The CPU market is wild right now. Intel impressed us with its 12th Gen "Alder Lake" processors last year, and AMD is doing the same right now with the Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000 series "Raphael" CPUs. But as usual, Intel isn't willing to give the spotlight to AMD entirely. And new rumors suggest that Team Blue could announce at least a few SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) of its 13th Gen "Raptor Lake" CPUs during its "Intel Innovation" event on September 27; which just so happens to be exactly when the Ryzen 7000 series will be available to the public.

Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs: Rumors

According to the Twitter user @wxnod who has leaked the GTM (Go To Market) roadmap for the Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs, the company will announce three SKUs of the 13th Gen CPUs on September 27. Or September 28 for Taiwan.This includes the top-of-the-line Core i9-13900K, alongside Core i7-13700K and the Core i5-13600K. All "K" suffixed processors. Interestingly, Intel will also take pre-orders for the Core i9-13900K on the same day whereas the other two models will be up for pre-orders from October 13 only. On the other hand, all three of them will be available starting October 20.And the latter part of the leaked slide apparently reveals that the non-K, mobile processors, and other 13th Gen products will be announced by CES 2023 as well. To note, next year's CES will be held in Las Vegas, USA from January 5 – 8. also expect Intel to announce a couple of new motherboards to go with the new chips. Like the enthusiast-grade Z790, H770, and B760. Anyway, we already know Raptor Lake will use the same LGA 1700 socket as Alder Lake. That means you might not need to buy a new motherboard if you're already rocking a 12th Gen setup. Now, even though this means the new Intel processors could support DDR4 memory, nothing's sure just yet. Intel could follow in the footsteps of AMD and make DDR5 the only RAM option for Raptor Lake.

Intel 7 process

And it will also be compatible with the CPU coolers that work with Alder Lake PCs. Likewise, the 13th Gen processors are rumored to be manufactured under an enhanced Intel 7 (10nm SuperFin) process node.You might also be interested in:

• Intel Core i7-12700K Review: All Hail Alder Lake!
• Intel 12th Gen "Alder Lake" Review: Windows 10 vs Windows 11

Intel also says we can expect "up to double digit performance boost" in multi-threaded workloads with Raptor Lake, compared to Alder Lake. As with most product launches, there are already a ton of leaks surrounding the Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs. Besides all this, of course. The Core i9-13900K will reportedly feature 8 Performance (P) cores with hyper-threading and 16 Efficiency (E) cores, for a total of 32 threads.Moreover, it will have a 3 GHz base and 5.5 GHz of all-core boost frequency. And with Intel's Efficient Thermal Velocity Boost (ETVB) technology, it will also be able to hit 5.7 GHz of single-core boost frequency. Exactly matching the boost clock speed of AMD's flagship Ryzen 9 7950X CPU. We've covered the leaks surrounding the Core i9-13900K, including some benchmark scores in more detail here.

Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs: Price

There's no information on how much Intel's new processors are going to cost for now. But considering how AMD impressively managed to lower the cost on a couple of its latest processors, we expect Intel to follow suit too. Or at the very least, avoid a price hike. As such, the aforementioned Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs might cost somewhere between USD 290 to USD 600.

• Meanwhile, check out our review of the Intel Core i7-12700K CPU