Intel Core i5 13600K vs AMD Ryzen 5 7600X | Which CPU is Better?

In the entry-level gaming category, two CPUs, one from Intel and one from AMD are the main contenders for the best bang for the buck processor. They are the Intel Core i5 13600K and the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X. Even though it has been a couple of years since the launch of these CPUs, they are still making a lot of buzz, especially in the budget gaming PC builds. While the 7600X uses a traditional design of all similar cores (6 cores), the 13600K combines performance cores with efficiency cores (6 + 8). Do these extra cores in the 13600K make any difference? What about the performance of 13600K vs 7600X in gaming and other productivity applications? In this guide, we will make a thorough Intel Core i5 13600K vs AMD Ryzen 5 7600X comparison.

We will take a look at their basic specifications, compare their application and gaming performance. For a better understanding, we will be adding two CPUs, one from Intel (13700K) and AMD (7700X) to the overall comparison. In the process, we will also take a look at the clock speeds, power consumption, and CPU temperatures of both 13600K and 7600X. If you are looking to purchase a new CPU, then we hope that this guide could help you make a better buying decision.

A Brief Note on Intel Core i5 13600K

When Intel launched 13^th Gen Raptor Lake Series i.e., the Intel Core i9 13900K and the Intel Core i7 13700K it also launched the mid-range CPU, the Intel Core i5 13600K. With reasonably good core count (total 14 cores) and support for overclocking, the 13600K continues to lead the mid-range gaming CPUs.

Similar to the Intel 12^th Gen Alder Lake CPUs, even the Intel 13^th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs have a Hybrid Architecture. The Intel Core i5 13600K consists of 6 Performance (P) Cores and 8 Efficiency (E) Cores.

The performance cores support hyper threading but the efficiency cores don’t. So, the 6P + 8E Core 13600K supports 20 threads.

This configuration is significantly better than the previous gen’s equivalent CPU, the Intel Core i5 12600K processor as it has only 4 Efficiency (E) Cores. The microarchitecture of the 13^th Gen CPUs are the updated Raptor Cove P Cores and Gracemont E Cores.

The “Raptor Cove” cores have a 15% single-threaded performance gain when compared with the previous gen’s “Golden Cove” cores. The E cores are same for both 12th Gen and 13th Gen CPUs.

The base clock speed of the P and E Cores of 13700K are 3.5 GHz and 2.6 GHz respectively. The turbo clocks of P and E Cores are 5.1 GHz and 3.9 GHz respectively.

Intel made the 13th gen Raptor Lake processors using the same LGA 1700 Socket as the 12th Gen Alder Lake CPUs. So, if you have a decent motherboard, then the upgrade cost will be less. You can upgrade to the 14th Gen CPUs in the future as well.

The Intel Core i5 13600K CPU supports both DDR4 and DDR5 RAM types in dual channel mode. While the DDR4 frequency is only DDR4-3200, DDR5 saw a huge improvement with support for DDR5-5600.

Support for DDR4 means, you don’t need to make a significant investment, if you already own a decent DDR4 RAM kit. But the industry is moving towards DDR5 and the cost of DDR5 RAM kits is slowly coming down.

Coming to the cache layout, each P core of the 13600K Processor gets 2 MB L2 Cache and one module of E cores gets 4 MB L2 Cache. Speaking of E Core Modules, Intel grouped four E Cores into a cluster that share the L2 cache.

So, in 13600K, you get 8 MB for four E Cores. This makes the total L2 Cache of 13600K at 20 MB. It also has 30MB L3 Cache, which is common for all the cores.

The Intel Core i5 13600K processor has 20 PCIe lanes from the CPU. Of these, 16 are PCIe Gen 5 while the remaining 4 are Gen 4. The final configuration of the PCIe lanes will depend on the motherboard you select and the corresponding chipset.

Similar to the Alder Lake processors, even the 13th Gen Raptor Lake processors are fabricated using the “Intel 7”. Even though Intel calls it “Intel 7”, it is technically a 10 nm node.

The base processor power of Intel Core i5 13600K CPU is 125 Watts while the maximum turbo power is 181 Watts.

