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Intel’s upcoming laptop CPU may destroy even the best desktop chips

Benchmarks of the not-yet-released Intel Core i9-13900HX have leaked, and to call these results impressive would be an understatement.

It seems that Intel’s upcoming laptop CPU may easily dethrone even some of the best desktop processors, let alone mobile chips. Even chips that are not out yet are already in danger, such as Apple’s M2 Max.

Benchmark results for the Intel Core i9-13900HX.
Geekbench

The Intel Core i9-13900HX processor belongs to the upcoming Raptor Lake-HX laptop lineup, which will most likely be unveiled during CES 2023. The processors from this range are going to power some of the greatest gaming laptops to date. Although rumors say that the Core i9-13900HX will not be the king of the hill — that title will supposedly belong to the Core i9-13980HX — it will still be one beast of a processor, as proven by the benchmark that leaked today.

Even the specs imply that we’re dealing with a high-end chip here. The Core i9-13900HX is said to come with 24 cores and 32 threads, as well as a base clock speed of 3.9GHz. It also boasts boost speeds of up to 5.4GHz, and a thermal design power (TDP) of 55 watts (PL1) that can go up to 100 watts in PL2 mode. Wccftech also reports that the CPU will have a built-in graphics card with 32 execution units (EUs), but Intel mostly uses Xe-cores instead these days, so we’ll have to see about this particular specification. In any case, it’s hard to imagine laptop makers putting this CPU into a machine that doesn’t also have a powerful discrete GPU, so the iGPU is fairly irrelevant here.

Today, the CPU made one of its first appearances in a Geekbench 5 test. It scored 2,039 points in the single-core test and 20,943 in the multi-core. These results put it ahead of the competition, and we don’t just mean other laptop CPUs here. In fact, the processor may beat current-gen desktop chips too, not to mention the upcoming Apple M2 Max.

Intel Alder Lake mobility chip.
Intel

Based on these results, the Core i9-13900HX will be the fastest laptop processor when it’s released. In single-core, it’s just slightly ahead of the previous-gen Core i9-12900HX, but it blows the Alder Lake part out of the water in multi-threaded tests — the Core i9-12900HX only scores a little under 16,000 points in that same benchmark.

Looking at desktop comparisons, the Core i9-13900HX is set to outperform the Core i7-13700K, Core i9-12900KS, and Core i9-12900K in multi-core operations. It’s also only 14% slower than the Ryzen 9 7950X despite the fact that the AMD chip runs at 230 watts instead of 55W to 100W. Wccftech also compared the Core i9-13900HX to the leaked benchmark results of the yet unreleased Apple M2 Max, and the Intel chip may be up to 44% faster.

It’s too early to make any definite statements about the performance of the Core i9-13900HX, but it certainly seems like one beast of a CPU. We may find out more in just a few weeks during CES 2023.

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Monica J. White
Monica is a UK-based freelance writer and self-proclaimed geek. A firm believer in the "PC building is just like expensive…
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