The 24-core Intel Core i9-13900KS Special Edition processor carries an eye-watering $699 price tag, but it has a feature that Intel feels warrants the price tag — this is the first consumer PC chip to run at 6 GHz without overclocking, extending Intel’s lead over AMD’s fastest Ryzen 7000 processors. However, with a whopping 250W base power specification, this 13th-Gen Raptor Lake chip is also now officially the most power-hungry desktop CPU in history — its voracious appetite even peaks at 320W in a new Extreme Power Delivery Profile.
Intel’s Raptor Lake processors have taken the lead in gaming, productivity, and value over AMD’s Zen 4 Ryzen 7000 processors, but the competition remains stiff. The relatively low-profile 13900KS launch comes as AMD preps three new Ryzen 7000X3D processors with its disruptive 3D V-Cache tech that delivers explosive gains in gaming performance.
The 3D V-Cache tech’s first iteration, AMD’s Ryzen 7 5800X3D, overtook Intel’s Alder Lake as the best CPU for gaming, but Intel later retook the crown with Raptor Lake. AMD’s Ryzen 7000X3D chips are poised to come to market in mere weeks, and the Core i9-13900KS is meant to keep Intel’s silicon entrenched at the top of the CPU benchmark charts when AMD’s new chips arrive.
| MSRP | Cores / Threads (P+E) | P-Core Base / Boost (GHz) | E-Core Base / Boost (GHz) | Cache (L2/L3) | TDP / PBP / MTP | Memory | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core i9-13900KS | $699 | 24 / 32 (8+16) | 3.0 / 6.0 | 2.2 / 4.3 | 68MB (32+36) | 150W / 253W / 320W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-5600 |
| Core i9-13900K / KF | $589 (K) – $564 (KF) | 24 / 32 (8+16) | 3.0 / 5.8 | 2.2 / 4.3 | 68MB (32+36) | 125W / 253W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-5600 |
That might be a tall order — the Ryzen 7000X3D chips look exceptionally promising due to their exotic performance-enhancing tech. In contrast, the 13900KS is built on the same architecture as the 13900K, just with a higher speed binning to accommodate 200 MHz faster clock rates. Otherwise, it uses the same fundamental design as its standard counterpart, but it comes with a hefty upcharge that destroys any hint of a value proposition for all but the extreme overclocking crowd.
Naturally, if you’re looking to buy a $699 chip, price considerations go out of the window — this is a pure speed play for those with deep pockets. For now, we don’t know if the Core i9-13900KS will keep Intel in the top spot when the Ryzen 7000X3D chips arrive next month, but it looks like it will be close. Here’s how the Core i9-13900KS stacks up against the current competition.
Intel Core i9-13900KS Specifications and Pricing
Intel Core i9-13900KS Specifications and Pricing
| MSRP | Cores / Threads (P+E) | P-Core Base / Boost (GHz) | E-Core Base / Boost (GHz) | Cache (L2/L3) | TDP / PBP / MTP | Memory | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core i9-13900KS | $699 | 24 / 32 (8+16) | 3.0 / 6.0 | 2.2 / 4.3 | 68MB (32+36) | 150W / 253W / 320W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-5600 |
| Core i9-13900K / KF | $589 (K) – $564 (KF) | 24 / 32 (8+16) | 3.0 / 5.8 | 2.2 / 4.3 | 68MB (32+36) | 125W / 253W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-5600 |
| Ryzen 9 7950X3D | ? | 16 / 32 | 4.2 / 5.7 | – | 144MB (16+128) | 120W / 162W | DDR5-5200 |
| Core i7-13700K / KF | $409 (K) – $384 (KF) | 16 / 24 (8+8) | 3.4 / 5.4 | 2.5 / 4.2 | 54MB (24+30) | 125W / 253W | DDR4-3200 / DDR5-5600 |
| Ryzen 9 7900X3D | ? | 12 / 24 | 4.4 / 5.6 | – | 140MB (12+132) | 120W / 162W | DDR5-5200 |
| Ryzen 7 7800X3D | ? | 8 /16 | 4.x / 5.0 | – | 104MB (8+96) | 120W / 162W | DDR5-5200 |
| Ryzen 7 5800X3D | $358 ($449) | 8 /16 | 3.4 / 4.5 | – | 104MB (8+96) | 105W | DDR4-3200 |
The 13900KS is the fastest Intel desktop PC chip, and even at stock settings, it drew up to 328W and ran at 100C to scrape out every last bit of performance. Because the 13900KS is a Special Edition, the company will only produce a limited (but unspecified) number of these processors — hence the $699 price tag. Despite the high pricing, Intel has actually lowered the ceiling for access to its most premium silicon: The previous-gen 12900KS debuted at $739, but Intel later increased the pricing of all its 12th-Gen chips, bringing it to $823 today.
