The price difference between Intel’s Core i5-13600K and AMD’s Ryzen 5 7600X isn’t
actually that big, so which CPU should you get?
I’ve compared both processors in 25 games at 3 resolutions as well as applications to
show you all the differences!
Both of these CPUs are sort of 6 core parts, but not quite.
The 7600X has 6 cores and 12 threads, and although the 13600K has 6 performance cores
that have 12 threads, it’s also got 8 E cores, making it a 14 core 20 thread chip.
The 7600X has more cache and a higher boost clock speed though, which will be more important
in games than the extra E cores.
It makes sense to compare these two processors as AMD’s Ryzen 5 7600X CPU goes for $300
USD, while Intel’s Core i5-13600K is just $30 more at $330, though you can save $20
if you get the KF version, just depends if you need the integrated graphics or not.
I’ve compared both CPUs in this system to find out if the 13600K is worth paying more
for.
I’ve been able to use the exact same memory kit at the same timings for both Intel and
AMD, so literally the only differences here are the CPUs and the motherboards.
The latest Windows 11 22H2 was used with core isolation off, the same Nvidia drivers with
resizable BAR enabled, and neither CPU was subject to any power limits.
Just before the 25 games, let’s start out with Cinebench R23, as it’s an easy way
to get a general idea of where single and multi threaded performance are at, and the
13600K was ahead in both tests.
It’s only scoring 2% better when it comes to single core, a negligible difference, but
thanks to its higher core count due to its E cores, total multi core performance is scoring
59% better.
At this point, you might be thinking that the Intel i5 has this competition in the bag.
Just keep watching, AMD definitely still has some tricks, especially when it comes to gaming.
The 13600K was using 63% more power to achieve this 59% lead in multi core performance though,
so the extra performance isn’t for nothing.
This actually results in the 7600X having a slightly better performance per watt score,
at least in this one specific test, making it more efficient for this multicore workload,
granted the difference is small.
All that extra power needs to go somewhere.
It gets turned into heat, and the 13600K was running warmer compared to the 7600X, though
to be fair, these results aren’t directly comparable as the way both processors use
sensors to measure thermals varies.
Both processors were running above 5GHz over their 6 main cores, while the 8 E cores in
the 13600K were maxed out at 3.9GHz, and it’s those extra E cores that are giving the 13600K
its high multicore performance, but also requiring more power to run.
Alright it’s probably no surprise that the 13600K is doing better in multi core workloads.
I mean it’s got more cores and threads, what do you expect?
Though it does need more power in order to achieve this, and Cinebench was kind of a
best case for it, so before we compare those 25 games let’s finish comparing both processors
in the rest of the applications.
Blender was tested with the Open Data benchmark, and I’ve included all three different workloads
that it tests.
This test relies on multi-core performance, so like Cinebench earlier, the 13600K offers
some pretty big gains over the 7600X, coming out 48 to 50% ahead depending on the specific
test.
The V-Ray and Corona benchmarks also use the processor to render out a scene, so more threads
more better, putting the 13600K significantly ahead of the 7600X again.
Linux kernel compilation was tested under Ubuntu 22.04, whereas all other tests were
done with Windows 11.
Lower times are better now, as we’re looking at total completion time.
The 13600K was 43% faster here, and the margins were the same with the LLVM compilation test,
which was the only other test done with Linux.
Back into windows and Handbrake was used to convert one of my 4K 60FPS review videos to
1080p h.265.
Lower times are better here too, and the 13600K was 40% faster in this one, so still a decent
improvement with Intel.
The gap between them gets smaller in Adobe Premiere, which was scoring 13% higher with
the 13600K.
Both of these CPUs have integrated graphics, but it’s well known that Intel iGPUs are
better optimized for video editing workloads like this, due to features like Quicksync.
Despite that, the difference is nowhere near as big compared to say the rendering workloads
earlier.
DaVinci Resolve is another video editing program, but the gap was even smaller now with Intel
scoring just 7% higher than AMD.
