Yowser! Well we had ours First look from CES at what Intel has in store for 2023, and the headline has to be the mighty Intel Core i9-13980HX: the new most powerful laptop processor in the world.
It looks like Intel is all about CPUs at CES this year and isn’t content to rest on its laurels after introducing the insanely good Core i9-13900K At the end of last year. We have the complete 13th Gen lineup desktop CPUs along with a ton of mobile processors including H-, P-, U-, and N series chips.
However, the i9-13980HX is the star of the show; we’re looking at a whopping 24 cores, a world first in laptop processors. That’s 8 performance cores and 16 efficiency cores, so a total of 32 threads. This follows Intel’s unveiling of the first 16-core laptop CPU in early 2022, also an HX-series chip that leverages both performance and efficiency cores.
This new CPU is an absolute beast with a turbo clock of 5.6 GHz and all the 13th gen goodies that Intel introduced in its new desktop processors last year. That means DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 support, Thunderbolt 4 compatibility, Wi-Fi 6E and improved integrated graphics performance.
Not many laptops will use this chip without it discrete graphics card, mind you. Intel described the i9-13980HX as “the world’s best mobile gaming platform” in a press release, which means that’s where we’ll most likely see it Powerful laptops for gamers and content creators, possibly alongside the expected RTX 4000 mobile graphics cards.
Analysis: Powerful, but we’re not exciting
Sure, a new top dog in the world of laptop processors is certainly cause for celebration, but the fact remains that the 13980HX will simply be out of reach for the vast majority of consumers.
While Intel’s 13th Gen desktop CPUs have been quite competitive compared to AMD’s latest offerings, Intel currently is threat of price increases for the next-generation chips, which will likely extend to mobile processors going to laptop manufacturers. Needless to say, you won’t see this HX series chip in any of the The best budget laptops.
Apart from everything else, really nobody needs that kind of processing power in a gaming laptop; After all, modern games are much more bound by the limits of the system’s GPU than the CPU. Putting this type of CPU in a gaming laptop feels a bit like plugging your beard trimmer into a car battery for a quick shave. We imagine it’ll really only be useful for pros who need as much number-crunching grunt as they can get.
Still, the rest of the new HX lineup could be more promising, as Intel claims we’ll see five times as many laptop models with 13th Gen HX chips as compared to the 12th Gen. All of these processors share the same mind-blowing features, making them a great choice for anyone looking to grab a shiny new gaming laptop in 2023. Check out this area…
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