Intel Core i7-13700K Review - Hits the Sweet Spot

Hey Leo, thanks for the review. I was wondering if you could help answer this for me as I've only ever been able to find people talk about the sometimes quite large performance difference of DDR5 vs DDR4 on a high end Raptor Lake system in relation to gaming performance but does this translate to productivity workloads too? Will using DDR4 3200 leave a lot of the 13700K performance on the table in non-gaming workloads?

any news on i3 13th gen

I got the 13700kf and have not been so impressed by an upgrade in years. I was on a overclocked 10700k before that ran at 5.1gig all core at 1.36v and ran at 80 degrees tops under stress.
After some faff with an asrock bios where settings you make don't apply to the real world and lots of shouting I've got a 13700kf at 8 p cores at 5.4gig and 8 e cores at 4.3. Under cinebench my cpu bare goes above 80 degrees even though I'm pulling 250w and have a vcore at 1.4. That's impressive power to heat efficiency.
Finally in gaming its night and day. I only run 1080p on a hosted up 3070ti and my frame rate has doubled in most titles.
In doom eternal with everything turned my min frame has gone from 50fps to 200fps. In Shadow of tomb raider my min frame rate has gone from 70fos to over 150fps

Did you try undervolting the CPU to get lower temps? That could be better than just setting a power limit. Or do both.

Great review! Appreciate the hard work.

it hits my bank account very well this days:
cuz 7600x with 6000 memkits and even someone can get 7700x in same price as 13600k+7000 to reach nearly the same anount of frames in games. 13900k vs 7950x kinda depends who's got cheaper energy flowin from outlet in long term usage...long term usage...pf...inside this thing only 8 cores that works properly in many task exept cb and adobe things maybe...idk...and only way to answer the question bout sweet spot is to realise how many cores can utilise ue5...and i'm thinkin not about things that someone send me to push in market increasing cost but the amount of cash i'm already spend that flushes in some goldcovered toilet.

Honestly this 13700k with undervolt and/or power limiting is an absolute no brainer

I think thst now are better choice 7900x then 13700k

The AMD 5950x hits the sweet spot even better…

Just ordered the 13700K! coming from a 3950X it's refreshing to see the "midrange" punch so hard

I limitted the 13700K to 5.2 GHz and temperature go not over 80°C (Air-Cooled!). In real world I feel no difference to 5.3 GHz... For me that's the sweet spot.

Use a contact frame und not so much thermal paste and you do not have 99°C

What is the name of the Bench frame for motherboard ?

I don't understand my 13700kf at stock gave me 30k+ r23 at default high temps of 90c and 240w draw I went into bios made msi lite load change from 9 to 1 I now get 30k+ on r23 but at 72c max temps and 190w draw

Finished my new 13700k build 2 days ago. Upgraded from 9700k.
Loving it!!

Your benchmark scores are pretty bad for i7 13700k. I get considerably higher scores in all benchmarks with stock settings than you did and also your temps are 5-10C higher with better cooler than i have, (i use 240 AIO). Not to mention that my components are in closed case and you are using open test bench. For example in Cinebench R23 multicore (stock 253w) you got 30101 score and max temp 100C, while i got 31018 score and max temp 94C.

Excellent research and info. Thank you!

I am looking to buy this cpu with a rxt 4090 would the Gigabyte Z790 AORUS ELITE AX ATX Motherboard be OK for this or is it worth going for the master?

I am thinking of building a new system for Unity / Unreal VR Dev. The i7 13700k is on my radar, but, I am concerned about the temps. I will happily undervolt the cpu but I am wondering if manufacturers are deliberately allowing the 13th gen cpu's to max out so that the synthetic stats look better in testing....therefore making buyers think the cpu's are far more superior. I don't have an issue with this generation, but, I am aware of the marketing folly involved to get people to spend £400+ for a cpu.

Thinking about to make the move from 6700k to 13700k

Tried overclocking and undervolting this and it just made stuff worse. I used Benchmark and after the test it said its underperforming and Overclocking is the way to go. Any thoughts or tips?

I think this i7 has horrible perfomance per watt for all core workloads. My i7-12700K at 150 watts: 22800 points for Cinebench R23 multicore.

The i7-13700K, 30119 points for multicore at 258 watts or 72% more power than my i7-12700K for a 32% increase of perfomance.

Not so much with Star Citizen unfortunately.

I am very happy with my 13700k. Seems to be a good sweet spot. I almost dropped down to the 13600k, but figured that adding a little extra grunt would be better for long term usage. Price was not bad (£415 vs £329 for i5) Now I just need to wait for a good price on a 3080 or see how much 4070 sells for to finish the build.

This processor came with my Raptor Canyon (NUC 13 Extreme)...and its a beast.

