Intel Unveils Mobile & Budget Raptor Lake CPUs at CES 2023

Intel has just showcased its upcoming major products at CES 2023. The long-awaited Raptor Lake budget, non-K CPUs is now here. That’s not all as team blue has also announced the 13th Gen mobile lineup. Let’s go over everything announced one by one.

Non-K Raptor Lake CPUs

The Raptor Lake budget CPUs are based on an Alder Lake (12th generation) die having a TDP of just 65W. What separates these CPUs from the last generation, is the massively increased core/thread counts. Thanks to double the efficiency cores in most SKUs, Intel now offers more cores/threads than AMD. As ironic as that may seem, one should note that efficient cores are not exactly on par with performance cores, at least in well, performance.

In any case, we have multiple budget options from Intel across all of their families.

• Intel announces the 13th Gen Intel Core mobile processor family, led by the launch of the new flagship Intel Core i9-13980HX, the first 24-core processor for a laptop and the world’s fastest mobile processor.
• Intel introduces the 13th Gen Intel Core H-, P- and U-series mobile processors to power the latest enthusiast, thin-and-light laptop designs and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
• Intel shares new Intel Evo laptop specifications that feature longer real-world battery life and a new multi-device experience, Intel Unison.
• Intel launches the new Intel Processor N-series for entry-level education and mainstream laptops, desktops, and edge native applications.

The i9 Family

Starting off with the i9 series, Intel only has three CPUs in this segment namely the i9-13900/F and the i9-13900T. The core/thread count is similar to their K counterpart, standing at 24 cores / 32 threads. The only difference lies in their TDPs, with the 13900/13900F having a TDP of 65W and the 13900T boasting a small TDP of just 35W.

The i7 Family

The i7 family comprises of the i7-13700/F and the i7-13700T. Again, not much has changed in contrast to their K variants apart from the TDPs which are 65W for the F/Non-F variants and 35W for the T variant.

The i5 Family

Now comes the interesting part and the CPUs which you all must have been really excited about. The i5 lineup for Intel’s Raptor Lake is undoubtedly the most competitive, at least when compared to what Zen4 offers. Intel has a wide variety of CPUs in this category to offer something for everyone in the budget market. The most notable is the i5-13400, which is packed with 10 cores / 16 threads. That is seriously insane, considering that only a few generations ago, an 8-core CPU was the flagship.

The i3 Family

Last, but not least, we have Intel’s low-end i3 Raptor Lake CPUs. While these CPUs will not break Cinebench R23 records anytime soon, they offer a bang for the buck product. Indeed, an i3 is not everyone’s forte but what if I tell you that the i3-13100 is the fastest quad-core CPU in the world? That’s half the story because, well, AMD does not offer 4-core CPUs anymore. But then again, 4-cores are ‘kind of’ sufficient for most titles, so far.

Performance (Non-K)

When it comes to productivity, Raptor Lake is one of the largest generational leaps we have seen. When put up against Alder Lake, these CPUs are 11% faster in mainstream applications.

The i9-13900 is almost 16% faster than the i9-12900 in Spider-Man Remastered which is a respectable uplift in FPS. League of Legends also runs 19% faster if you opt for Raptor Lake.

Mobile Raptor Lake

Intel always has something in store for the mobile segment of the market. This time, Intel has unveiled the Raptor Lake Mobile CPUs. We have the RL-P, RL-H/HX, RL-U, and the N CPUs (RL = Raptor Lake, P/H/HX/U = Intel’s confusing naming convention). 

HX-Series

Starting off with the HX lineup, Intel has officially unveiled the fastest laptop CPU to date. Boasting a massive 24-core count, Intel has stepped up its game significantly, even in the laptop segment. Laptops paired with these CPUs can see memory as high as DDR5-5600 and DDR4-3200 and up to 128GB of RAM. 

These CPUs are packed with 24 cores / 32 threads, akin to the i9-13900K. Providing the best performance in all sectors, the HX processors range from 10 cores – 24 cores with frequencies as high as 5.6GHz.  

The i9-13980HX does indeed exist and features a similar core count to the i9-13900K (Desktop). This CPU has a max frequency of 5.6GHz with the base frequency standing at 2.2GHz. Thankfully, this laptop has a max turbo power of 157W, equal to all other CPUs from this series. In fact, even the i7 family features one such CPU, though that SKU has a higher core/thread count than the rest. 

H, P, and U-Series

Below is the official block diagram of the Intel 13th Gen Mobile Platforms, including the H, P, and U-series. The aforementioned CPU lineups offer up to 14 cores (6P + 6E). In addition, we see support for DDR5-5200, DDR4-3200, LPDDR5/x-6400, and LPDDR4x-4267 memory. 

The HX lineup may provide immense levels of performance, but they are only suitable for high-end laptops given their power consumption. For most consumers, Intel has the H-series of mobile processors. The i9-13900HK is currently the only unlockable processor from this lineup. All CPUs have a base power consumption of just 45W, however, the max turbo power increases if you opt for the i5/i7 family. 

After that, the Intel P-series targets consumers looking for adequate performance without consuming much power. The highest-end offering, the i7-1370P houses 14 cores / 20 threads and consumes as little as 28W of power which is pretty efficient.

Next up is the U-series which as the name suggests is designed for power-efficient laptops. These CPUs feature just 2 performance cores, whereas the rest of the core count is made up of efficient cores. Having a base TDP of just 15W, expect a much longer battery life. 

N-Series

The successor to Intel’s Celeron/Pentium CPUs are the upcoming N-series processors. Actually, the CPUs mentioned below are not a part of Intel’s 13th gen, in fact, they are not even Intel Core CPUs. Based entirely on efficient cores, the N-series aims to consume as low as 6W of power. 

The N-series features Intel’s signature efficient cores which were introduced with Alder Lake. What’s interesting is that these CPUs can support AV1 decode, which only helps it gain popularity. In terms of memory, we see support for LPDDR5, DDR4, and even DDR5. 

Performance (13th Gen Mobile)

The performance numbers for Raptor Lake Mobile speak for themselves. Against the i9-12900HX, the i9-13950HX is an 11% upgrade. Moving over to multi-core performance, the difference increases to almost 50%.

Blender shows a huge uplift of almost 80% over Alder Lake, considering the i9-12900HK as the reference. 

The same story repeats in AUTODESK AutoCAD, Revit, and Inventor, where the i9-13950HX beats the i9-12900HX by up to 24%. 

For content creators, expect to see performance increase by 15% in After Effects as highlighted by Intel. Again, the extra efficient cores play a major role in these drastic performance increases.

Raptor Lake Mobile Lineup

Conclusion

That was a lot of information, to cover and to read. In any case, Intel went all out this CES and we are still yet to see the i9-13900KS and a possible Battlemage tease. The Raptor Lake Non-K series is a great option for anyone having a 600 series board. The pricing is competitive and AMD will have a tough time stealing Intel’s market share. 

For laptops, these CPUs combined with NVIDIA’s RTX 40 Mobile reveal will be the next-gen upgrade you were looking for. The only problem is the high power consumption. The RTX 4090’s 150W paired with the i9-13980HX’s 157W power consumption is something your battery will probably not enjoy. Then again, those laptops are not targeted at mainstream consumers. All things considered, we cannot wait to see how AMD will respond in a few hours with its Ryzen 7000 Mobile lineup, especially the Phoenix Point APUs.