If you consider that you’re spending 10% more money to get Intel for 7% more performance,
I suppose it’s not terrible, especially when you consider this was one of the smallest
differences out of all applications tested.
The differences were basically nothing in Adobe Photoshop, with the 13600K scoring just
2% better, which is within the margin of error range for this test.
The Photoshop test generally does better with more single core performance, but as we saw
in Cinebench earlier, both CPUs were quite close together in this regard.
Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel were some of the few apps that scored slightly better
with AMD, but yeah it’s such a small difference I doubt you'll really notice.
7-Zip was used to test compression and decompression.
This has been a test where AMD’s Ryzen processors have traditionally beat Intel for some time,
but the tables have finally turned with Intel doing 36% better in compression and 42% better
in decompression.
Geekbench tests a bunch of various workloads, and the single core score was actually a bit
better with Ryzen.
The addition of AVX512 to Zen 4 seems to be what’s giving it an edge here, though Intel’s
additional cores and threads give it a 51% lead in the multi core test.
On average out of all applications tested, the slightly more expensive 13600K was performing
29% better in these specific workloads.
Of course this number alone doesn’t mean much as I’ve got a random combination of
both single and multi threaded workloads.
For example, the single core tests hardly saw a difference, but the tests that benefit
from more cores and threads could be as much as 50% better with Intel.
In most cases, there’s a good performance boost with Intel for spending just $30 or
10% extra money, or just $10 more if you don’t need integrated graphics, granted using the
KF version would lower performance in some tests like adobe premiere.
It’s actually a different story when it comes to games.
I’ve compared both processors in 25 games at 1080p, 1440p and 4K to show you all the
differences!
Let’s start out with Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered.
I’ve got the 1080p results down the bottom, 1440p in the middle, and 4K up the top, with
the 7600X underneath the 13600K, just like before.
The 13600K was ahead regardless of resolution, with a 9% higher average frame rate at 1080p.
Red Dead Redemption 2 on the other hand had some of the biggest leads with the 7600X out
of all games tested.
The 7600X was 24% faster at 1080p, 23% faster at 1440p, but then only 2% ahead at 4K, as
CPU selection usually matters less at higher resolutions, as more of the work gets shifted
over to the GPU.
Halo Infinite on the other hand was back to favoring the 13600K, with a 16% higher average
FPS at 1080p, 17% lead at 1440p, and then basically no real difference at 4K, granted
the dips in performance as measured by the 1% lows were a little more ahead with Ryzen
here.
The ball is back in AMD’s court when looking at Microsoft Flight Simulator, with the 7600X
8 to 10% ahead of the 13600K depending on the resolution.
Fortnite apparently couldn’t get enough of the 7600X, as these are some of the biggest
differences seen out of all 25 games tested.
At 1080p the 7600X was reaching a 25% higher average frame rate, 20% higher at 1440p, but
then only a smaller 5% lead at 4K.
I’ve tested The Riftbreaker with the CPU benchmark option, and this particular test
seems to prefer Intel, as it offered a 7% lead over AMD at 1080p.
Watch Dogs Legion had above average differences compared to the rest of the games tested,
but in favor of the 7600X this time.
The frame rates weren’t really that different at different resolutions either.
Call of Duty Warzone had basically no practical differences between both CPUs.
The differences are within the margin of error range and essentially the same, at least with
all settings maxed out.
Apex Legends was in a similar boat, though the 7600X had a notably higher 1% low, so
less dips in performance, which is kind of important for a competitive game like this.
In terms of average FPS though, both CPUs were hitting the 300 FPS frame cap at 1080p
and 1440p with the RTX 4090 at max settings.
While we’re on the subject of eSports titles, CS:GO had some fairly big gains with the 7600X,
coming out about 18% ahead of the 13600K at 1080p and 1440p, but then 25% ahead of the
13600K at 4K, as its performance was basically the same regardless of resolution, while the
13600K instead dipped a little.