Intel selects its premium-binned 13900K silicon for the 13900KS, so it is guaranteed to be among the very best silicon the company has to offer. That will make the chips very attractive to overclockers, as paying the extra $110 for the KS model improves your odds in the silicon lottery, essentially assuring you’re getting a cherry chip.
As with the Core i9-13900K (architecture details here), the KS model comes with eight hyperthreaded p-cores and 16 single-threaded e-cores, for a total of 24 cores and 32 threads. The KS model’s p-cores have a 3 GHz base clock and reach up to 6 GHz on two cores via Thermal Velocity Boost (TVB) tech. This allows the processor to shift into slightly higher frequencies if it remains under a certain temperature threshold (70C for desktop chips). Meanwhile, the standard Turbo Boost 3.0 clock rates reach 5.8 GHz. We found that the chip easily peaks at 6 GHz, though the impact on workloads can vary.
The e-cores kick in for background and multi-threaded tasks with a 2.2 GHz base and 4.3 GHz boost, identical to the 13900K. Most other features, like the supported DDR4-3200 and DDR5-5600 transfer rates, 32MB of L2, and 36MB of L3 cache, remain the same.
As before, the LGA 1700 chip is compatible with 600-series motherboards, but you’ll want one of the best-equipped Z-series boards to quench the 13900KS’ thirst for power. However, selecting the right motherboard is a bit more complicated for the 13900KS due to the new 320W “Extreme Power Profile.”
| 13900K / KS Performance Power Delivery Profile | PL1 (PBP) | PL2 (MTP) | ICCMax |
| 13900K and KS Default Profile | 253W | 253W | 307A |
| 13900K Extreme Power Profile | 253W | 253W | 400A |
| 13900KS Extreme Power Profile | 320W | 320W | 400A |
Intel’s power profiles have a few key variables. The PL1 power spec quantifies extended use at base clocks and is also known as the Processor Base Power (PBP). In contrast, PL2 power quantifies when the chip is under full load for short periods (boost) and is also known as the Maximum Turbo Power (MTP). ICCMax denotes the maximum current the chip can pull when under heavy load.
Intel also used to define a Tau variable that specified the duration of the boost/PL2 state before the chip dropped back into PL1. Intel has since stopped defining Tau for K-series models because it assigns PL1 and PL2 as the same value for Alder Lake and following gens in the reference BIOSes that it sends to OEMs — a first. This means the chip always operates in a boosted/PL2 state.
Intel’s new policy of sending reference BIOSes with PL1=PL2 settings basically invalidates even having a PL1 value, and the fact that it still exists on the spec sheet as a “Processor Base Power (PBP)” setting — the lower of the two power specs — is misleading.
Intel defined an Extreme Power Profile for its regular 13900K — the 253W PL1/PL2 values remain the same for both the standard and extreme profile, but the extreme profile’s ICCMax reaches 400A (up from 307A).
The KS model has the same default profile as the 13900K but also has its own new Extreme Power Profile that allows for a 320W PL1/PL2 and 400A ceiling. You’ll need to ensure that your motherboard can deliver the peak current if you want to unleash the full power of the KS, as not all motherboards can for a long period of time. Motherboard vendors allow assigning a higher ICCMax value in the BIOS, typically under settings like “Core/CPU Current Limit” (the name varies by mobo maker), but that doesn’t mean the motherboard can actually deliver that amount of current. Obviously, B- and H-series boards don’t make the cut.
