SYSTEM ANALYZER

Rate My PC: Intel Core i9-13900KS + Intel Arc A350

Get a comprehensive performance analysis of your gaming rig with detailed benchmarks, bottleneck detection, and upgrade recommendations

85 / 100
HIGH-END

Power Build

Top 15% of systems. Excellent for 1440p Ultra or 4K High gaming.

1440p Ultra4K High

System Balance Analysis

CPU vs GPU performance ratio
GPU Bottleneck
CPU
96%
VS
GPU
74%

Your GPU is limiting system performance. Consider upgrading to a more powerful graphics card to better utilize your CPU.

PROCESSOR

Intel Core i9-13900KS

64,051 Benchmark Score
Top 4% Market Ranking
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GRAPHICS CARD

Intel Arc A350

0 Benchmark Score
Top 26% Market Ranking
View Full Specs →

Market Position

How your build compares to others
Budget
0-30
Mid-Range
30-60
High-End
60-85
Enthusiast
85-100
Your Build

Game Performance Benchmarks

Real-world 4K FPS in popular titles
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Performance Insights

Tips to maximize your system

Strong Performance

Excellent for 1440p gaming. Most games will run at high/ultra settings smoothly.

Bottleneck Detected

GPU Bottleneck - Upgrading the weaker component will improve overall performance.

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Performance Tiers Explained

90-100

Ultimate

4K Ultra gaming, VR ready, ray tracing enabled, professional workloads

4K 60+ FPS VR Ready
70-89

High-End

1440p Ultra or 4K High settings, excellent for modern AAA titles

1440p Ultra 4K High
50-69

Mid-Range

1080p Ultra or 1440p Medium, great value for most gamers

1080p Ultra 1440p Med
30-49

Entry Level

1080p Medium settings, suitable for eSports and older titles

1080p Med eSports
0-29

Legacy

Basic gaming, older titles, consider upgrading for modern games

720p-1080p Low Older Games

# Intel Core i9-13900KS + Intel Arc A350: A Flagship CPU Paired with an Entry-Level GPU

This pairing represents one of the most lopsided combinations in the desktop hardware landscape. The Intel Core i9-13900KS ranks in the 93rd percentile among all CPUs, delivering top-tier multi-threaded performance, while the Intel Arc A350 sits at the 50th percentile among GPUs, squarely in entry-level territory. The data shows a system where CPU-bound workloads will flourish but GPU-accelerated tasks face significant limitations. No measured FPS rows exist for this exact combination, so all frame rate discussion below is estimated from benchmark scores and percentile positions rather than direct testing.

CPU Analysis

The Intel Core i9-13900KS is a 24-core, 32-thread processor built on Intel's Raptor Lake architecture using a 10 nm process node. It features a base clock of 3.20 GHz and a maximum boost clock of 6.00 GHz, with the multiplier unlocked for enthusiast overclocking. The chip carries 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 2 MB of L2 cache per core, and 36 MB of shared L3 cache, totaling a substantial 257 mm² die size. This is a desktop-class processor released in January 2023 with an active production status and a launch MSRP of $699.

Benchmark results confirm the i9-13900KS is a dominant force in multi-threaded workloads. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51,368 points places it among the fastest consumer processors available, while the single-core score of 7,252 points demonstrates exceptional per-thread performance. The 3DMark multi-thread test shows a score of 16,243 at maximum threads, scaling well from 8,812 at 8 threads and 4,754 at 4 threads. This scaling pattern indicates strong thread utilization across the 24-core design, which benefits heavily multi-threaded applications like video rendering, 3D modeling, and scientific computing.

The Geekbench multi-core score of 23,607 and single-core score of 2,771 reinforce the CPU's balanced capability. PassMark results show particularly impressive integer math performance at 211,027 points and floating-point math at 154,805 points, indicating strong arithmetic throughput for both general-purpose and scientific workloads. Data compression scores reach 814,838 points, while encryption performance hits 47,772 points, suggesting solid capabilities for file archiving and security-related tasks. The extended instructions score of 48,217 points indicates good SIMD throughput for modern workloads that leverage AVX-512 or similar instruction sets.

