The power requirements of Intel's 13th Gen Raptor Lake-S Desktop CPUs have been revealed by Igor Wallossek of Igor's Lab. The information comes just a week after we reported the first power numbers of Intel's 12th Gen Alder Lake Desktop CPUs and it looks like Raptor Lake is going to stir up some changes, although minor ones.
Intel's 13th Gen Raptor Lake & 12th Gen Alder Lake Desktop CPUs Pretty Much Similar In Terms of Power Requirements, Leaked Documents Show
The Intel Raptor Lake-S Desktop CPU lineup will be replacing the Alder Lake-S Desktop CPU lineup in 2022. The family will be competing directly against Intel's Raphael processors based on the new Zen 4 cores that will feature a 5nm process node so it's going to be a pretty tough competition in the consumer segment. The lineup will also feature a similar segmentation and launch in 125W 'K', 65W 'Standard', and 35W 'Low-TDP' variants.
As per Igor, a minor change in the Intel Raptor Lake-S CPUs will be PL4 limit moving to a Reactive operation. Intel Alder Lake-S CPUs will feature a Proactive operation but the new Reactive mode will allow the chips to hit higher frequencies on both performance and efficiency cores optimally. PL4 would still remain an opportunistic limit with a Tau of <=10ms so it will almost always show up as a spike during certain workloads. The PL4 limit also triggers the overcurrent protection for the power supply as it hits the highest wattage and amperage on the platform itself.
Intel Alder Lake-S & Raptor Lake-S Desktop CPU Power Requirements (Image Source: Igor's Lab):
Coming to the power requirements, the Intel Raptor Lake-S 125W variant will feature a PL1 rating of 125W (125W in performance mode), PL2 rating of 188W (253W in performance mode) & a PL4 rating of 238W (314W in performance mode). You can notice that the PL4 rating is lower due to the newly introduced reactive operation but the PL2 rating has gone slightly up compared to Intel Alder Lake (253W vs 241W).
The same is the case with the 65W Alder Lake chips which have a PL1 rating of 65W (65W in perf mode), PL2 rating of 133W (219W in perf mode), and a PL4 rating of 179W (277W in perf mode). In the end, we have the Intel Alder Lake-S 35W variants which have a PL1 rating of 35W (35W in perf mode), PL2 rating of 80W (106W in perf mode), and a PL4 rating of 118W (152W in perf mode).
Intel Raptor Lake Desktop CPUs Power Ratings
| CPU TDP Segment | 125W | 65W | 35W |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alder Lake PL2 | 188W (241W Perf) | 126W (202W Perf) | 78W (106W Perf) |
| Raptor Lake PL2 | 188W (253W Perf) | 133W (219W Perf) | 80W (106W Perf) |
| Alder Lake PL4 | 283W (359W Perf) | 195W (311W Perf) | 131W (171W Perf) |
| Raptor Lake PL4 | 238W (314W Perf) | 179W (277W Perf) | 118W (152W Perf) |
| Peak Wattage Increase (Alder Lake vs Raptor Lake PL2 Perf) | +5% | +5.5% | +2.5% |
| Peak Wattage Increase (Alder Lake vs Raptor Lake PL4 Perf) | -19% | -9% | -11% |
So overall, you are looking at a slight increase in the maximum power requirements while the PL2 rating which is the most operable limit on Intel Desktop CPUs is going down in terms of wattage on 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs. The Intel Raptor Lake CPUs are expected to launch in 2022 and will be featuring support on the existing LGA 1700 socket & 600/700-series platform with DDR5 memory, an increase in core count, and general IPC improvements.
