China-exclusive Intel Core i7-13790F Comes with a Little Extra Cache

Earlier this week, we learned about the existence of the Intel Core i5-13490F, a China-exclusive processor SKU that’s designed to strike “just the right” price-performance against AMD’s Ryzen 5 7600 series, and possibly even the Ryzen 7 7700. It turns out that the i5-13490F isn’t the only such SKU, there’s also the Core i7-13790F. Positioned between the i7-13700 and i9-13900, the i7-13790F is a unique piece of silicon. It has the same 8P+8E core-configuration as the i7-13700 and i7-13700K, and even the same 5.20 GHz maximum P-core turbo frequency as the i7-13700, but comes with a little extra shared L3 cache of 33 MB.

Each of the 8 “Raptor Cove” P-cores on the i7-13790F has 2 MB of dedicated L2 cache, and each of the two available E-core clusters has 4 MB of L2 cache that’s shared among the four “Gracemont” E-cores in the cluster. The L3 cache that’s shared among the 8 P-cores and 2 E-core clusters, has been bumped up to 33 MB from 30 MB on the other 13th Gen Core i7 desktop SKUs. This is still short of the 36 MB physically present on the “Raptor Lake-S” silicon. There are a couple of gotchas, though. Firstly, this is still a “locked” (non-K) SKU having minimal overclocking capabilities, with a 65 W base power and possibly the same 219 W maximum turbo power as the i7-13700; and secondly, as an “F” SKU, it lacks integrated graphics. The i5-13490F and i7-13790F appear to be targeting the SI and retail channels, and come in an exclusive black paperboard box. The i7-13790F is priced at RMB ¥2,999 including taxes, or about $440.