Intel defines these recommended power profiles but allows motherboard vendors to ignore them completely, and exceeding the default values doesn’t void the warranty. Thus, by default, most motherboard makers completely ignore the limits and assign the maximum values for PL1, PL2, and ICCMax, resulting in higher performance and more heat.
Even at stock settings, the Core i9-13900KS hit up to 328W of power and 100C in our testing. We’ll see what power draw, performance, and thermals look like after the gaming and productivity benchmarks.
Gaming Performance on Intel Core i9-13900KS — The TLDR
- Intel Core i9-13900KS @ 6.0-5.7: Turbo multiplier: Two cores at 6 GHz, 5.7 GHz all-p-core, 4.4 GHz e-core, 1.29V vCore, DDR5-6800 XMP 3.0
- Intel Core i9-13900K @ 5.6: 5.6 GHz all-core p-core, 4.4 GHz e-core, 1.32V vCore, DDR5-6800 XMP 3.0
- AMD PBO Configs: Precision Boost Overdrive (Motherboard), Scalar 10X, DDR5-6000 EXPO
You can find the particulars of our overclock and test setup further below. Here we have the geometric mean of our gaming tests at 1080p and 1440p, with each resolution split into its own chart. We’re testing with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 to reduce GPU-imposed bottlenecks as much as possible, and differences between test subjects will shrink with lesser cards or higher resolutions and fidelity. You’ll find further game-by-game breakdowns below.
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The Core i9-13900KS is now the fastest gaming CPU in the world, but only by a hair. Using a geometric mean of our 1080p gaming results, the $699 Core i9-13900KS is a mere 1.5% faster than the standard $589 13900K. That’s imperceptible to most users and certainly not worth the extra ~20% you’ll pay at retail. Further, the performance delta shrinks to a mere 0.5% with 1440p gaming, so you absolutely should not buy the KS model for gaming only.
The Core i9-13900KS contends with the $699 Ryzen 9 7950X in the pricing department, but the standard Core i9-13900K model already holds a strong enough lead in gaming to make the extra $110 for the KS model a non-starter for most users.
Naturally, the pre-binned Core i9-13900KS will appeal to overclockers — your odds of scoring a cherry chip are increased dramatically. However, you’re still at the whims of the silicon lottery with both the KS and the K model, so you could get lucky with either chip.
In fact, our tests didn’t show a very big lead for the KS model over the K, and we could have likely dialed in a 5.9 GHz overclock on two of the K model’s cores and reduced the delta further. Not that there’s a big difference between the chips anyway — the overclocked KS model was only 1% faster than the K-series model after overclocking.
Overall, the KS model doesn’t make much of a difference to the positioning of the 13th-Gen processors against the Ryzen lineup, and it is a poor value. This chip will appeal to deep-pocketed individuals either intent on building the highest-end system imaginable or extreme overclockers chasing world records. The Core i7-13700K remains the chip to beat if you’re looking for a high-end gaming and productivity chip, as the 13900KS is only 2.5% faster yet costs a whopping $290 more.
The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is the fastest AMD gaming chip by far due to its 3D V-Cache, but its extra 96MB of L3 cache doesn’t accelerate all games, and you’ll also have to accept much lower performance in just about every other type of productivity application. If you’re looking for an exotic 3D V-Cache gaming chip, your best option is to wait until next month when AMD launches the new Zen 4-powered Ryzen 7000X3D models. These chips look like they’ll have a much more balanced performance profile and might beat the KS model in gaming, too.
The deltas in these charts can be slim, and large deltas in individual game titles, like with the 5800X3D, impact cumulative measurements. The competition between AMD and Intel chips can vary based on the title and the GPU you use. It’s best to make an informed decision based on the types of titles you frequently play, so be sure to check out the individual tests below.