Important Specifications of Intel Core i5 13600K

• 6 P Cores, 8 E Cores and total 20 Threads
• LGA 1700 Socket
• Supports both DDR4 and DDR5
• Cache: Total 20 MB [2 MB per P Core (6 * 2MB = 12 MB) 4 MB per E Core Module (2 * 4 MB = 8 MB)]
• Total 20 PCIe Lanes (16 PCIe 5.0 Lanes and 4 PCIe 4.0 Lanes)
• Intel UHD 770 Integrated Graphics
• Base Power is 125W and Turbo Power is 181W
• Manufacturing Node is Intel 7 (based on 10 nm Enhanced SuperFin Transistors)

A Brief Note on AMD Ryzen 5 7600X

As AMD announced the high-end CPUs in the form of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X, not everyone is interested in spending that chunk of money. Hence, along with these powerful processors, AMD also launched the reasonably priced AMD Ryzen 5 7600X.

It is based on a new architecture, the Zen 4 and a brand new socket, the AM5. Similar to its expensive and powerful comrades, the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X supports only DDR5 memory and has only PCIe 5.0 support.

With a launch price of $299 and the traditional 6 core 12 thread design, the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X is the contender for the best bang for the buck gaming CPU.

AMD completely revamped the architecture with Zen 4 that has 13% better IPC performance. The next biggest change is the CPU socket. AM4 has been a successful platform for both AMD and the consumers. They supported it well beyond their initial promise.

But starting with Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs, AMD moved away from the PGA AM4 socket to the new LGA AM5 socket. That’s right. Now the pins are on the motherboard rather than the CPU.

Unlike Intel, which made its 13^th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs support both DDR4 and DDR5 Memory, AMD moved in favor of the DDR5 memory. This means, you won’t be able to use any existing DDR4 memory kits from your existing build. When you combine this with a new AM5 Motherboard, you are looking at a significant investment.

Coming back to the Ryzen 5 7600X, it has a base clock of 4.7 GHz and a boost clock of 5.3 GHz. The TDP of the 7600X is 105W.

Important Features of Ryzen 5 7600X

• 6 Cores 12 Threads
• AM5 Socket
• Supports only DDR5 Memory
• Cache: L2 is 1 MB per core and L3 is 32 MB
• Total 28 PCIe 5.0 lanes (4 of them are reserved for chipset)
• RDNA2 based Integrated Graphics (base clock of 0.4 GHz and boost clock of 2.2 GHz)
• TDP is 105 Watts
• Manufacturing Node is TSMC 5 nm for CCD and TSMC 6 nm for IOD

Intel Core i5 13600K vs AMD Ryzen 5 7600X: Specifications

In the following table, we made a side-by-side list of all the essential specifications of the Intel Core i5 13600K and the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X.

	Intel Core i5 13600K		AMD Ryzen 5 7600X
Cores (Threads)	Performance (P)	6 (12)	6 (12)
	Efficient (E)	8 (8)
Base Clock Rate	Performance (P)	3.5 GHz	4.7 GHz
	Efficient (E)	2.6 GHz
Turbo Clock Rate	Performance (P)	5.1 GHz	5.3 GHz
	Efficient (E)	3.9 GHz
Max Turbo Frequency (Max Single Core Frequency)		5.1 GHz	—
Cache	L2	Total 20 MB, 2 MB per P Core (6 * 2 MB = 12 MB), 4 MB per E Core Module (2 * 4 MB = 8 MB)	Total 6 MB, 1 MB per Core (6 * 1 MB = 6 MB)
	L3	24 MB	Total 32 MB, 32 MB per CCD (1 * 32 MB)
Power	Base Processor Power	125 Watts	TDP 105 Watts
	Max Turbo Power	181 Watts
Process		Intel 7 (10 nm)	TSMC 5 nm for CCD, TSMC 6 nm for IOD
Socket		LGA 1700	AM5 (LGA)
Code Name (Architecture)		Raptor Lake	Zen 4
Microarchitecture	Performance (P)	Raptor Cove	—
	Efficient (E)	Gracemont
PCIe Lanes		Total 20, 16 PCIe 5.0 Lanes, 4 PCIe 4.0 Lanes	Total 28 PCIe 5.0 Lanes (4 reserved for chipset)
Memory Support	DDR4	Up to DDR4 3200 MT/s	—
	DDR5	Up to DDR5 5600 MT/s	Up to DDR5 5200 MT/s
Integrated Graphics		Intel UHD Graphics 770	RDNA2
Price		$319	MSRP $299

Intel Core i5 13600K and the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X: Performance

Let us now compare the performance of the Intel Core i5 13600K CPU against the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X. Before we begin, here is a quick look at our Intel and AMD test systems.

