Intel Core i5-13420H vs Intel Core i7-9700 Comparison

The Intel Core i5-13420H and Intel Core i7-9700 make for an unusual comparison: a current mobile Raptor Lake-H processor against an end-of-life Coffee Lake Refresh desktop chip. The database shows both sitting at the 72nd percentile versus all recorded CPUs, with aggregate scores of 18511 for the i5-13420H and 18180 for the i7-9700, a gap of under two percent. Yet the head-to-head record is lopsided: the i5-13420H takes 14 of 17 shared benchmark wins. The details matter, because the i7-9700 still claims a few narrow but meaningful victories.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The i5-13420H's largest win is in Passmark data encryption, where its score of 11559 beats the i7-9700's 4322 by 167.4 percent. That gap reflects the modern cryptography and vector instruction support baked into Raptor Lake, and it is the single most decisive result in the dataset.

Cinebench R15 tells a similar story. The i5-13420H posts 1738 multi-core against 1128, a 54.1 percent lead, and 238 single-core against 159, up 49.7 percent. The margin narrows in Cinebench R20, with the i5 ahead 6013 to 4704 in multi-core (27.8 percent) and 848 to 664 in single-core (27.7 percent). By Cinebench R23 the multi-core race effectively closes: the i7-9700 edges ahead 11200 to 11084, a 1 percent win for the older chip, while the i5-13420H retains the single-core lead at 1689 versus 1581, or 6.8 percent.

Passmark results largely favor the newer processor. Integer math goes to the i5-13420H by 44.9 percent (58156 to 40138), floating point math by 25.2 percent (42806 to 34187), multithread by 32.2 percent (17475 to 13223), physics by 23.4 percent (1012 to 820), single thread by 23.2 percent (3396 to 2756), data compression by 15.5 percent (209450 to 181411), and prime number search by 8.3 percent (52 to 48).

The i7-9700's three wins deserve scrutiny. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core result of 11200 confirms that eight full cores without SMT contention can still match a hybrid 8-core, 12-thread design in heavily multi-threaded rendering. Its Passmark extended instructions score of 14488 beats the i5's 12897 by 11 percent, and its random string sorting score of 23482 beats 22045 by 6.1 percent. These are narrow, workload-specific advantages rather than a broad pattern.

Against the wider field, the two processors occupy nearly identical territory. The i5-13420H's nearest rivals include the Intel Core i3-14100F at an average score of 18519 and the AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 8300GE at 18505, both at 0 percent delta. The i7-9700's closest comparables include the Intel Core i7-1365U at 18177 and the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U at 18176, again at 0 percent delta. In other words, the two chips in this matchup are statistically interchangeable in aggregate while diverging sharply in specific workloads.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gulf between these parts is wide. The i5-13420H is built on Intel's 10 nm process under the Raptor Lake-H codename, while the i7-9700 uses the 14 nm Coffee Lake architecture. The older desktop die measures 180.3 mm²; no die size or transistor count is recorded for the mobile part.

Core topology differs. Both have 8 cores, but the i5-13420H exposes 12 threads to the i7-9700's 8, since the Coffee Lake part lacks hyper-threading. Clock behavior also splits: the i7-9700 runs a higher base clock at 3.00 GHz versus 2.10 GHz, while the i5-13420H boosts slightly lower at 4.60 GHz versus 4.70 GHz. Despite the clock disadvantage, the newer architecture wins nearly every single-thread benchmark in the database.

Cache configurations diverge sharply. The i5-13420H carries 80 KB of L1 per core and 2 MB of L2 per core, against 64 KB L1 and 256 KB L2 per core on the i7-9700. Both share the same 12 MB L3 capacity.

Memory and I/O separate the generations further. The i5-13420H supports both DDR4 and DDR5 on a dual-channel bus, while the i7-9700 is DDR4 only, also dual-channel, with recorded bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s. PCIe is the sharpest platform difference: Gen 5 with 8 CPU lanes on the mobile part versus Gen 3 with 16 CPU lanes on the desktop part, a trade of lane count for per-lane bandwidth.