The individual game benchmarks below are predictable — the KS reliably scores one to two percent higher than the standard K model across the board. As such, we won’t comment on the individual game results below.
| Tom’s Hardware | 1080p Game Benchmarks |
| $699 — Core i9-13900KS / OC | 100% / 105% |
| $589 — Core i9-13900K / OC | 99% / 104% |
| $409 — Core i7-13700K / OC | 97% / 102% |
| $365 — Ryzen 7 5800X3D | 95% |
| $474 — Ryzen 9 7900X | 88% |
| $699 — Ryzen 9 7950X / OC | 88% / 92% |
| $349 — Ryzen 7 7700X / OC | 88% / 94% |
Cyberpunk 2077 on Intel Core i9-13900KS
Far Cry 6 on Intel Core i9-13900KS
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F1 2021 on Intel Core i9-13900KS
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Hitman 3 on Intel Core i9-13900KS
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2021 on Intel Core i9-13900KS
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Microsoft Flight Simulator 2021 obviously benefits tremendously from L3 cache — the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a whopping 28% faster than the Core i9-13900K flagship on this test. This large advantage is amazing but doesn’t represent the 5800X3D’s performance in most titles. It also illustrates how outliers can make the 5800X3D seem more impressive in cumulative measurements.
In either case, this does bode well for the Zen 4 Ryzen 7000X3D models, which should bring all the goodness of the capacious L3 cache with fewer tradeoffs in standard applications.
Red Dead Redemption 2 on Intel Core i9-13900KS
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Warhammer 3 on Intel Core i9-13900KS
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Flipping over to the 1440p charts shows us that higher resolutions are often the great equalizer that levels the playing field for chips with similar accommodations.
Watch Dogs Legion on Intel Core i9-13900KS
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Productivity Benchmarks on Intel Core i9-13900KS — The TLDR:
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We can boil down productivity application performance into two broad categories: single- and multi-threaded. These slides show the geometric mean of performance in several of our most important tests in each category, but be sure to look at the expanded results below.
Overall the same general trends that we saw in our gaming benchmarks appear in our application testing — the Core i9-13900KS does nothing to change the competitive positioning against AMD’s Ryzen, and while the 13900KS is the fastest chip in the world in both single- and multi-threaded work after overclocking, its high price tag makes the slight gains simply not worth it.
The Ryzen 9 7950X clings to its lead in multi-threaded work over the Core i9-13900KS by a mere 0.5%, but that’s in the noise of the benchmarks. We should consider these two chips tied. Overclocking flips the advantage back in Intel’s favor, but this is close enough to call a tie. We also see slight gains over the Core i9-13900K in multi-threaded work, but this isn’t worth the increased pricing.
Flipping over to single-threaded work reveals that the 13900KS holds a clear win over all contenders — it is 14% faster than the Ryzen 9 7950X and 2% faster than the standard 13900K. Still, that’s a relatively slim delta over the standard 13900K.
You’ll have to accept severe performance tradeoffs if you opt for AMD’s fastest gaming chip, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D. The 5800X3D is significantly slower than the newer chips because it comes with the previous-gen Zen 3 architecture, and the extra dollop of L3 cache doesn’t impart any meaningful speedups in most standard desktop PC applications. If you’re looking for an X3D chip, wait for the 7000X3D chips that launch next month.
| Tom’s Hardware | Multi-Thread | Single-Thread |
| $699 — Core i9-13900KS / OC | 100% / 104% | 100% / 101% |
| $589 — Core i9-13900K / OC | 99% / 102% | 98% / 96% |
| $569 — Ryzen 9 7950X / OC | 100% / 103% | 88% / 89% |
| $409 — Core i7-13700K / OC | 79% / 83% | 91% / 94% |
| $474 — Ryzen 9 7900X | 80% | 87% |
| $349 — Ryzen 7 7700X / OC | 56% / 57% | 86% / 86% |
| $365 — Ryzen 7 5800X3D | 42% | 66% |
Rendering Benchmarks on Intel Core i9-13900KS
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Intel’s Raptor Lake rivals or beats AMD’s finest in multi-threaded productivity applications at every price point. These results, like many of the results throughout our other application tests below, mirror the established trends of the KS slightly extending the lead relative to the 13900K. As such, we’ll have limited commentary for the application benchmarks.
Encoding Benchmarks on Intel Core i9-13900KS
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Most encoders tend to be either heavily threaded or almost exclusively single-threaded — it takes an agile chip to master both disciplines.
