The speedy Intel Core i5-13600KF is a steal from Amazon USA before Black Friday
A potent processor for gaming workloads and more.
Intel's Core i5-13600KF is an excellent mid-range processor for those wanting to build on the LGA1700 platform, offering nippy speeds and fantastic performance relative to its predecessors and AMD's canon of Ryzen 7000 options. At the moment from Amazon USA, this CPU is down to just $175, giving you quite the beefy chip for a bargain price.
I should preface this by saying that this KF-suffixed version offers identical performance to the i5-13600K we reviewed, but the only difference here is that there are no integrated graphics, hence the addition of the -F. This means you will need a dedicated GPU in order for the i5-13600KF to run, but that shouldn't be a problem for most. We found the 13600K, in our review, to offer some seriously competent performance against AMD's Ryzen 7000 lineup, especially in content creation workloads. Its high-riding Cinebench R20 score, for instance, pushed AMD's top choice, the 7900X and beat off the 7600X by some margin, and also offered better results than the previous-gen 12900K, proving this is a serious option for content creation workloads.
Moreover, the 13600KF is also a marvellous CPU for gaming workloads, with some fantastic results in the likes of Flight Simulator 2020 with a recorded result of 64.01fps at 1080p. Ths is significantly better than the 12600K's 56.21fps average, as well as the top-end 12900K's 59.82fps, and also beats off AMD's Ryzen 9 7950X with its 61.95fps result. This comes with the caveat that adding 6000MT/s RAM into play pushes performance in AMD's favour, with it only allowing for smaller gains with Intel's chips. Nonetheless, the results offered in the likes of FS2020, Hitman 3 and elsewhere offer a good showing for the 13600K, and by virtue this -F variant, proving it to be an excellent all-rounder.
In a more general sense too, the 13600KF is a nippy and potent processor, with 14 cores and 20 threads making it a powerhouse for gaming and content creation. As a -K processor, this is also overclockable if you want to eke out as much performance as possible. The 13600KF also brings in the new Raptor Lake performance cores, which offer significantly bettrer performance where it matters than the previous Golden Cove cores on the lower-end 13th Gen processors and 12th Gen options.
If you want to grab a speedy CPU for a lot less, getting this Intel Core i5-13600KF for $175 from Amazon USA is an absolute steal.