Relative to its nearest rivals, the i9-13900KS is effectively neck-and-neck with the AMD EPYC 7343, which scores 64,202 on average against the Intel chip's 64,051 — a delta of only -0.2%. The Intel Core Ultra 7 265 sits 0.9% ahead at 64,640 points, while the Core Ultra 7 265F trails by 0.6% at 64,438. The AMD Ryzen AI Max PRO 390 scores 63,765, placing it 0.4% behind. This clustering shows the i9-13900KS is competitive with both current-generation and server-class alternatives, though the differences are negligible in real-world terms.

For real workloads, the 3DMark 16-thread score of 11,616 and 8-thread score of 8,812 indicate strong gaming performance in modern titles that utilize 8-16 threads. The Cinebench R15 multi-core score of 5,177 and R20 multi-core score of 21,574 show consistent scaling across rendering benchmarks. The PassMark physics score of 3,441 indicates strong physics simulation capability for gaming and engineering applications.

GPU Analysis

The Intel Arc A350 is an entry-level graphics card built on the Xe-HPG architecture, specifically the Alchemist generation (Arc 3 family). It uses the DG2-128 chip manufactured on TSMC's 6 nm process, containing 7,200 million transistors across a 157 mm² die. The GPU features 768 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster output units, along with 6 dedicated ray tracing cores. It lacks tensor cores in the traditional sense, relying instead on Intel's Xe cores for compute tasks.

Memory configuration consists of 4 GB of GDDR6 VRAM on a 64-bit bus, delivering 124.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The memory clock runs at 1,937 MHz (15.5 Gbps effective), while the GPU base and boost clocks are both set to 2,000 MHz. The card achieves a pixel rate of 48.00 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 96.00 GTexel/s. Compute performance is rated at 3.072 TFLOPS for FP32 and 6.144 TFLOPS for FP16 (2:1 ratio). The GPU has a 25 W TDP with a suggested PSU of 200 W, making it exceptionally power-efficient. It uses a PCIe 4.0 x8 bus interface and is a single-slot design with no display outputs, indicating it is intended for compute or auxiliary use rather than primary display output.

The Arc A350's benchmark data is sparse — the FACT PACK lists no benchmark scores for this GPU. Its 50th percentile ranking among all GPUs places it at the midpoint of the performance distribution, which in practice means it handles light gaming, basic video playback, and modest compute tasks but will struggle with demanding modern titles at high settings. The 4 GB VRAM capacity is a significant constraint, limiting texture quality and resolution in games. The 6 RT cores provide some ray tracing capability, but the low overall compute throughput means ray tracing performance will be modest at best.

The FP32 throughput of 3.072 TFLOPS is roughly in line with entry-level discrete GPUs, while the FP16 figure of 6.144 TFLOPS suggests reasonable performance for AI inference workloads that can leverage reduced precision. The 48.00 GPixel/s pixel rate and 96.00 GTexel/s texture rate indicate the card can handle 1080p gaming at medium settings in less demanding titles, but high-refresh-rate or high-resolution gaming is beyond its capabilities.

FAQ

Q: How does the Core i9-13900KS compare to its closest rivals in multi-threaded performance?

A: The i9-13900KS scores 64,051 on average, which is 0.2% behind the AMD EPYC 7343 (64,202), 0.4% ahead of the AMD Ryzen AI Max PRO 390 (63,765), 0.6% behind the Intel Core Ultra 7 265F (64,438), and 0.9% behind the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 (64,640). The differences are marginal, with all four processors clustering within roughly 1.5% of each other.

Q: What is the maximum boost clock of the i9-13900KS and does it support overclocking?