Adobe, Web Browsing, Office and Productivity on Intel Core i9-13900KS
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The ubiquitous web browser is one of the most frequently used applications. These latency-sensitive tests tend to be lightly threaded, so a fast response time is critical.
Compilation, Compression, AI Chess Engines, AVX-512 Performance on Intel Core i9-13900KS
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This selection of tests runs the gamut from the exceedingly branchy code in the LLVM compilation workload to the massively parallel molecular dynamics simulation code in NAMD to encryption and compression/decompression performance. Y-cruncher computes Pi with the AVX instruction set, making for an exceedingly demanding benchmark.
Intel Core i9-13900KS Thermals, Power Consumption, and Boost Clocks
Intel’s Adaptive Boost Technology (ABT) dynamically boosts to higher all-core frequencies based on available thermal headroom and electrical conditions, so peak frequencies can vary. By design, this tech allows the chip to operate at 100C during normal operation — if the chip runs under the 100C threshold, it will increase its power consumption until it reaches the safe 100C limit, thus providing more performance. However, this feature is only active on the Core i9-13900K/F and the Core i9-13900KS, so other Raptor Lake processors won’t exhibit the same behavior.
You can think of ABT much like a dynamic auto-overclocking feature, but because the chip stays within Intel’s spec of a safe 100C temperature limit, it is a supported and warrantied feature that doesn’t fall into the same classification as overclocking. ABT uplift will vary by chip — much of the frequency uplift depends upon the quality of your chip. Hence, the silicon lottery comes into play, along with cooling and power delivery capabilities.
Remember, AMD’s Ryzen 7000 also runs at its limit of 95C at stock settings, so higher temperatures have become the norm for both chipmakers.
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To remove thermals as a limitation, we always use the same 280mm Corsair H115i AIO cooler for all our test systems. However, Intel says that it achieved the best results with the KS paired with a 360mm radiator, so we tested the impact by running the same tests with all power limits removed on a 280mm and a 360mm AIO. Our single-threaded test also shows that the 13900KS boosted to 6 GHz frequently, regardless of the cooler.
The chip reached 100C with both coolers during a series of heavily multi-threaded apps, like y-cruncher, Cinebench, Blender, and POV-Ray, just as Intel designed it to do. The 360mm cooler config ran the same 5.6 GHz all-core clock during heavy work as the 280mm setup, yet it also consumed around 20-25W more during some types of work.
That 360mm’s additional cooling capacity enables that extra bit of power consumption, but the ~7% to 9% increase occurs at the top of the chips’ voltage frequency curve where increased power consumption is incredibly inefficient: As you near peak power, double-digit percentage increases in power consumption often only yield single-percentage performance gains. That means this slightly higher power will not make much difference in actual benchmarks, which we’ll detail below.
We also overclocked the chip via turbo multipliers to 6 GHz on two p-cores and 5.7 GHz when more than two cores are active, while dialing in a 4.4 GHz all-core overclock on the e-cores. The chip only required a 1.29V vCore to sustain these frequencies, indicating it is a cherry chip. The overclocked config uses less power than stock settings, showing that the chips’ native power management is inefficient. As you’ll see below, the overclocked settings enabled much more performance than the stock settings that consumed more power.
The chip barely pushed over 300W with standard applications, but switching gears to the strenuous but not-at-all-realistic Prime95 stress test yielded a much higher peak power consumption of 328W. Power consumption leveled off after a short period, so it’s possible a custom watercooling loop could allow the chip to consume more for a longer period of time. But, again, this won’t result in very meaningful performance improvements in real-world workloads — this chip is tuned to the absolute top of its voltage/frequency curve.
| Tom’s Hardware – Prime95 | Peak Power | Average Power |
| 13900KS, No Power Limit, 360mm AIO | 328W | 295W |
| 13900KS, Overclocked, 360mm AIO | 321W | 296W |
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There isn’t a huge difference in cooling capacity between our 280mm and 360mm AIOs (we’d see a bigger difference with a 240mm vs 360mm comparison). As you can see in our cumulative performance measurements above, the improved cooling doesn’t result in a linear improvement in performance in our gaming or application benchmarks.
The improvement in real-world gaming and productivity applications with the 360mm cooler was around 1%. As such, we used the test results from our 280mm configuration for our gaming and productivity benchmarks.
