Intel's 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs are going to share the same core architectures as the 12th Gen Alder Lake family with a few optimizations here and there. The confirmation comes from the Intel TMA (Top-down Microarchitecture Analysis) documentation discovered by @InstLatX64.
Intel 13th Gen Raptor Cove & 12th Gen Alder Lake CPUs Share The Same Core Architectures But With A Few Optimizations
Although we knew that Intel's 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs will utilize the 10nm ESF 'Intel 7' based Raptor Cove and Gracemont cores which had few changes compared to the versions used in the 12th Gen Alder Lake CPUs, the Intel documentation itself confirms that on a microarchitectural level, both core designs, Raptor Cove and Golden Cove, are the same.
According to the #Intel Top-down Microarchitecture Analysis (TMA) documentation:#GoldenCove uarch = #RaptorCove uarch
For comparison:#WillowCove != #SunnyCove != #CypressCove#KabyLakeR = #CoffeeLake = #CometLakehttps://t.co/FXrCgNBN40 pic.twitter.com/yCl9BYZmzs— InstLatX64 (@InstLatX64) July 21, 2022
Intel's 13th Gen Raptor Lake Desktop CPUs are expected to bring decent single-core and massive multi-core performance uplifts but we aren't expecting IPC gains since the underlying architecture is the same. What has changed though are the clock speeds, cache sizes & core configurations, all three of which are resulting in the performance uplift versus the 12th Generation Alder Lake CPUs.
So one could see Raptor Cove as an optimized version of Golden Cove with the same architecture but a slightly different layout. This explains why the previously leaked clock-to-clock benchmarks showed no difference at all when the Core i9-12900K and Core i9-13900K were compared against each other at the same clock speeds.
On the other hand, AMD is expected to bring an 8-10% gain for its IPC figures on Zen 4 cores. The 15%+ single-threaded performance includes the 8-10% IPC gain & the clock speeds plus the use of the newer DDR5-5600 memory standard. Raptor Lake will also be utilizing much higher clocks than its predecessor and DDR5-5600.
Now while we won't see any IPC gain with Intel's Raptor Cove cores and the same Gracemont cores (which have doubled for 13th Gen and also pack increased cache), the Zen 4 cores will offer up to a 10% IPC uplift over Zen 3 and we know that Alder Lake is slightly better when we look at its IPC that stands around 10-12% better than AMD's offering. So even without IPC gains, Raptor Lake will still end up being a competitive solution in the single-threaded segment against Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPUs. The same docs also confirmed that 14th Gen Meteor Lake CPUs comprise Redwood Cove P-Cores and Crestmont E-Cores.
Intel Mainstream CPU Generations Comparison:
| Intel CPU Family | Processor Process | Processor Architecture | Graphics Architecture | Processors Cores/Threads (Max) | Platform | Memory Support | PCIe Support | Launch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alder Lake (12th Gen) | Intel 7 | Golden Cove (P-Core) Gracemont (E-Core) | HD 700 Series | 16/24 | LGA 1700/1800 | DDR5 / DDR4 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2021 |
| Raptor Lake (13th Gen) | Intel 7 | Raptor Cove (P-Core) Gracemont (E-Core) | HD 700 Series | 24/32 | LGA 1700/1800 | DDR5 / DDR4 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2022 |
| Raptor Lake Refresh (14th Gen) | Intel 7 | Raptor Cove (P-Core) Gracemont (E-Core) | HD 700 Series | 24/32 | LGA 1700/1800 | DDR5 / DDR4 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2023 |
| Meteor Lake | Intel 4 | Redwood Cove (P-Core) Crestmont (E-Core) | Xe1 (Alchemist) | 22/28 | LGA 1851 | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2024 |
| Arrow Lake | TSMC N3B | Lion Cove (P-Core) Skymont (E-Core) | Xe1 (Alchemist) | 24/24 | LGA 1851 | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2024 |
| Arrow Lake Refresh | TSMC N3B | Lion Cove (P-Core) Skymont (E-Core) | Xe1 (Alchemist) | 24/24 | LGA 1851 | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2026 |
| Lunar Lake | TSMC N3B | Lion Cove (P-Core) Skymont (E-Core) | Xe2 (Battlemage) | 8/8 | Mobile Only | LPDDR5X | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2024 |
| Panther Lake | Intel 18A | Cougar Cove (P-Core) Darkmont (E-Core) | Xe3 (Battlemage) | 16/16 | Mobile Only | LPDDR5/LPDDR5X | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2025 |
| Nova Lake | Intel 18A | Coyote Cove (P-Core) Arctic Wolf (E-Core) | Xe3 (Battlemage) Xe3P (Celestial) | 52/52 | LGA 1954 | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0 | 2026 |
| Razor Lake | Intel 18A? | Griffin Cove (P-Core) Golden Eagle (E-Core) | TBA | TBA | LGA 1954 | DDR5 | PCIe Gen 5.0? | 2027 |
| Titan Lake | TBA | Copper Shark (Unified) Golden Eagle (E-Core) | TBA | TBA | Mobile Only | LPDDR6? | PCIe Gen 5.0? | 2028 |
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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