Intel Raptor Cove is the name under which a new architecture that will be used by Raptor Lake processorsthe generation which, as many of our readers already know, will follow Alder Lake and which is expected to be introduced between September and October this year, although it will be introduced in stages, as has happened with previous generations.

Highly efficient Intel Raptor Lake processor cores will preserve the Gracemont architecture, which means that only high-performance cores will see IPC-level improvements. We already told you all this in our special dedicated to the new Intel Raptor Lake-S processors, but recently new information appeared that surprised us very much, as it indicates that Raptor Cove and Golden Cove are roughly two almost identical architectures.

What does it mean? Well, very simple that we can think of Raptor Cove as an improved version of Golden Cove and that should translate into a single digit IPC improvement over that. In theory, we would be talking about an increase between 5% and 9%but we must keep in mind that we must also add to these numbers the increase in performance that Intel will achieve with sa increase in working frequencies.

Considering that according to the latest leaks, the Raptor Lake-S processors could range in value between 5.5 GHz and up to 6 GHz in turbo modethe overall performance improvement of one conductor (IPC plus operating frequency) can be approx between 15% and 20%, at the best case. On the other hand, at the level of multi-threaded performance, the Raptor Lake-S series will see a significant improvement thanks to a significant increase in the number of high-efficiency cores, which will go from 8 to 16, i.e. double that of Alder Lake-S.

So what improvements will the Raptor Lake-S bring over the Alder Lake-S?

• IPC increase on high performance cores between 5% and 9%.
• Increased working frequency.
• Largest amount of combined buffer (L2+L3).
• Increased number of cores and threads (maximum 24 cores and 32 threads compared to 16 cores and 24 threads for Alder Lake-S).
• Support for DDR5 memory at a frequency of 5,600 MHz.
• 30 to 40 percent better multithreading performance.

If we take all of the above and do a comparative analysis with the Zen 4, we will see that in the next confrontation between Intel and AMD in the market of high-performance processors for general consumption, things will be closer than it seems. Zen 4 promises about 15% increase in single wire performance against Zen 3, a number that would be enough to beat Alder Lake-S but not Raptor Lake-S.

On the other hand, Zen 4 will retain the theoretical maximum 16 cores and 32 threads on its flagship Ryzen 9 7950X processor, which means The Intel Core i9-13900K will have more cores (8 high performance and 16 high efficiency) and the same number of threads. Most of its cores will be highly efficient, but with more cores, I think it’s likely that Intel’s chip will end up being the most powerful of the new generation, both in single-threaded and multi-threaded versions. fiber. The numbers show that, and quite clearly.