Intel Core i9 13900K Review

Operating Costs

With the cost of living increasing across the world, especially when it comes to the cost of electricity, it’s worth looking at the cost of running a processor and how it compares to similar products on the market. By taking the average cost per kWh, we can calculate a rough running cost at idle, during a simulated workload test (Cinebench R23), to give us worst-case scenario costs, as well as gaming costs during a run of Cinebench R23.

US Dollars (USD)

British Pound (GBP)

How much is clear to see when you look at the cost per hour, where in the UK, the 13900K tops our chart, and in this case, that’s not a good thing. I mean, yes, you get more power, it has to come from somewhere, but AMD just have the superior product in terms of power, which isn’t what you’d expect, given the efficiency cores, but sadly they don’t really even come into play, when looking at load and pure performance power.

In the US, where electricity comes in around 15 cents per kWh, you’re looking around 3 cents per hour, to run the 13900K in gaming, which is 56% above the 7950X during the same task, which kind of puts it all into perspective a bit more.