Intel Core i9 13900K Linux Benchmarks - Performing Very Well On Ubuntu

In total for my initial round of Intel Core i9 13900K Linux testing, I ran 333 benchmarks across the tested CPUs.

Out of the 333 benchmarks, the Core i9 13900K managed to lead in first place 43% of the time to the Ryzen 9 7950X in first place 36% of the time. However, for the single or lightly threaded tests where the other Ryzen 7000 series processors did well, the other Ryzen 7000 series processors came in first place another 18% of the time.

if taking the geometric mean of all 333 benchmark results, the Core i9 13900K was 19% faster overall than the Core i9 12900K over this wide assortment of benchmarks. Overall a very hearty generational improvement for the Core i9 13900K but again has twice the number of E cores. However, the Ryzen 9 7950X overall was about 3% faster than the Core i9 13900K. The i9-13900K does have the pricing advantage though with current retail pricing at around $659 USD to the 7950X at $699.

While the Core i9 13900K was often competing with the Ryzen 9 7950X, where it seriously struggled was in the power consumption and efficiency. Across the entire span of benchmarks carried out, the Core i9 13900K had an average of 158 Watts and a peak recording of 318 Watt power consumption. Meanwhile the Ryzen 9 7950X over the same benchmarks had a 128 Watt average and a peak of 247 Watts.

Those wanting to see all 333 benchmarks in full plus the individual power consumption and performance-per-dollar metrics can find all of my data via this OpenBenchmarking.org result page.

Separately are the Linux gaming benchmark metrics separate from all the other CPU/system benchmarks carried out.

For the Linux gaming benchmarks, which can be seen via this result page, the Core i9 13900K overall trailed the Ryzen 7000 series processors but again largely comes down to the particular games of interest to you for Linux gaming. In many titles the Core i9 13900K was yielding the best performance.

During these Linux gaming benchmarks the power consumption of the Core i9 13900K was much more manageable with a 92 Watt average and a peak of 191 Watts, though the prior Core i9 12900K had a 66 Watt average and a 160 Watt peak. The Ryzen 9 7950X during these gaming tests was similar to the i9-13900K with a 94 Watt average and a lower peak at 165 Watts.

Overall the Core i9 13900K performed very well on Linux and was very competitive to the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 series. As for whether to go with the Ryzen 9 7950X or Core i9 13900K, it largely comes down to which workloads are most important to your day-to-day use, hence my focus on running a wide swath of benchmarks. Both leading Intel and AMD desktop processors had advantages in different areas. Where the Core i9 13900K was less than competitive was with the much higher power consumption rates under system/CPU load with higher power draw over the Core i9 12900K and tended to be much higher than what was seen with the Ryzen 9 7950X. The Ryzen 9 7950X with AVX-512 also performed very well in some areas where Intel has traditionally performed very well, including in some of Intel's own software including oneAPI.

Aside from the performance, the Core i9 13900K "Raptor Lake" processor and ASUS Z690-P WIFI motherboard were working very well on recent Linux distributions. If running a recent Linux distribution like Ubuntu 22.04/22.10 or Fedora 37 you should be in good shape for Raptor Lake with recent kernels mostly just adding in new device IDs for RPL compared to the prior Alder Lake support. Linux kernel scheduler optimizations, Intel P-State tuning, and other enhancements that have been mainlined since last year's Alder Lake launch also helps for ensuring good Raptor Lake experience on Linux at launch.

Thanks to Intel for supplying the Core i9 13900K review sample for Linux testing and stay tuned next week for the Core i5 13600K Linux performance results.