AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs could really steal the thunder of Intel’s Raptor Lake launch

Intel’s Raptor Lake processors could go on sale on October 20, according to the latest rumor regarding the launch schedule of the 13th-gen products.

This comes from @wxnod, a leaker on Twitter we’ve heard from before, but not one of the more regular sources – so take some hefty seasoning with this, although the rumor is based on something concrete: a photo of a slide from a purported Intel presentation (first spotted by VideoCardz).

If it’s genuine, the shown Raptor Lake GTM (Go to Market) roadmap indicates that 13th-gen CPUs will be revealed on September 27, before the silicon hits shelves starting from October 20.

The slide shows that pre-orders for the flagship Core i9-13900K will kick off on the day that the processors are revealed, with 13700K and 13600K pre-orders starting later, a week before the on-sale date for Raptor Lake chips, meaning October 13. Those will be the initial trio of 13th-gen CPUs to come out, with other models to follow later (including cheaper non-K processors).

Analysis: A case of good timing for AMD, in more ways than one?

This is pretty much in line with what we’d already heard from the grapevine, albeit the last rumor pointed to a September 28 unveiling, not September 27. Either way, the expectation is that Raptor Lake will appear at Intel’s Innovation event, on either of those two days that the developer conference runs over – although the first day makes more sense to us (after all, a new generation of desktop processors is a big thing, so you’d imagine it’d have upfront positioning).

That previous rumor floated an on-sale date of October 17, so again, this new October 20 date isn’t far off at all. Consistency of rumors like this is generally a good sign, of course, that these things will turn out to be on, or at least near, the mark. So the broad expectation is Raptor Lake going on sale mid-to-late October.

We now know from AMD’s launch of Ryzen 7000 CPUs yesterday that these chips will be on sale on September 27 – coincidentally (ahem), the same day as the Raptor Lake reveal (interesting timing indeed). This looks like a bit of anticipated thunder-stealing from Team Red, and means that Intel’s Raptor Lake products will be out just over three weeks after Zen 4, in theory.

That’s a fair head-start for AMD to bag a good amount of next-gen sales and tempt folks over to the Ryzen side, with some compelling reasons to do so aside from earlier availability. Namely that the value proposition of the initial batch of Zen 4 processors looks strong, as higher-end models didn’t turn out to be pricier than Ryzen 5000, in the end, as some speculation suggested. Furthermore, rumor has it there will be plentiful stock of Ryzen 7000 chips, and that should hopefully put paid to any scalping-related price hiking, which is often something that blights a new product launch like this.

AMD is also releasing Zen 4 on a new AM5 platform, which means more future-proofing than Intel Raptor Lake, which will be the last incarnation of Team Blue’s silicon on the current CPU socket.

It looks like Intel has its work cut out in a number of ways, then, particularly as the chip giant is looking to notch up its pricing across a range of chips, and that may include Raptor Lake processors – with early retail price leaks certainly hinting at that. However, we can hardly draw any conclusions on the cost front yet, but hiking price tags seems like a prospect Intel can ill afford, really, due to all the above reasons.