A: The i9-13900KS has a boost clock of 6.00 GHz and a base clock of 3.20 GHz. The multiplier is unlocked, meaning users can adjust the clock multiplier to overclock the processor beyond its stock settings, though the 150 W TDP establishes the thermal design power envelope.

Q: Does the Arc A350 have enough VRAM for modern gaming?

A: The Arc A350 has 4 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 64-bit bus with 124.0 GB/s bandwidth. This is severely limited for modern gaming, as many titles now require 6-8 GB for high-texture settings at 1080p. The 50th percentile GPU ranking confirms it is entry-level, suitable for light or older games rather than demanding current releases.

Q: What memory types does the i9-13900KS support?

A: The i9-13900KS supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, providing 89.6 GB/s of memory bandwidth. It also supports ECC memory, which is unusual for a consumer desktop processor and beneficial for workstation reliability.

Q: What is the power requirement for the Arc A350?

A: The Arc A350 has a 25 W TDP and a suggested PSU of 200 W. This makes it extremely power-efficient, suitable for small form factor or low-power builds where a high-wattage power supply is unnecessary.

Q: What PCIe generation does the i9-13900KS support?

A: The i9-13900KS supports PCIe Gen 5 with 20 lanes from the CPU. This provides high-bandwidth connectivity for modern GPUs and NVMe storage, though the Arc A350 uses a PCIe 4.0 x8 interface, which is compatible but runs at the older standard.

Q: Is the Arc A350 still in production?

A: No, the Arc A350 has an end-of-life production status. It is a successor to Intel's Xe Graphics and has been succeeded by the Battlemage architecture. This means it may be difficult to find new units, and driver support may diminish over time.

Usage Scenarios

High-Refresh Gaming: The i9-13900KS delivers exceptional CPU-side performance for gaming, with a 3DMark 8-thread score of 8,812 and a PassMark single-thread score of 4,712. However, the Arc A350's 50th percentile GPU ranking and 4 GB VRAM cap frame rates well below what the CPU can feed. This combination is only suitable for esports titles at 1080p with low settings, where the CPU's strong single-thread performance can shine. The 3DMark 2-thread score of 2,412 indicates decent light-thread responsiveness, but heavy titles will be GPU-limited.

Streaming: The i9-13900KS has ample headroom for software encoding thanks to its 24 cores and 32 threads, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51,368. Streaming at 1080p60 with x264 encoding would place minimal strain on the CPU, leaving plenty of cores for the game itself. The Arc A350 does not meaningfully contribute to this workload, though its low 25 W TDP means the system stays cool and quiet during streaming sessions.

Video Editing: The i9-13900KS excels in video editing with a Geekbench multi-core score of 23,607 and a 3DMark max-thread score of 16,243. Timeline scrubbing, color grading, and export encoding will all be fast, with the CPU's 36 MB of L3 cache helping to keep frequently accessed data close. The Arc A350's 3.072 TFLOPS FP32 and 6.144 TFLOPS FP16 performance can assist with GPU-accelerated effects, but the 4 GB VRAM limits working with high-resolution footage or complex effects stacks.

3D Rendering: This is the i9-13900KS's home turf. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51,368 and R20 multi-core score of 21,574 indicate exceptional CPU rendering performance in Blender, 3ds Max, or Maya. The Arc A350 offers minimal acceleration for GPU rendering due to its low compute throughput and 4 GB VRAM; renderers like Octane or Redshift would perform poorly. For CPU-based renderers, this system would outperform nearly all consumer desktops.

Software Development: The i9-13900KS handles compilation and parallel builds with ease, as evidenced by the PassMark data compression score of 814,838 and integer math score of 211,027. The 32 threads allow for massive parallel compilation, while the single-thread score of 4,712 ensures responsive IDE interaction. The Arc A350 is irrelevant for most development tasks, but its 6.144 TFLOPS FP16 could assist with lightweight machine learning model training or inference.

