifications, price, and release date.
Details regarding new Intel 13th gen Raptor Lake CPU lineup
The leaked SKUs and their specifications
Recently, a list containing the supposed upcoming Intel 13th gen Raptor Lake CPU lineup got leaked online. The listing makes it clear that Intel will depend on their energy-efficient 'E-cores' for overall performance upgrades in their upcoming CPUs. According to Chinese leaker Extreme Player, Intel will primarily launch 14 SKUs, ranging from 4 to 24 cores.
According to the list, Raptor Lake's TDP and base clocks are similar to their Alder Lake counterparts. The boost clock might be a little bit higher as rumors of Raptor Lake CPUs reaching the 5.6GHz boost clock have been in the public domain for quite a while now.
Architecture
Intel Raptor Lake CPUs will be based on the same Intel 7 process node as the 12th gen Alder Lake processors. The current LGA 1700 socket motherboards and CPU coolers are also going to be compatible with the 13th gen Intel CPUs. 13th gen CPUs' performance-based 'P- cores' will be based on architecture called Raptor Cove.
Currently, no technical details are available on how it is different from Alder Lake's Golden Cove architecture. The energy-efficient 'E-cores' will be based on the same Atom-derived Gracemont architecture as Alder Lake CPUs. The performance cores will take care of the CPU intensive tasks, while the energy-efficient cores will handle light demands.
According to the leak, the top-end i9 13900K and 13900KF models will have eight performance cores and 16 energy efficient cores with 3GHz base clock. The lowest-end i3 13100 will have only four performance cores with a base clock of 3.4GHz.
LGA 1700 platform upgrades
It's already known that Raptor Lakes will support the same LGA 1700 socket as the Alder Lake CPUs. But there will be some changes as the upcoming 700-series chipset motherboards will offer Z790, H770, and B760 motherboards. The 700-series chipset motherboards will also come with backwards compatibility for Alder Lake CPUs.
This new series of motherboards will support PCIe 5.0 M.2 SSDs, AI M.2 module, up to 20 PCH PCIe 4.0, and eight PCIe 3.0 slots. These motherboards will include enhanced CPU overclocking features, including per-core and Efficient Thermal Velocity Boost.
Expected release date
As per current speculation, Intel 13th gen Raptor Lake CPU lineup will launch in October of this year. AMD will also launch its 7000 series Ryzen CPUs to rival Raptor Lake. The former is also making quite a few noticeable upgrades to Ryzen 5000 series processors.