Intel released the 13th-Gen Raptor Lake chips during the Intel Innovation Keynote on September 27, 2022. These chips compete against AMD's 7000-series chips and offer faster speeds than the already fast 12th-Gen CPUs.

So, if you're planning to upgrade your desktop build to Intel's 13th Gen processors, here's what you need to know.

Intel 13th-Generation Line-Up and Specifications

Raptor Lake's launch line-up has six chips—the mainstream Intel i5-13600K, the performance Intel i7-13700K, the enthusiast-grade Intel i9-13900K, and their respective KF versions with no onboard graphics.

These chips feature increased E-core count over the previous generation, plus clock speeds over 5GHz. You also get DDR5 and PCIe Gen 5.0 compatibility, plus greater cache. If you want to learn more, here's what's new with Intel's 13th-Gen Raptor Lake chips.

How Much Does It Cost to Get a Raptor Lake Chip?

Intel's 13th-Gen CPUs have the same price as their 12th-Gen counterparts—except for the mainstream i5-13600K. This chip has a retail price of $319 ($294 for the KF version), which is $30 more than the $289 i5-12600K.

On the other hand, the i7-13700K retails at $409 ($384 for the KF version), and the i9-13900K goes for $589 ($564 for the KF model). These prices are practically the same as their 12th-Generation versions, making the 13700K and 13900K great value-for-money options.

Although the 13th-Gen chips have the same base TDP as their previous-gen counterparts, they have a higher turbo power requirement. So, if you don't have much headroom with your current PSU, you should consider upgrading your power supply from the get-go—don't wait until you get signs that your computer requires a PSU upgrade.

When Can You Get the 13th-Gen Intel Core Processor?

If you're planning to upgrade your 12th-Gen CPU with the latest Raptor Lake variant, you don't have to wait long. These six 13th-Gen chips will be available on October 20, 2022—less than a month since Intel announced them.

Here's a quick recap of Intel's 13th-Gen announcement.

Are You Excited for More Power?

Although the Raptor Lake chips aren't as groundbreaking as the 12th-Generation Intel processors, they're adding improvements to an already excellent CPU line-up. These include PCIe Gen 5.0 support and backward compatibility with DDR4.

Intel also says that the 13th-generation chips are far more efficient than the Alder Lake CPUs. They claimed that a 13900K running at its base 125W performs at par with a 12900K on turbo at 241W.

These are all great news, but we can only rely on synthetic benchmarks until we get our hands on both the 13th-Generation Intel chips and AMD's Ryzen 7000 processors. When both CPUs come out, we're excited to put them to their paces and see what's in store for computers in 2023 and beyond.