What just happened? Intel has presented a demonstration of the Raptor Lake processor, which, as it confirmed in September, can run at 6 GHz right out of the box. The company said that it still cannot reveal the official name of the processor, although we are almost sure that it will be Core i9-13900KS.
In a conversation with technical evangelist Alejandro Hoyos, the head of Intel’s technical game marketing department, Jason Xie, demonstrated a chip that can reach speeds of 6 GHz without the need for overclocking. He demonstrated his credentials using a standard off-the-shelf Corsair universal cooler and an Intel RVP (reference verification platform) motherboard.
Xie used a 7-Zip test running in the background along with Intel XTU (Extreme Tuning Utility) and HWiNFO to show that no tricks were used to reach the 6 GHz frequency. The chip manages to achieve such a clock frequency on several threads, but it cannot support it. When Hoyos asks why this might be the case, Xie says that maintaining the 6 GHz frequency depends on the environment with such influencing factors as power budget, thermal characteristics, software and Windows not allocating the necessary cores.
Ce also proved that the CPU provides the same performance when connected to commercially available consumer motherboards — in this case, the ASUS Z790 motherboard — with the same Corsair cooler.
Intel Core i9-13900KS briefly appeared in a video showing Intel Core i9-13900K overclocking to a record 9 GHz; the former is a limited-speed version of the latter. The KS model is shown with a maximum TDP of 150 Watts, although this is just the base power of the processor (PL1), so the maximum power in Turbo mode (MTP/PL2) will be much higher. For comparison, the Core i9-13900K has a base TDP of 125 watts and a maximum TDP of 253 watts.
The price and release date of Intel Core i9-13900KS remain unknown, although there are rumors that the processor should go on sale from day to day. As for how much it will cost, the standard Model K costs $589, so an optimist can say $600, but a realist can point closer to $700.
