There’s no denying that 2021 was a big year for Intel.
It began with the launch of the Tiger Lake-H series at CES, a new version of its 11th-gen laptop chips designed for gaming. Tiger Lake includes no desktop chips, however, so we had to wait until March for the 11th-gen Rocket Lake CPUs to arrive.
12th-gen chips are technically be a successor to both, given Alder Lake includes both desktop and laptop CPUs. The introduction of a new hybrid architecture has yielded some significant performance and power efficiency gains.
That will continue with the upcoming 13th-gen CPUs, although Intel will supposedly manage to eke out yet more performance from Raptor Lake processors. Here’s everything we know so far.
Intel Raptor Lake release date
At an investor meeting in February 2022, Intel confirmed the first 13th-gen CPUs are on track to release in the second half of 2022. A more specific release date isn’t yet known, but the company already showed off a system powered by a Raptor Lake chip.
This was a desktop system, which Intel usually usually releases first. With Alder Lake, the first desktop CPUs were released in November 2021, before mobile CPUs joined them at CES two months later. A similar schedule seems likely, meaning we may be waiting until 2023 for 13th-gen laptop processors.
Intel has also revealed a long-term roadmap, which includes the following three generations: Meteor Lake, Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake.
Intel Raptor Lake pricing
We have no idea how much Raptor Lake might cost at this stage, although the current-gen Rocket Lake pricing gives us an idea how much we’ll have to pay for desktop chips:
- Core i9-11900K – $513-$539
- Core i7-11700K – $374-$399
- Core i5-11600K – $237-$262
- Core i5-11400K – $157-$182
These are the prices suggested by Intel, with manufacturers ultimately deciding how much you’ll pay – that explains the range that’s offered.
Should Intel also release Raptor Lake chips for laptops, they’ll be designed for integration into the devices and not available to buy as standalone components. In that situation, the price you’ll pay is also dependent on the manufacturer, but the design and other specs too. It’s impossible to predict how much they’ll cost, but the widespread rollout of Alder Lake chips suggests there’ll be plenty of choice.
Intel Raptor Lake spec rumours
At the same investor meeting that announced a rough release date also revealed some key features. It’s expected to continue with a hybrid architecture, this time with up to eight performance cores and up to sixteen efficiency cores. The company also said it’s aiming for a double-digit performance improvement (presumably in percentage) compared to Alder Lake.
Raptor Lake will supposedly adopt a modular design, making it easier to chop and change various tiles according to the situation . This will allow Intel to easily integrate its upcoming Arc GPUs, too.
Elsewhere, one of the big rumours so far comes courtesy of VideoCardz. It has published what looks to be an official roadmap for the company’s upcoming launches, alongside some key features:
Following its introduction in 2021, it suggests that there will be some subtle changes to the new hybrid core system in order to improve performance. It’s not clear what these will involve – Intel perhaps doesn’t know itself yet. Raptor Lake will also supposedly be when the company switches to LPDDR5X – the next-gen RAM solution that launched in late 2020. Finally, introducing a new DLVR Power Delivery System should allow Raptor Lake to better optimise its power output according to the situation – this would lead to better efficiency, and in turn battery life.
Alongside the same hybrid CPU changes, the laptop-focused version of Raptor Lake will also apparently bring an improved cache for gaming and a new feature set for Intel vPro. The latter is a company platform that offers a range of features tailored for business users, including top-drawer performance, remote manageability and high-end security.
While this sounds convincing and fairly realistic, it’s worth noting that the diagram still shows Rocket Lake as being from 2020, despite it arriving in March 2021. That suggests this roadmap is at least a few months out of date, and the situation may have changed significantly since then.
The full Raptor Lake CPU lineup has now leaked, courtesy of YouTube channel Adored TV. It’s been accompanied by the following diagram, showing low-power, mainstrain and enthusiast chips:
Key takeaways here include a maximum of 24 cores and 32 threads on high-end Core i9 CPUs, while the budget-focused Pentium chips will be limited to 4 cores and 4 threads.
The 35W, 65W and 125W power requirements have already been reported from sites such as Igor’s Lab in Germany – they’re similar to Alder Lake. In reporting the news, Wccftech suggests that the existing LGA 1700 socket will still be supported by Raptor Lake.
While we should always take them with a pinch of salt, early Raptor Lake benchmarks make for concerning reading. A now-deleted result recorded in BAPCo Crossmark was screenshotted by Tom’s Hardware, and appears to show a high-end Raptor Lake CPU (1,591) lagging behind the top-spec Core i9-12900K (2,376) and AMD’s flagship Ryzen 9 5950X (1,694) on overall scores.
Should this turn out to be true, it would represent disappointing performance. It also suggests this CPU will have 24 cores and 32 logical cores.
We’ll update this article as soon as we know more about Raptor Lake. In the meantime, read more about Intel’s latest 12th-gen Alder Lake CPUs, where laptop chips are expected soon.