Integrated graphics differ too: Iris Xe Graphics 80EU on the i5-13420H against UHD Graphics 630 on the i7-9700. Power envelopes reflect their segments, 45 W for the mobile chip against 65 W for the desktop. Neither has ECC support or an unlocked multiplier. The i5-13420H shipped in January 2023 and remains in active production; the i7-9700 launched in April 2019 with a launch MSRP of $333 and is now end-of-life. Sockets are incompatible by design: Intel BGA 1744, soldered mobile packaging, versus the socketed Intel Socket 1151.

FAQ

Q: Which CPU is faster overall?

A: The i5-13420H wins 14 of 17 head-to-head benchmarks and holds a higher aggregate score, 18511 versus 18180. The i7-9700 leads only in Cinebench R23 multi-core, Passmark extended instructions, and Passmark random string sorting.

Q: Does the i7-9700 win anything in multi-core workloads?

A: Yes. It scores 11200 in Cinebench R23 multi-core versus 11084 for the i5-13420H, a 1 percent edge. In older Cinebench versions the i5 dominates, so rendering performance depends on which test generation is used.

Q: Which has better single-core performance?

A: The i5-13420H wins every recorded single-thread test: Cinebench R15 by 49.7 percent, R20 by 27.7 percent, R23 by 6.8 percent, and Passmark single thread by 23.2 percent.

Q: Do they support the same memory?

A: No. The i5-13420H supports DDR4 and DDR5; the i7-9700 supports DDR4 only. Both use dual-channel memory buses.

Q: Is either CPU still in production?

A: The i5-13420H is listed as active. The i7-9700 is end-of-life, having launched in April 2019.

Q: Can you overclock either chip?

A: No. Neither has an unlocked multiplier.

Specification Differences

• Threads: 12 (i5-13420H) vs 8 (i7-9700); both have 8 cores.
• Base clock: 2.10 GHz vs 3.00 GHz.
• Boost clock: 4.60 GHz vs 4.70 GHz.
• TDP: 45 W vs 65 W.
• Process node: 10 nm vs 14 nm.
• Architecture / codename: Raptor Lake (Raptor Lake-H) vs Coffee Lake.
• L1 cache: 80 KB per core vs 64 KB per core.
• L2 cache: 2 MB per core vs 256 KB per core.
• L3 cache: identical at 12 MB shared.
• Memory support: DDR4 and DDR5 vs DDR4 only.
• PCIe: Gen 5, 8 CPU lanes vs Gen 3, 16 CPU lanes.
• Integrated graphics: Iris Xe Graphics 80EU vs UHD Graphics 630.
• Socket: Intel BGA 1744 vs Intel Socket 1151.
• Market segment: Mobile vs Desktop.
• Production status: Active vs End-of-life.
• Release timing: January 2023 vs April 2019.
• Part numbers: SRMHX vs SRG13.

Where Each One Wins

The i5-13420H is the clear choice for anything that leans on single-thread speed or modern instruction sets. Its 23.2 percent Passmark single-thread lead and consistent Cinebench single-core wins make it the better fit for lightly threaded applications, and the 167.4 percent encryption advantage makes it dominant for cryptographic workloads. It also wins general compute broadly: integer math by 44.9 percent, multithread by 32.2 percent, floating point by 25.2 percent, and physics by 23.4 percent. Its DDR5 support, PCIe Gen 5 interface, and active production status make it the more future-proof platform, and it does all of this within a 45 W mobile envelope.

The i7-9700 retains two defensible niches in the recorded data. First, current-generation multi-threaded rendering: its 11200 Cinebench R23 multi-core score narrowly beats the i5's 11084, showing that eight full desktop cores still hold their own when a workload saturates every thread. Second, its Passmark extended instructions win of 11 percent and string sorting win of 6.1 percent indicate select SIMD-heavy and memory-sequential tasks where the Coffee Lake design still lands ahead. Its 16 PCIe Gen 3 lanes also give it more CPU-attached lanes than the i5's 8, relevant for multi-device expansion on the desktop socket.

The verdict from the database is straightforward. The i5-13420H wins 14 of 17 tests and delivers its performance at a lower TDP on a newer node with a newer platform. The i7-9700 remains competitive only in sustained all-core rendering and a couple of specialized Passmark subtests, which is respectable for a chip that launched nearly four years earlier, but not enough to change the overall balance.