The i3-13100
Not all Raptor Lake CPUs are made the same. HXL on Twitter stated a while back that all SKUs apart from the i9-K/KF, i7 K/KF and i5 K/KF will make use of the Alder Lake die. Moving on to the topic, the i3-13100 has been spotted by TUM_APISAK on Twitter in CPU-Z. No actual benchmarks are present as of now. The 13100 ships with 4 cores/ 8 threads akin to the i3-12100 and the i3-10100. Maybe with the i3-14100, we will see a core count increase (6 cores / 12 threads). The CPU is clocked at 3.4GHz, which is similar to the leaked base frequency. The total L2 cache stands at 5MB which is similar to its last-gen counterpart. For those curious, this CPU was paired with the GIGABYTE B660 GAMING X board and 32GB of DDR5 memory.
The Ace in the Hole
Initial testing results show that, in the higher end CPU market, the 7950X is neck-to-neck and sometimes even faster than the 13900K. However, the budget CPUs are a major threat to AMD’s market share in the sub $500 category. Now, talking about the i3-13100, this CPU will surely stir up the competition. Last generation, AMD had no answer to the i3-12100. This time, we’re looking at another 4 core / 8 thread treatment but that generational leap may just be the boost we need. In the i5 family (non K), we see that Intel has many budget options (4 to be exact). The lowest end i5 (13400) features 10 cores and has performance on par with the i5-12600K (As per a few claims). Remember, this is the successor to the i5-12400. Can AMD answer? Only time will tell.