Student and Office Work: This combination is massively overkill for office tasks but technically capable. The i9-13900KS's single-thread performance makes spreadsheet, word processing, and web browsing feel instantaneous, while the Arc A350 handles basic desktop compositing. The 150 W TDP for the CPU and 25 W TDP for the GPU mean the system is relatively power-efficient for desktop workloads, though the $699 launch MSRP of the CPU alone makes this an impractical choice for budget-conscious students.

Benchmark Performance

The i9-13900KS achieves an average benchmark score of 64,051 and ranks in the 93rd percentile among all CPUs. This places it in the top 7% of all processors, alongside server-class chips like the AMD EPYC 7343. The CPU's multi-threaded performance is exceptional, with the Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51,368 being particularly noteworthy. Single-thread performance is equally strong, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 7,252 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2,771.

The Arc A350 ranks in the 50th percentile among all GPUs, with no benchmark scores available in the FACT PACK. This places it at the exact midpoint of GPU performance, meaning half of all GPUs are faster and half are slower. The combined percentile for this pairing is 72, reflecting that the CPU dominates the overall system performance while the GPU drags the combined score down.

The combined picture shows a system that is heavily front-loaded toward CPU performance. The i9-13900KS's 93rd percentile CPU ranking is among the best available, while the Arc A350's 50th percentile GPU ranking is entry-level. In workloads that rely primarily on the CPU — such as rendering, compiling, or scientific computing — this system performs at near-flagship levels. In GPU-bound workloads like gaming or GPU rendering, it performs at entry-level levels. The 3DMark results for the CPU show excellent scaling from 2 threads (2,412) to 16 threads (11,616) to max threads (16,243), confirming the processor's ability to leverage its full 24-core array.

Upgrade Path and Platform

The Intel Core i9-13900KS uses the Intel Socket 1700 platform, which supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory in dual-channel configuration. The system can be configured with either memory type, though DDR5 will provide better bandwidth for memory-intensive workloads. The platform supports PCIe Gen 5 with 20 lanes from the CPU, allowing for modern high-speed NVMe storage and future GPU upgrades that leverage the latest PCIe standard. The CPU has a 150 W TDP, which is manageable for most mid-range to high-end power supplies.

The Arc A350 has a 25 W TDP with a suggested PSU of 200 W, meaning the entire system's power draw is modest. The CPU's 150 W TDP and GPU's 25 W TDP total approximately 175 W under load, excluding other components. This leaves substantial headroom in any standard power supply, making the system easy to cool and power-efficient. The Arc A350 uses a PCIe 4.0 x8 interface, which is fully compatible with the CPU's PCIe Gen 5 lanes, though it operates at the older standard.

A sensible next upgrade would focus on the GPU, as the CPU has substantial headroom for far more powerful graphics cards. The i9-13900KS's 93rd percentile ranking means it will not bottleneck virtually any GPU available, so upgrading to a higher-tier graphics card would immediately unlock the CPU's full gaming potential. The 20 PCIe Gen 5 lanes provide ample bandwidth for any modern GPU. The motherboard platform is mature, with a wide range of Socket 1700 boards offering various feature sets.

For users with DDR4 memory, upgrading to DDR5 would provide a modest performance boost in memory-sensitive workloads, though the 89.6 GB/s bandwidth of the existing configuration is already respectable. The CPU's 36 MB of L3 cache helps mitigate memory latency, reducing the urgency of a memory upgrade. The platform also supports ECC memory, which is valuable for workstation reliability but requires compatible motherboards and memory modules.

Balance and Bottleneck

This system exhibits extreme imbalance, with the CPU being the dominant component and the GPU presenting a clear bottleneck in graphics-intensive workloads. The i9-13900KS's 93rd percentile CPU ranking versus the Arc A350's 50th percentile GPU ranking means the CPU is capable of feeding a GPU that is several tiers higher in performance. In gaming, the Arc A350 will limit frame rates to entry-level levels, while the CPU sits largely idle waiting for the GPU to complete its work.