Application Benchmarks

Cinebench R23 Multi-Core (Higher is Better)

Let us start with the most popular benchmark tool, the Cinebench R23. After the 10-minute multicore loop test, we got a score of just over 24000 points for the Intel Core i5 13600K. But the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X could only score a tad bit under 15000 points.

If we compare this with the Intel Core i7 13700K, then the performance of the Intel Core i5 13600K is roughly 20% less.

But if you compare the performance of Intel Core i5 13600K and AMD Ryzen 5 7600X, then the former boasts more that 60% performance improvement.

Cinebench R23 Single-Core (Higher is Better)

Coming to the single core performance in the Cinebench R23, the story continues where Intel shows that it is still superior in single core performance.

The single-core performance of the Intel Core i5 13600K is very similar to that of the Intel Core i7 13700K and the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X.

But the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X fall significantly short in front of the Intel Core i5 13600K by roughly 4%.

PassMark’s CPUMARK 10.2 Multi-Threaded/Overall (Higher is Better)

Next, we have another popular benchmark tool from PassMark, the CPU Mark. The following results show the overall or multi-threaded CPU Mark Score of all the processors in this test.

The story is similar to the Cinebench Multi-threading test. Here the Intel Core i5 13600K scores just over 40000 points. The performance gap between the Intel Core i7 13700K and the Intel Core i5 13600K is roughly 23% in favor of the former.

However, Intel Core i5 13600K shows a 7% better performance than the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and roughly 35% over the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X.

PassMark’s CPUMARK 10.2 Single-Threaded (Higher is Better)

Coming to the single threaded performance in CPU Mark, the results are surprising as both the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X and the Intel Core i5 13600K have very similar performance with the former slightly better.

But they fall significantly short in front of the Intel Core i7 13700K. Both the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X and the Intel Core i5 13600K could only score just over 4200 points while the Intel Core i7 13700K score over 4400 points. The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X is in between these two numbers with just over 4300 points.

Blender Open Data Render Time (Lower is Better)

Another popular open-source tool is Blender. For the next couple of tests, we will see the render times and number of samples per minute in Blender version 3.4. The Intel Core i5 13600K took 40 seconds over 9 minutes while the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X took 10 seconds over 14 minutes. A good 47% performance gain for the Intel Core i5 13600K over the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X.

Blender Samples Per Minute (Higher is Better)

The results for number of samples in a minute for Blender Render is also very similar to the render time results. Here you can see the samples per minute score across the three test scenes: monster, junkshop, and classroom.

13600K got over 340 samples while the 7600K got just over 230 samples. Surprisingly, the Intel Core i5 13600K performed slightly better than the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X.

Adobe Photoshop 2022 Puget System Benchmark (Higher is Better)

The Adobe suite has a couple of important tools that many creators and artists’ use. We will start with the Adobe Photoshop 2022. It has a built-in Puget System Standard Benchmark.

If you look at the overall scores, the Intel Core i5 13600K falls short in front of the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X by about 6%. In this test, the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X performed very similarly (the former being slightly better).

Adobe Premier Pro 2022 Puget System Benchmark (Higher is Better)

Next application in the Adobe suite is the Premier Pro 2022. In this test, the Intel Core i5 13600K makes a comeback as it scores just shy of 1100 points. This is 100 points more than the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and 100 points less than the Intel Core i7 13700K.

But the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X could only score just under 950, a 15% difference in performance than the Intel Core i5 13600K.

7-Zip File Manager Compression (Higher is Better)

One of the popular and widely used open-source applications is the 7-Zip File Manager. It helps in archiving files. For this test, we are performing the built-in benchmark feature. Here is the result in million instructions per second (MIPS) for compressing using a standards 32 MB dictionary size and 10 passes.

The Intel Core i5 13600K could complete the task with over 120K MIPS. Sadly, the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X could complete with just under 90K MIPS.

7-Zip File Manager Decompression (Higher is Better)

In decompression, the results are very similar where Intel Core i5 13600K completed the task with over 120K MIPS while the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X could manage just over 100K MIPS.