Our overclock gave us an extra 5% in 1080p gaming and 4% in threaded work, but be aware that the increased memory throughput (we used DDR5-6800 for the overclocked config) is a big contributor here. Additionally, the overclocked vanilla 13900K trailed by only 1% in games and 2.5% in threaded apps. Further tuning, or more luck in the silicon lottery, could narrow that gap.
Temperatures can limit your performance during stock operation, so if you purchase the 13900KS, plan for a powerful cooler to extract the full performance. We think a 280mm AIO would be sufficient, but if you’re chasing the last 1% of performance, a 360mm AIO will get you there.
Power Consumption on Intel Core i9-13900KS
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These power measurements show that the Core i9-13900KS will rarely reach its 320W power limit with standard applications — there simply isn’t enough thermal headroom due to the difficulty of dissipating this amount of heat from such a small area (thermal density).
More exotic cooling, like custom water loops or sub-ambient, would likely allow the chip to pull more power within its 100C thermal envelope, albeit for little practical performance gain.
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Here we take a slightly different look at power consumption by calculating the cumulative energy required to perform x264 and x265 HandBrake workloads, respectively. We plot this ‘task energy’ value in Kilojoules on the left side of the chart.
These workloads are comprised of a fixed amount of work, so we can plot the task energy against the time required to finish the job (bottom axis), thus generating a really useful power chart.
Remember that faster compute times, and lower task energy requirements, are ideal. That means processors that fall the closest to the bottom left corner of the chart are the best.
The 13900KS sucks significantly more power than the 13900K in these tests, but that doesn’t deliver much of a performance gain — increasing power consumption when the chip is already near the top of the voltage/frequency curve is an incredibly inefficient way to gain very little extra performance.
Intel Core i9-13900KS Overclocking and Test Setup
- Intel Core i9-13900KS @ 6.0-5.7: Turbo multiplier: Two cores at 6 GHz, 5.7 GHz all-p-core, 4.4 GHz e-core, 1.29V vCore, DDR5-6800 XMP 3.0
- Intel Core i9-13900K @ 5.6: 5.6 GHz all-core p-core, 4.4 GHz e-core, 1.32V vCore, DDR5-6800 XMP 3.0
We used DDR5 memory with all chip testing in this article. Notably, if you opt for DDR4 with the Raptor Lake processors, you’ll lose a few percentage points of performance, on average (testing here). The overclocked Ryzen configs (marked as ‘PBO’ in the charts) use DDR5-6000 memory, Precision Boost Overdrive, and a Scalar 10X setting.
We overclocked the Core i9-13900KS via turbo multipliers to 6 GHz on two p-cores and 5.7 GHz when more than two cores are active, while dialing in a 4.4 GHz all-core overclock on the e-cores. The chip only required a 1.29V vCore to sustain these frequencies. You can see the heat output from our stress tests in the thermal section above.
We didn’t use Intel’s “Extreme Power Profile” for our stock Intel tests; instead, we’re sticking with our standard policy of allowing the motherboard to exceed the recommended power limits, provided the chip remains within warrantied operating conditions. This means our power settings exceed the ‘Extreme’ recommendations — almost all enthusiast-class motherboards ignore the power limits by default anyway. Hence, our completely removed power limits reflect the out-of-box experience. Naturally, these lifted power limits equate to more power consumption and, thus, more heat.
Microsoft recently advised gamers to disable several security features to boost gaming performance. As such, we disabled secure boot, virtualization support, and fTPM/PTT for maximum performance. You can find further hardware details in the table at the end of the article.
Paying the Price for 6GHz
The $699 Core i9-13900KS Special Edition is the fastest gaming chip in the world with its record-setting 6 GHz peak turbo clock. However, for all but extreme overclockers, collectors, and the well-heeled looking to build the ultimate system at any cost, the costly chip’s relatively small performance advantage over the vanilla 13900K isn’t worth the $110 upcharge.
Below, we have the geometric mean of our gaming test suite at 1080p and 1440p and a cumulative measure of performance in single- and multi-threaded applications. We conducted our gaming tests with an Nvidia RTX 4090, so performance deltas will shrink with lesser cards and higher resolution and fidelity settings.