I wonder if Intel is ever going to make power efficient and cooler CPUs instead of these hothead powerhogs, basically nothing changed since my 9th gen and 11th gen and with rumors of desktop Meteor Lakes having been cancelled which would have been true next gen on a smaller node... well.. might as well just buy a 7800X3D in April.

If the CPU says it's rated for 5600Mhz memory, what is the issue if any, to run 6000Mhz DDR5 RAM?

happy with my x570 aorus elite 5900x 64gig ddr4 3600,i will upgrade in 5years at least

My 13700K was able to undervolt by 100mV under "Instant 6GHz" overclocking on a Gigabyte Z690 board. Cinebench R23 score is still around 30900 with DDR4-3200 RAM. But CPU power draw is 230W and max core temperature is less than 90C using an air cooler Scythe Mugen 5. Try undervolting as it helps with performance by reducing the power draw and temperature.

Would an air cooler like the ak620 be ok for this cpu?

With a B760 board is it worth it buying a K CPU or should I just buy a non K CPU like 13700?

i5 13600k vs i7 13700 (non-k) help i cant decide.. Which CPU performs better in gaming? is the 13700 non-k faster than the 13600k? and if so, how much? and is the 13700 more future proof with the extra 2 cores? i've also seen that the 13700 consumes less wattage? so less wattage and more powerful than the 13600k, for the same money?? if thats the case, well then thats a win win? Where im from, they cost the same...

For a Gaming PC with 13700k what GPU you will recon to use from Nvidia? I was thinking for 4080. What do you recon? Thanks

I have asus z790-a wifi mb and 13700kf and it was hitted on 100C on arctic liquid freezer II 360mm , I underwatt on long duration package power limit on 173watt and short duration package power on 253 and it's working perfectly lost scores is 800cores in cinebench r23 also I changed max cpu core temp from auto to 92C ... also 96sec to 10 sec ( bellow long duration pachage power limit ) , now it works on 173 watt max and here is max 80 - 85C on all core . which is perfect (-15-20C)

What's the best budget motherboard for i7-13700k in your lists?

I was able to overclock the i7 13700k to 5.5 ghz and 4.4 ghz ( P and E cores) while undervolting it making max voltage be 1.330 and minimum observed to be 1.260

Did Leo start drinking again? He looks so much happier than he did back in the day of the Intel 10th & 11th gen.

My intel core i7 13700K processore temparature between 30-40 degree celcius on idle time. But, when my cpu is more 80% temparature increasing to 100 degree celsius. How can I fix it?

Processore : intel core i7 13700K

Motherboard : Gigabyte Z790
Cooler : Thermalright Aqua Elite 240 WHITE V3 ARGB CPU Cooler

I Just wanna whatever cpu my school used😂 thing was lightning ⚡️

I have 17 13700K in cinebench mark package temp reaching 100 degree…I have 240mm aio how do i undervolt ?

I dont get why people say z as zed. Its z.

Hey, KitGuruTech. Good an very interesting video. I am due an upgrade real soon. My 13 years old machine is sounding a little tied and concerning to me. I have built my own DAW's for music for years, but what really concerns my at this time is the Power consumption of these builds. 214 plus, give an take in wattages. With energy bills sky high. These numbers you displayed during your tests do concern me. Please, what's the average idle wattage of this type of CPU ?

A killer cpu! An incredible upgrade from a 6600 😂 this runs kinda hot tho

In light of the recent instability issue with the 13 & 14 gen Intel CPU, will you still recommend purchase of i7 13700K or 13700KF and Would i7 12700KF be a better option at this time?

Bought one a year ago on black sale. Great cpu for gaming with my 4070 ti oc z790 prime- a motherboard 👌

in the end of 2024 im very satisfied with my 13700k, i didnt worked with this new built till the middle of 2024 when i got the bios updates, i set THE VALUES of my asus tuf z790 -plus D4 motherboard and i didnt went crazy, set the right values for this processor and now i never get temps higher than 85 in cinebench r23 and with a result of 28-29 thousand, the vcore max is at 1.23 when idle 0.670v. Its really a dream for my DCS and MSFS 2020 with a rtx 3090 everything at max, i know i made a mistake to buy a asus MB that just supports ddr4 instead of DDr5, but in the end of the day i cant see much diff, i have a dual gskill tridentX 2x32gb at 3600kMhz oh well, still running so fast, my temps in gaming never goes above 54 degrees i am happy to have bought the Liquid Freezer II 420 , yeah i have seen many people who had problems with degradation but i think will not be my situation because i never let this new built running for more than 2 hours with the default and crazy asus bios defaults, i cap it right away because i did a lot of research before leaving the PC on, yeah its a beast, for those who are unsure, just buy it because it is so cheap now, you just need to upgrade the bios and use the intel defaults in the bios THATS IT

This aged well, no?

I'm using it with my 5090 😂

Intel 13th Gen or AMD 7000 - who wins in your opinion?