The specifications and very early (read: terrible) performance numbers for Intel's next-generation flagship CPU, the probably-called 13900K, have leaked, showcasing that the next-gen chip will have the same eight performance cores as the current Alder Lake 12900K, but will double the number of efficiency cores to 16, making it a 24 core processor with support for up to 32 simultaneous threads.
Intel looks set to continue its drive to massively increase core counts on its chips, not through additional performance cores as AMD has done with its Ryzen style of processor — its flagship chip has a total of 16 high performance cores — but with a greater number of smaller, efficiency, or E cores. These cores are far less performative than the big cores, running about as fast on a per core basis as 2015 Skylake cores. With their increased number, however, they can handle background tasks very effectively, and allow the full eight P cores to do the heavy lifting in games where single threaded performance is more important.
The 12900K has become the fastest gaming CPU in the world, so it will be interesting to see what the 13900K will be able to do with so many additional E cores. Its multi-threaded performance in video editing, transcribing, and other heavily multi-threaded tasks, should be impressive.
The performance numbers WCCFTech has aren't particularly impressive — a little behind a Ryzen 9 5950X, and way behind the Core i9-12900K — but this chip will have been running at much lower clock speeds than the eventual retail chip will.
When it does start to hit higher speeds, a core configuration like this, especially on the smaller Intel process node that Raptor lake will use, should give AMD's Zen 4 chips a real run for their money.