The performance of Intel Raptor Lake is enhanced, but the costs are staggering

We already know Intel Raptor Lake will require a lot of power, but it seems Intel has a plan to offer even more performance. The Core i9-13900K will allegedly have a factory overclock mode, bringing a new level of performance and a 350W limit, according to a new leak.

A recent report by ProHardver revealed the extreme power limit, but perhaps that doesn't come as a surprise entirely. In the past few weeks, 13th-gen Intel processors have been spotted overclocking quite high, and the Core i9-13900K topped out at 345 watts.

As opposed to manual overclocking, today's leaks suggest an entirely different mode for pushing the limits of Intel's new CPU, which is called a factory mode.

A 350-watt power limitation is added to the 24-watt limit by Raptor Lake-S. Not all motherboards will support it. Next-gen Intel CPUs will still support 600 series motherboards, but power limits will require 700 series boards.

The Core i9-13900K can be boosted to 350 watts on these motherboards. With that feature enabled, the CPU's overall performance is said to increase by up to 15%.

As a result of Intel Raptor Lake, we could soon be able to take advantage of an extremely powerful processor within the next few weeks, which can already offer significant performance improvements over Alder Lake, according to Intel.

The official specs for Intel's next flagship have not yet been released, but most rumors indicate it will feature 24 cores and 32 threads, as well as a clock speed up to 5.8GHz. 

A benchmark has already shown the Core i7-13700K breaking through the 6GHz barrier, and these are still engineering samples. This frequency will likely be challenged by overclockers.

The price of this type of power is high - 350 watts is a lot. To support this kind of power consumption, you'll need a beefy power supply unit and an appropriate CPU cooling system. 

With one of Nvidia's next-gen RTX 4000-series graphics cards, the Core i9-13900K will have quite staggering power requirements. In such a setup, a 1,200-watt power supply will probably be necessary.

The above will remain nothing more than a rumor until Intel's upcoming Intel Innovation event on September 27. Also on September 27, AMD is rumored to unveil Zen 4, the successor to Raptor Lake.