Intel® Core™ i5-13600K Desktop Processor 14 cores (6 P-cores + 8 E-cores) 24M Cache, up to 5.1 GHz

Product Information

The fundamental hybrid architecture found in the Core i5 13600K is a continuation of the one introduced with Alder Lake and the 12th Gen, but with Raptor Lake there have been a few key improvements. I go into those in greater detail in our Core i9 13900K review, but this is the headline upgrade: more cores. Despite the reduced pricing, the Ryzen chips face other challenges that come in the form of high memory and motherboard pricing. We dove in deep on those issues here. Processors that support 64-bit computing on Intel® architecture require an Intel 64 architecture-enabled BIOS. It’s also notable that the Core i5-13600K has 24MB of L3 cache, 4MB more than the Core i5-12600K. That’s in addition to 20MB of L2 cache, which is slightly more than double the 9.5MB of L2 cache found on the Core i5-12600K.

Intel Core i5-13600K vs i9-13900K UserBenchmark: Intel Core i5-13600K vs i9-13900K

Max Turbo Frequency refers to the maximum single-core processor frequency that can be achieved with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology. See www.intel.com/technology/turboboost/ for more information and applicability of this technology. None of the chips in our AMD Ryzen 5 7600X vs Intel Core i5-13600K vs Ryzen 7 7700X faceoff come with a bundled cooler, but Raptor Lake's higher power consumption means you'll need a beefier cooler than you will for Ryzen. Pricing: Intel Core i5-13600K vs AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and Ryzen 5 7600XFinally, the pricing advantage of DDR4 is simply too much to ignore, especially with lower-tier systems in this price range. While the premium for DDR5 has receded, you’ll still pay up to twice as much for a DDR5 kit as for DDR4, and AMD doesn't support the latter. For Raptor Lake, the slim performance advantage of DDR5 certainly doesn’t justify the extra price for DDR4, at least not for most users. Additionally, perhaps the best memory kit is the one you don’t have to buy — many upgraders likely already have a DDR4 kit, which is a plus. The MSI MAG Z690 Tomahawk Wi-Fi uses a 16+1+1 configuration, with each 1 stage being for the GPU, the propagation of AUX, and the 16 phases for the CPU. Similar to the ASUS AORUX Z790 ELITE AX, the MSI MAG Z690 Tomahawk also has a 6-layer PCB with 2 ounces of copper, which is enough to put together a high-quality circuit board. Intel's relative price increase with the Core i5-13600K is unwelcome. But we’ve run our tests and cannot deny that the Core i5-13600K still offers exceptional performance for what you pay. Sure, it isn't as fast as the Core i9-13900K or the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X in CPU tests (those flagships have a big core-count advantage), but in games with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080—or anything weaker. really—it is more than a match for these two higher-end CPUs. Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics only: to use the Intel® Iris® Xe brand, the system must be populated with 128-bit (dual channel) memory. Otherwise, use the Intel® UHD brand. But I'd go one further than that. The inclusion of four more E-cores turns this processor into a 14-core chip with the multithreaded performance to deliver in high-demand applications, and that makes it a great fit for streaming, content creation, editing, and more. The Core i5 13600K is much more of an all-round powerhouse than I had expected it to be.

Intel Core i5-13600K 2023 - Windows Central Best motherboard for Intel Core i5-13600K 2023 - Windows Central

Overall, the Core i5 shows excellent power consumption readings during our tests. It peaks at 471W during our Adobe Premiere test, which is the lowest of any of the CPUs we tested for comparison. Intel's Core i5 pulls slightly more power in the Cinebench test than the competing Ryzen 7 7700X, but it also performs slightly better in that test, which makes this a rather mixed result. The 7000 series marks the arrival of an integrated GPU for all of the mainstream Ryzen processors, a first. AMD designed the RDNA 2 iGPU to provide basic display output capabilities, so you shouldn’t expect it to support any meaningful gaming. The RDNA 2 iGPU has two compute units, 4 ACE and 1 HWS. This is an important step forward for AMD's chips, as it helps in the OEM market and allows you to power a display or troubleshoot if you have an issue with your discrete GPU. In three out of six games I've tested, the Core i5 13600K matches the pace of the Core i9 12900K. In one of those three, it actually outperforms the Core i9 chip. That's Civ 6, which admittedly has become a bit of a cakewalk for the latest generation of processors from Intel and AMD. But it's no less an excellent showing for the far cheaper CPU. Both Ryzen 7000 and Raptor Lake's modern connectivity technologies bring big increases in throughput via DDR5 memory and PCIe 5.0 interfaces, but Intel also chose to continue to support DDR4 memory to offer a less-expensive path for builders. Meanwhile, AMD's decision to support only DDR5 has proven to be a pricing pain point. If you're planning to buy a CPU, the best thing to do is to look for more than one review (at least 3) and build up a geomean in your mind, observing the relativity.

Key Features

The big concern we have here: The climbing price of Core i5 processors will also likely mean budget-friendly options released further down the road will also cost more. This is a trend we have seen far too much of in recent years, and Intel certainly isn’t alone here, but that doesn’t counter our disappointment at this generational price increase.

Intel Core i513600KF Processor 24M Cache up to 5.10 GHz Intel Core i513600KF Processor 24M Cache up to 5.10 GHz

I think 3DCenter does the community a great service with these comparisons, and I encourage folks to reference them as a general indicator of what to expect. You can also use them to benchmark our benchmarks, as it were.

This one seems more fair then articles like this in the past. Intel benefits on the lower end because of the E-cores. I am glad that there is a new thread here to post in. Maybe you heard about my complaints in another thread, one of which was that I could not not have any input as to what was wrong. Here is what I wrote, and for the article I cited I think it was pretty damning. As I said, this one appears more fair. See http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/hyper-threading/hyper-threading-technology.html?wapkw=hyper+threading for more information including details on which processors support Intel® HT Technology. The Ryzen processors offer nearly the same performance as the 13600K in single-threaded applications, but the 13600K takes an 8.5% lead over the Ryzen 7 7700X and an 18.7% lead over the Ryzen 5 7600X in threaded applications, granting it the win in productivity apps. All in all, the Core i5-14600K did exactly as we expected in testing, matching the Core i5-13600K in almost every way. However, the difference is so slim as to leave us questioning why we would recommend it over the previous generation. We can’t really see any advantage to owning the Core i5-14600K over the Core i5-13600K, and we actually can see some disadvantages to it.