Chromium Code Compilation Time (Lower is Better)

Developers working on large projects need a stable multi-threaded system with a powerful CPU. So, we tested the code compilation performance by taking the open-source Chromium project code.

The performance of Intel Core i5 13600K is better than the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X as it could finish the compilation in just over 69 minutes where the latter managed to do it in just under 83 minutes. A good 20% performance difference.

Corona 1.3 Render Time (Lower is Better)

The last “application” benchmark is the Corona 1.3, which is a high-quality shading engine for production rendering. Let us now see the rendering time of different Intel and AMD CPUs.

The Intel Core i5 13600K just 65 seconds, which is better than the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, which took 75 seconds to render. AMD Ryzen 5 7600X took 96 seconds, which is 30% more time than the Intel Core i5 13600K.

Gaming Benchmarks

Let us move to some gaming performance. We tested some popular titles at a resolution of 1920 × 1080 (1080p) as anything beyond, the GPU will dominate the performance. We are running all the games in DirectX 12 with Ray Tracing and DLSS off.

Far Cry 6

• Resolution: 1920 × 1080
• DirectX 12
• Game Setting: Ultra
• DirectX Raytracing: Off

The first game is Far Cry 6. Here, performance of the Intel Core i5 13600K and the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X is very similar, even similar to the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X. Here are the rounded off average frames and also 1% low fps, where 13600K, 7700X, and 7600X all have almost identical numbers.

Cyberpunk 2077

• Resolution: 1920 × 1080
• DirectX 12
• Game Setting: Ultra
• Texture: High
• Ray Tracing: Off
• DLSS: Off

Next, we have another popular title, Cyberpunk 2077. The story is the same, where the 13th gen Intel CPUs can pump over 140 fps on average while the Ryzen 7000 Series CPUs struggle to push past 130 fps.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

• Resolution: 1920 × 1080
• DirectX 12
• Game Setting: High
• DLSS: Off

Last but not least, we tested the Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The story is once again similar to the result from Far Cry 6. Performance of Intel Core i5 13600K, AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, and AMD Ryzen 5 7600X is very close on average fps. However, the 1% lows are much better for 13600K.

Clock Speed

We ran the AIDA64 Stress Test for 10 minutes and here are the maximum frequency and average frequency of all cores.

CPU Temperature

During the same AIDA64 Stress Test, we monitored the CPU Temperatures with Corsair iCUE H150i RGB Elite Liquid CPU Cooler. Here are the CPU temps for your reference.

The Intel Core i5 13600K ran significantly hotter than all the other CPUs in this test, including the Intel Core i7 13700K.

Power Consumption

During the Blender render, we measured the CPU Package Power Draw using the HWiNFO tool. The following table consists of the peak CPU Package Power Draw as reported by HWiNFO. While the performance of the 13600K is good, it consumes very high power than the 7600X (almost 100W more).

Which CPU to Buy, Intel Core i5 13600K or AMD Ryzen 5 7600X?

The Intel Core i5 13600K retails for $319 while the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X retails for $299. Even though the price difference is only $20, the performance difference is much wider (in favor of the former).

Intel Core i5 13600K with is superior core count and solid single core performance, can compete with more expensive CPUs i.e., the Intel Core i7 13700K and the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X. Sometimes, it even outperforms the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X both in terms of gaming and some productivity applications.

The thermals of the Intel Core i5 13600K is a concern. It runs hotter than the Intel Core i7 13700K and way hotter than all AMD Ryzen CPUs.

The story isn’t great for the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X. Despite it is in the similar price bracket as the Intel Core i5 13600K, it isn’t in the same league in terms of performance. In some games, it comes close to the Intel Core i5 13600K but in productivity applications, it falls significantly short.

The only good thing about the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X in this comparison is it has better thermals and consumes very less power.

If gaming is your priority, then the Intel Core i5 13600K is a much better choice. It is one of the best gaming CPUs in the market right now. Even though the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X performs good in some games, if you consider the cost of a new AM5 Motherboard and DDR5 RAM, then the Intel Core i5 13600K looks like a better option (as it supports DDR4 RAM).

Overall, we are impressed with the price and gaming performance of the Intel Core i5 13600K. It is one of the best (if not the best) bank for the buck gaming CPU in the market right now.