The Intel Core i5-13500 processor will be quite capable if the newly revealed benchmarks prove worthwhile.
As Tom’s gear (opens in a new tab) received is from a Chinese video sharing site Bilibili (opens in a new tab) where an engineering sample of the mid-range Raptor Lake processor was put to the test in Cinebench R23 and CPU-Z.
The Core i5-13500 was no less than 56% faster than its predecessor, the Core i5-12500, in the Cinebench R23 multi-core test (compared to the 12500 sample Tom’s marked on Technical note (opens in a new tab)).
And the 13500 managed to achieve an even greater advantage in CPU-Z, being 61% faster than the Alder Lake chip it replaces.
The single-threaded race is much tighter in Cinebench R23, but the Core i5-13500 is still 9% faster in Cinebench R23 (the result for CPU-Z is not quite visible in the video, it is rather fuzzy, but it will similarly be much closer to 12500 than in multithreaded case, of course).
Analysis: Intel’s Efficient Future?
The reason why the Core i5-13500 offers a much bigger boost in multi-threading is because Intel has seriously increased the number of performance cores. The alleged configuration of the 13500 is 6 performance cores and 8 performance cores, where the 12500 offers the same set of 6 performance cores, but most importantly, it has no performance cores.
Also keep in mind that this is still a sample chip being tested in benchmarks, so the finished product should be a bit faster still. By the way, the boost speeds achieved by the 13500 in the benchmarks revealed are 4.8GHz and 4.9GHz, although these are likely to be release speeds or very close to it given that they are a hefty boost over the 4.6GHz from 12500.
So what we’re witnessing is a big generational leap, and very impressive in terms of multi-threaded performance in an affordable CPU, driven by Intel’s focus on high-performance cores from Raptor Lake, which can be seen in the 13th range. (Note that the flagship Raptor Lake processor has doubled the core performance to 16, up from 8 cores in its predecessor.)
In the future, can we expect Intel to continue focusing on performance cores in this way? The answer seems to be yes, at least according to the rumors that have been circulating this year about Team Blue’s next-gen chips.
Meteor Lake (14th gen) is looking to move forward with energy efficiency as Intel is set to introduce a brand new architecture of efficient cores – and further increase the number of cores for those “small” cores as well. Word of mouth indicates that the flagship Meteor Lake chip could boost performance to 16 cores – but a sting in the tail, at least for enthusiasts, could mean a drop to 6 performance cores instead of 8.
This would certainly show that Intel is focusing more and more on increasing multi-core performance, and perhaps more on things, increasing power efficiency (which fewer performance cores would help with). This won’t hurt anyone’s energy bills and will obviously be great news for laptops in terms of battery life.
We don’t know for sure if this is the route Intel is taking, but it basically aligns with Team Blue’s clear desire for better performance, which, let’s face it, is an area the chip giant needs to improve.
The flagship Meteor Lake model with only 6 performance cores will obviously not appeal to enthusiasts, and gamers can also groan with disappointment. But the theory is that Intel will deliver its 15th Gen Arrow Lake chips on that front, possibly hot on the heels of Meteor Lake (which is due out next year, although we’ve seen other suggestions) – and that’s where in which the new architecture will be introduced for performance cores.
For now, though, the focus seems to be on performance cores, and the Core i5-13500 seems to benefit greatly, with the gains seen here for a powerful mid-range CPU to power Raptor Lake PCs (and it probably won’t be the only tempting chip, which will also appear on the cheaper end of the spectrum).