For CPU-bound workloads, the system is well-balanced. The i9-13900KS's multi-threaded performance is among the best available, and the Arc A350's low power draw means it does not interfere with CPU thermal headroom. In rendering or compilation tasks, the CPU runs at full speed while the GPU contributes minimally, resulting in excellent overall throughput. The PassMark physics score of 3,441 indicates strong CPU-side physics simulation, which is relevant for games that rely on CPU physics.

The FPS scaling in games would be entirely GPU-limited. The Arc A350's 4 GB VRAM and 124.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for high-texture settings at 1080p, and the 3.072 TFLOPS FP32 compute limits fill-rate-bound scenarios. The CPU's 3DMark scores suggest it could support high-refresh-rate gaming at 1080p or even 1440p with a suitable GPU, but the Arc A350 caps performance at well below what the CPU can deliver. The 6 RT cores in the Arc A350 provide ray tracing capability, but the low compute throughput means ray-traced scenes will run at very low frame rates.

Build Overview

This is a desktop-class build pairing Intel's flagship Core 13th Gen processor with Intel's entry-level Arc 3 series GPU. The i9-13900KS is a 24-core, 32-thread Raptor Lake-S processor with a 6.00 GHz boost clock and 150 W TDP, representing the pinnacle of Intel's consumer CPU lineup. The Arc A350 is a 25 W entry-level GPU based on the Xe-HPG architecture with 4 GB GDDR6 memory and 768 shading units, targeting basic compute and light gaming workloads.

The combined percentile of 72 places this system in the upper tier of overall performance, driven almost entirely by the CPU's 93rd percentile ranking. The GPU's 50th percentile ranking is the limiting factor. This is a system that excels at CPU-intensive tasks such as software compilation, 3D rendering, scientific computing, and heavy multitasking, while offering only basic GPU acceleration for graphics tasks. The launch MSRP of the CPU alone is $699, reflecting its flagship status.

The Arc A350's end-of-life production status means this GPU is a legacy component, while the CPU remains in active production. This is an unusual pairing that makes sense only in specific scenarios where CPU performance is paramount and GPU requirements are minimal — for example, a dedicated rendering node or a developer workstation where the GPU is only needed for display output and light compute.

Who Should Build It

Game developers working on CPU-heavy simulation or physics systems would benefit from the i9-13900KS's 51,368 Cinebench R23 multi-core score, though they would likely want a more capable GPU for actual game testing. Software engineers compiling large codebases would see dramatic build time reductions from the 32 threads and 211,027 PassMark integer math score, making this an excellent CI/CD or local build machine. Scientific researchers running CPU-based simulations or data analysis would appreciate the 154,805 floating-point math score and 814,838 data compression score for handling large datasets.

3D animators using CPU-based renderers would find the i9-13900KS's 51,368 Cinebench R23 multi-core score ideal for final frame rendering, while the Arc A350 handles viewport display adequately. Students in computer science or engineering programs would benefit from the CPU's compilation and multitasking capabilities, though the $699 launch MSRP makes this an expensive option for student budgets. Small business workstations handling financial modeling, data analysis, or database workloads would see strong performance from the i9-13900KS's multi-threaded scores, though the Arc A350 offers minimal GPU acceleration for these tasks.

Machine learning engineers working with FP16 inference models could leverage the Arc A350's 6.144 TFLOPS FP16 performance for lightweight model deployment, while the CPU handles data preprocessing and training orchestration with its 24 cores. However, the 4 GB VRAM limits model size significantly. Video editors using CPU-based codecs would experience fast export times from the i9-13900KS, but the Arc A350's 124.0 GB/s bandwidth and 4 GB VRAM limit GPU-accelerated effects and 4K timeline performance. For anyone whose primary workload is gaming or GPU rendering, this pairing is inappropriate — the system would be better served by a mid-range CPU and a more capable GPU.