Rather than talk through the remaining 15 games, I’ll just skip through them so we
can get to the more important conclusions, as the rest of the games don’t really introduce
anything that we haven’t already seen.
The reason I chose to test so many different titles is so that we can get a well rounded
average that better represents a wider selection of games, instead of making our conclusion
based on fewer data points.
On average over all 25 games tested, at 1080p AMD’s Ryzen 5 7600X CPU was performing about
6% better compared to Intel’s Core i5-13600K in terms of average FPS.
As we can see, results can vary quite a bit depending on the game.
Halo Infinite for example had bigger gains on Intel, while others like Fortnite, Red
Dead Redemption 2 and F1 2021 were around 24% faster with Ryzen.
Stepping up to the higher 1440p resolution and now the 7600X was about 4% faster than
the 13600K on average in our same selection of 25 games.
Again some games had fairly big differences, but for the most part, more than half of the
games had less than a 5% difference in either direction.
The difference only gets smaller at 4K, as we’re more GPU bound here, so CPU selection
starts to matter less.
Now 20 of the 25 games had less than a 5% difference one way or the other.
Once we average all 25 games though, the 7600X was less than just 2% faster compared to the
13600K.
Here’s what we’re looking at when we take the average frame rates from all 25 games
tested to try and spot some overall trends.
The 7600X was ahead at all resolutions, but this makes it easier to see what I’ve been
talking about, which is that there’s a bigger gap between the two processors at lower resolutions.
Considering the 13600K is an extra $30 more expensive compared to the 7600X, and the fact
that in most games the 7600X was performing better, it comes as no surprise that the 7600X
is able to offer better value when it comes to gaming.
Even if we factor in the cheaper 13600KF as we don’t need its iGPU for gaming, the 7600X
was still less money and still performs better.
Granted I’m only factoring in CPU costs here and not motherboards, or the fact that
Intel’s platform also supports cheaper DDR4 memory.
Though to be fair, ddr5 memory has definitely gotten cheaper in the last few months.
The 13600K on the other hand was offering better value when it comes to multi core performance.
Yeah it costs a little more, but it makes up for this by having more cores and threads,
granted this is using Cinebench data, which isn’t completely fair as that workload had
the biggest gain on the 13600K out of all of them.
If we instead use a different test like Adobe Premiere, where the 13600K wasn’t quite
as far ahead, well the 7600X still wasn’t as good value, but the differences are much
closer now.
So basically to summarize, if your focus is on gaming then you’d probably be better
served by AMD’s Ryzen 5 7600X.
Generally it’s offering better performance for a bit less money, and this is probably
due to things like its higher boost clock speeds and additional cache.
To be fair, in many of the games the performance difference between these two wasn’t really
all that big.
So at the end of the day, it’s not really going to matter too much which CPU you pick,
they’re both going to perform pretty well in games.
Intel’s Core i5-13600K on the other hand has more cores and threads, so it’s able
to do better when it comes to multi threaded workloads.
But at the expense of using more power, those gains don’t come for free.
It kind of feels like the world’s been turned upside down a bit, because I’m just used
to Intel generally doing better in games and AMD doing better in productivity, but now
this generation that’s basically flipped.
It’s also worth noting that with Intel’s 13th gen processors, if you do want to upgrade
then you’ll have to get a new motherboard next generation, as 13th gen is the end of
the line for the current platform.
AMD on the other hand only just launched their new AM5 socket, and they’re planning on
supporting it through 2025.
So if you do get the 7600X today, you’ll have an AM5 motherboard and you’ll be able
to upgrade to a newer CPU in future.
If you’ve already got an older AMD Ryzen processor, unfortunately you’ll have to
upgrade to an AM5 motherboard, and you can find out how much of a performance boost the
7600X offers compared to older Ryzen 5 processors over here next.
I’ve done these same tests comparing the 7600X against the 5600X and 3600.
And get subscribed for the rest of my upcoming Intel 13th gen comparisons!