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Before Intel 12th Gen processors, AMD was the main market leader. Despite Intel’s myriad attempts to outperform AMD with its 10nm process, the chipmaker ended up losing the battle and failing the public. Alder Lake debuted with a reworked 10nm process named “Intel 7” and soon everything started to change. Now, Intel’s Raptor Lake keeps the same process as its 12th Gen chips but improves in core building and overall performance.
The renamed Intel 7 enables higher clock rates at much lower power consumption. Raptor Lake takes the best of Intel 7 efficiency and refines it, adding a newly designed x86 hybrid architecture. If we translate this into performance, the new 13th Gen will be able to achieve a P-core boost clock rate of up to 5.8 GHz (with rumors of being able to even get to 6.0 GHz) and an E-core boost clock rate of up to 4.3 GHz.
How many nm is Intel Raptor Lake?
Dominating the 7nm process is a hard task. Thus, only 2 big companies control the mass production of the nodes worldwide. Despite the many attempts from Intel to control and develop the process, it’s seen failure after failure. That is until the big leap came with Intel’s 12th Gen re-worked 10nm process.
For this reason, Intel has based its 13th Gen architecture, codenamed Raptor Lake, on their now trusted 10nm ESF “Intel 7” process node. That, of course, was until the 4nm process came with the still-mythical Meteor Lake, the chipmaker’s supposed 14th Gen processor, which was intended to be ready by now yet has suffered incredible drawbacks and delays.
By using the same “Intel 7” process node, Raptor Lake ensures higher compatibility with current-gen components than its competitors, like AMD. But the fact that Intel is using the same Intel 7 process does not mean it will be falling behind in performance. Intel’s knowledge and capabilities with this process, on the other hand, guarantee up to a 40% performance scaling.