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While the 13900KS is now the fastest gaming CPU money can buy, it only holds a slim 1.5% advantage over the standard 13900K in our 1080p gaming tests. That delta shrinks to a mere 0.5% when we flip over to 1440p gaming, meaning it is essentially in the noise of the benchmarks. That certainly isn’t worth paying ~20% more.
We see a similar trend in multi-threaded workloads — the KS model only offers a slight 1% improvement over the standard 13900K and essentially ties the Ryzen 9 7950X. We see a more noticeable improvement in single-threaded work against Ryzen, as the 13900KS is 14% faster than the Ryzen 9 7950X. However, the KS is only 2% faster than the standard 13900K, so the big $110 upcharge isn’t worth the slight performance lead.
The big appeal for the KS is that you’re guaranteed to get Intel’s best silicon, basically giving you the winning ticket for the silicon lottery. That will undoubtedly make the chip popular with extreme overclockers, especially those chasing world records. However, again, the overclocking advantage can vary, and we only saw a few percentage points of difference in our own head-to-head overclocking against the standard 13900K.
Overall, the KS model doesn’t make much of a difference to the positioning of the 13th-Gen processors against the Ryzen lineup, and it will only be sold in limited quantities. Intel now allows pairing its consumer chips with ECC memory on motherboards with the workstation-geared W680 chipset, so the Core i9-13900KS could make for a powerful workstation machine. However, it will still only deliver small gains over the 13900K.
The Core i9-13900KS just isn’t a practical buy for the majority of us, especially considering that it will need the priciest of accommodations, like the highest-end motherboard and PSU to pump 320W of power to the processor and a potent cooler to handle the 100C operating temperatures when the chip is under heavy load. All of which is a high price to pay for a few percentage points (at best) of extra performance.
If you want to invest in the fastest gaming chip, you should wait to see how AMD’s Ryzen 7000X3D chips perform when they launch next month. These chips come with 3D V-Cache tech that provided explosive gaming performance gains for Zen 3, and it’s possible that it could push Zen 4 into a solid lead in gaming over Raptor Lake. Pricing remains the wild card, but we expect the high-end Ryzen 9 7950X3D to land in the same range as the 13900KS.
In the meantime, the Core i9-13900KS represents Intel throwing value and power consumption out the window in an effort to retain the performance crown, particularly in gaming. However, the Core i9-12900KS might allow Intel to cling to the title of having the fastest gaming chip in the world, a nearly priceless distinction for the 13th-Gen Raptor Lake brand. Make no mistake: the Special Edition Core i9-12900KS is the fastest desktop PC chip ever built. At least for now. However, AMD’s Ryzen 7000X3D is fast approaching. Stay tuned.
| Intel Socket 1700 DDR5 (Z790) | Core i9-13900KS, i9-13900K, i7-13700K, i5-13600K |
| MSI MPG Z790 Carbon WiFi | |
| G.Skill Trident Z5 RGB DDR5-6800 – Stock: DDR5-5600 | OC: XMP DDR5-6800 | |
| AMD Socket AM5 (X670E) | Ryzen 9 7950X, Ryzen 9 7900X, Ryzen 7 7700X |
| ASRock X670E Taichi | |
| G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo DDR5-6000 – Stock: DDR5-5200 | OC/PBO: DDR5-6000 | |
| AMD Socket AM4 (X570) | Ryzen 9 5950X, 5900X, 5700X, 5600X, 5800X3D |
| MSI MEG X570 Godlike | |
| 2x 8GB Trident Z Royal DDR4-3600 – Stock: DDR4-3200 | OC/PBO: DDR4-3800 | |
| All Systems | Asus RTX 4090 ROG Strix OC |
| Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3090 Eagle – ProViz applications | |
| Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 Ti FE – Application tests | |
| 2TB Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus, Silverstone ST1100-TI, Open Benchtable, Arctic MX-4 TIM, Windows 11 Pro | |
| Cooling | Corsair H115i, Corsair H150i |
| Overclocking note | All configurations with overclocked memory also have tuned core frequencies and/or lifted power limits. |
