Hardware detective Komachi_Ensaka has dug up what appears to be the first benchmark for Intel's Raptor Lake processors. Although Alder Lake just came out recently, Intel is already preparing the way for its successor.
BAPCo's Crossmark software labeled the 13th-Gen Raptor Lake chip as a "Genuine Intel 0000" processor, so its exact model is unknown for the moment. Therefore, we should take the specifications with a pinch of salt since it's normal for software to misreport unreleased hardware.
According to the report, the Raptor Lake processor reportedly wields 24 cores. For reference, the Core i9-12900K comes with eight Golden Cove cores and eight Gracemont cores, for a total of 16 cores. It's very plausible that the core count is from a reporting error on the software's part, or Intel has upped Raptor Lake's core count. There have been rumors that Intel might add more Gracement cores to Raptor Lake, meaning the mysterious Raptor Lake processor could potentially sport an 8P+16E design.
The person or company that tested the Raptor Lake processor has erased the submission from Crossmark's database, which isn't too surprising. In fact, Intel has had a history of having close ties with Business Applications Performance Corporation (BAPCo), the company that created the Crossmark benchmark. We don't use this benchmark in our own testing. Do take that into consideration when looking at the AMD test results.
Given the time frame, it's also important to highlight that the Raptor Lake processor is an early engineering sample. This means that clock speeds aren't finalized, and software likely isn't optimized for it, similar to what we saw with Alder Lake.
Since BapCo's software isn't part of our benchmarking suite, we'll turn to HotHardware's results for comparison. The publication paired the Core i9-12900K with DDR5-4800 memory, which is the same data rate used in the Crossmark submission. Therefore, the results should be comparable.
Intel Raptor Lake CPU Benchmarks
| Processor | Overall | Productivity | Creativity | Responsiveness |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core i9-12900K | 2,376 | 2,255 | 2,486 | 2,430 |
| Ryzen 9 5950X | 1,694 | 1,672 | 1,746 | 1,609 |
| Raptor Lake | 1,591 | 1,451 | 1,804 | 1,442 |
Overall, the Core i9-12900K delivered up to 49.3% higher performance than the Raptor Lake processor. Even the Ryzen 9 5950X outperformed the Raptor Lake part by 6.5%, which is a bit embarrassing. We'll have to wait for more leaked benchmarks to see if AMD can hold up to Raptor Lake, though, as the early nature of the Raptor Lake silicon obviously plays a part here.
Raptor Lake is expected to land in 2022 on the same LGA1700 socket as Alder Lake. A recent Intel patent about the Digital Linear Voltage Regulator (D-LVR) suggests that Raptor Lake could boast a 25% lower power consumption. Rumors, on the other hand, claim that the 13th-Gen processors will allegedly arrive with an improved hybrid design for better performance and CPU cache for gaming.