Adobe Lightroom Classic: 13th Gen Intel Core vs AMD Ryzen 7000

Introduction

The last few months have been hectic in terms of new hardware. First, AMD launched their Ryzen 7000 Series of processors along with the new AM5 chipset in late September. Then, in early October, Intel launched their Arc A750 and A770 discrete GPUs, followed quickly by NVIDIA starting their rolling launch of the GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs on October 12th, starting with the GeForce RTX 4090 24GB.

And now, Intel is launching their new 13th Gen Intel Core processors – code-named "Raptor Lake". Unlike AMD's Ryzen 7000 Series, the Intel 13th Gen processors should be able to be dropped into any motherboard that supports the previous 12th Gen CPUs, and maintain support for both DDR4 and DDR5 memory. We did get a bump in terms of what RAM speed is officially supported, but from a platform view, the 13th Gen is pretty much a drop-in upgrade from 12th Gen.

In this article, we will be using our PugetBench for Lightroom Classic 0.93 benchmark paired with Lightroom Classic 11.5 to examine the performance of the new Intel Core 13th Gen CPUs. As a comparison, we will be including the previous generation 12th Gen processors, as well as their primary competition – the AMD Ryzen 7000 Series. In addition, while we won't be calling out the results specifically in this article, the raw results table in the next section also includes the AMD Ryzen 5000 Series since Ryzen 7000 was only recently released.

If you want to read more about the new Intel Core 13th Gen, and what sets them apart from the previous generation, we recommend checking out our main Intel Core 13th Gen Processors Content Creation Review article. That post includes more detailed information on the CPU specifications, testing results for a range of other applications including Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Unreal Engine; as well as all the test setup details for both the hardware and software used in our testing.

Raw Benchmark Data

While our benchmark presents various scores based on the performance of each test, we also like to provide individual results for you to examine. If there is a specific task that is a hindrance to your workflow, examining the raw results for that task is going to be much more applicable than the scores that our benchmark calculated.

Feel free to skip to the next sections for our analysis of these results to get a wider view of how each configuration performs.

Intel Core 13th Gen vs AMD Ryzen 7000 for Lightroom Classic

To start off our analysis, we wanted to look at how the new 13th Gen Intel Core CPUs compared to AMD's Ryzen 7000 series. The MSRP pricing for Intel and AMD don't exactly match, but in most cases, the comparisons we are making in the chart above are looking at CPUs that have an MSRP within $40 of each other. The exception to this is the Core i9 13900K vs Ryzen 7950X since Intel doesn't currently have a CPU that is on par with the Ryzen 7950X in terms of MSRP ($699). We didn't want to leave the 7950X out, so we decided to include the 13900K twice. First versus the 7900X (a price/performance comparison), and second versus the 7950X (a best-of-each-generation comparison)

If you are interested in the exact MSRP for each of these CPUs, we have a full breakdown in our main 13th Gen Intel Core Processors Content Creation Review article.

Across all our tests, the new 13th Gen CPUs from Intel come out ahead of AMD's Ryzen 7000 Series. The biggest leaders for Intel are the Core i7 13700K and i5 13600K, which came in overall 12% and 9% faster than the Ryzen 7700X and 7600X respectively. The Core i9 13900K also has a slight lead over the Ryzen 7900X and 7950X, although it is only by a small 5%.

However, we do want to point out that the Core i9 13900K holds a larger lead for active tasks like switching modules and culling (chart #2). In our experience, these are the types of tasks that most photographers are primarily concerned about, and for this, the 13900K is 8-9% faster than the Ryzen 7900X and 7950X. For passive tasks like exporting and generating previews (chart #3), on the other hand, the Core i9 13900K is basically on par with the Ryzen 7900X/7950X.

Overall, choosing between Intel and AMD is likely going to come down to your budget and specific workflow. Intel has a small, but clear advantage at the i5/i7 level across all our tests, but at the i9 level, AMD and Intel are a lot closer. It is only for active tasks that Intel has a significant performance lead with the Core i9 13900K, while passive tasks are on par between the two brands.

Intel Core 13th Gen vs Intel Core 12th Gen for Lightroom Classic

In the previous section, we saw that the new 13th Gen Intel Core CPUs are across the board slightly faster than the AMD Ryzen 7000 Series in Lightroom Classic. This is great as far as the typical "Intel vs AMD" comparison goes, but we also wanted to look at how much faster the 13th Gen processors are compared to the previous 12th Gen CPUs.

Just like the previous section, we want to mention that we are including the Core i9 13900K twice. Intel currently doesn't have a 13th Gen equivalent to the Core i9 12900KS, but we didn't want to leave it out. So, we decided to show the 13900K compared to both the 12900K and 12900KS.

Overall, we are looking at about a 15% performance gain across the board. The Core i9 13900K was only 7% faster than the Core i9 12900KS, although as we noted, that isn't a totally fair comparison since the 12900KS is significantly more expensive ($739 vs $589). In terms of equivalent models, the performance increase is remarkably consistent.

Interestingly, almost all of the gains are for passive tasks. Active tasks (chart #2) saw little to no increase in performance with 13th Gen, whereas for passive tasks (chart #3), the new 13th Gen models are around 20% faster than the previous generation.

How well do the Intel Core 13th Gen CPUs perform in Lightroom Classic?

The new 13th Gen Intel Core processors do well in Lightroom Classic, showing a solid 15% performance gain overall versus the 12th Gen CPUs they are replacing. This allows Intel to take a lead over AMD's new Ryzen 7000 CPUs, especially for active tasks like culling. For passive tasks, however, only the Core i5 13600K and i7 13700K showed significant gains over the Ryzen 7600X and 7700X.

Most Lightroom Classic users are probably going to give a slight preference to Intel 13th Gen over AMD Ryzen 7000 due to the faster performance for active tasks, but we should be clear that AMD and Intel are very, very close in performance. In many cases, we would argue that it will come down to the other applications you tend to use (even if Lightroom Classic is your primary application), since a 10% difference is going to be a bit tough to notice in the real world.

Even for things like exporting, if you are processing enough images that a 10% difference would translate to a significant amount of time, you are probably wanting to invest in something like a Core i9 13900K or Ryzen 7900X (if not Threadripper PRO), in which case the difference between the two is negligible.

With that said, keep in mind that the benchmark results in this article are strictly for Lightroom Classic and that performance will vary widely in different applications. If your workflow includes other software packages, we highly recommend checking out our Intel Core 13th Gen Processors Content Creation Review article which includes results and links to in-depth testing for a range of other applications including Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, DaVinci Resolve, and Unreal Engine.