News Intel Core i9-12900K Alder Lake CPUs Go On Sale For Over $1,000 In China

TheOtherOne

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Buy an unreleased CPU with no warranty, no available motherboard, in lots of 100 from China. What could possible go wrong? ;)
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Buy an unreleased CPU with no warranty, no available motherboard, in lots of 100 from China. What could possible go wrong? ;)
One alder lake + 99 older samples...
There is no way one single person got their hands on 100 alder lake samples, even more than one would be a stretch.
Apparently, the anonymous seller is only willing to sell the Alder Lake qualification samples in bulk — 100 units is the minimum order. However, it would also include older engineering samples as well.
 

mac_angel

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I don't think overclocking these new CPUs would be any more complicated than any others, just a matter of separating them in the BIOS. Not sure if the smaller ones would be included in the overclocing capabilities, but either way, just have their own group. I think it's more a matter of how Windows can implement the differences
 
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peachpuff

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Knowing Intel, and as the upcoming 12900K is a 16 core CPU, that $1000 may not be far from retail prices anyway... :)
16 core on paper, if it uses the small cores for light tasks and big cores for heavy tasks then is it really a 16 core? It better use all the cores when needed.
Maybe there's a hidden pl3 rated at 300w+ just for that.
 

spongiemaster

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16 core on paper, if it uses the small cores for light tasks and big cores for heavy tasks then is it really a 16 core? It better use all the cores when needed.
Maybe there's a hidden pl3 rated at 300w+ just for that.
As already mentioned, the Gracemont cores are equivalent to Skylake cores. Skylake cores have the same IPC as Coffee Lake that is only 3.5 years old. An 8700k isn't exactly a slow CPU today. So while the Gracemont cores are called "little" , that's a bit of a misnomer. Little only compared to Golden Cove cores which are supposed to be huge. The 12900k with 8 large cores and 8 smaller cores will likely double the multithreaded performance of an 11900k, which would be better performance than a theoretical 16 core Rocket Lake.

Edit, forgot, the 9 series was a Coffee Lake refresh with new security features and higher clocks. Meaning gracemont has basically the same IPC as a 9900k which is still being sold today.
 
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16 core on paper, if it uses the small cores for light tasks and big cores for heavy tasks then is it really a 16 core? It better use all the cores when needed.
Maybe there's a hidden pl3 rated at 300w+ just for that.
That's like saying that a ryzen with two ccxs is only half the cores...
if ryzen can use cores on a basically completely different cpu for heavy tasks then why wouldn't this where everything is on the same "core complex" .

Also if you look at it, the 16 core 5950x runs at 5ghz on a single core but on 3.77 on all core so alder lake is at least as much an 16 core as the 5950x.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1621...e-review-5950x-5900x-5800x-and-5700x-tested/8
 

NP

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That's like saying that a ryzen with two ccxs is only half the cores...
if ryzen can use cores on a basically completely different cpu for heavy tasks then why wouldn't this where everything is on the same "core complex" .

Also if you look at it, the 16 core 5950x runs at 5ghz on a single core but on 3.77 on all core so alder lake is at least as much an 16 core as the 5950x.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1621...e-review-5950x-5900x-5800x-and-5700x-tested/8

No, that's not like it at all. 16-core CPU = 16 big cores. 8 big + 8 small = 8 + something core CPU.
 
No, that's not like it at all. 16-core CPU = 16 big cores.
But with big cores you mean that they all should have the same performance, right?!
That is not given if one core runs at 5Ghz while all cores run on 3.7, no matter if it's because of power and heat being too high or because some cores are smaller.

In fact if you run a load on all cores of the 5950x you are left with no big cores at all since not even one of them will be able to boost higher than 3.7 , with what intel does the bigger cores will always be able to boost to their expected turbos even if all cores are fully loaded.
 

spongiemaster

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But with big cores you mean that they all should have the same performance, right?!
That is not given if one core runs at 5Ghz while all cores run on 3.7, no matter if it's because of power and heat being too high or because some cores are smaller.

In fact if you run a load on all cores of the 5950x you are left with no big cores at all since not even one of them will be able to boost higher than 3.7 , with what intel does the bigger cores will always be able to boost to their expected turbos even if all cores are fully loaded.
I get your point, but that's really a stretch. There's a reason Alder Lake is called a big little configuration. With overclocking on current CUPU's, you can get pretty close to all cores running at stock single core boost speeds. That won't be remotely possible with AlderLake, as Golden Cove is rumored to have up to 50% higher IPC than Skylake while also having hyperthreading which the Gracemont cores lack.
 
I get your point, but that's really a stretch. There's a reason Alder Lake is called a big little configuration. With overclocking on current CUPU's, you can get pretty close to all cores running at stock single core boost speeds. That won't be remotely possible with AlderLake, as Golden Cove is rumored to have up to 50% higher IPC than Skylake while also having hyperthreading which the Gracemont cores lack.
It's called big.bigger because both types of cores are going to be decent, at least that's what intel says.

With up to 8cores, yes you can, but on 16 cores like the 5950x you need liquid nitrogen and a very expensive setup to even consider it.

With alder you will still be able to get the 8 main cores + HTT to 5 Ghz all core and all the other cores will still be there for bonus multithreaded performance or ideally you will also be able to disable them completely to get better clocks on the main cores, depending on what you want.
 

watzupken

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As already mentioned, the Gracemont cores are equivalent to Skylake cores. Skylake cores have the same IPC as Coffee Lake that is only 3.5 years old. An 8700k isn't exactly a slow CPU today. So while the Gracemont cores are called "little" , that's a bit of a misnomer. Little only compared to Golden Cove cores which are supposed to be huge. The 12900k with 8 large cores and 8 smaller cores will likely double the multithreaded performance of an 11900k, which would be better performance than a theoretical 16 core Rocket Lake.

Edit, forgot, the 9 series was a Coffee Lake refresh with new security features and higher clocks. Meaning gracemont has basically the same IPC as a 9900k which is still being sold today.
It is true that the Gracemont cores are expected to be as fast as Skylake. Skylake was a good CPU during its time, but when you consider that Intel had to push the clock speed so hard to make Coffee Lake and subsequently Comet Lake competitive against the Ryzen 5000 series, I am not expect a 8+8 config to be any faster than a full power 16 core processor, i.e. 5950X. And with a PL2 of 228W vs 140+ W on the Ryzen 5950X, I really don't think the hybrid cores is making a big dent on Alder Lake's efficiency as a whole when both the Golden Cove and Gracemont cores are supposedly manufactured on Intel's 10nm SuperFin. Moreover, Intel's SMT seems to be behind Ryzen's which I believe is the reason why it tends to fall behind in multithreaded performance.

In any case, the product is expected to be release by end of this year. So we will get a sense how much improvement in performance will Alder Lake bring to the table.
 
And with a PL2 of 228W vs 140+ W on the Ryzen 5950X,
The default PPT (equivalent of the pl2 ) for the 5950x is 200W.

Ryzen master auto PBO in this example uses 19% of the max 1200W which comes out to 228W....coincidence?! It also shows 200W usage on the CPU.
image
 

spongiemaster

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It is true that the Gracemont cores are expected to be as fast as Skylake. Skylake was a good CPU during its time, but when you consider that Intel had to push the clock speed so hard to make Coffee Lake and subsequently Comet Lake competitive against the Ryzen 5000 series, I am not expect a 8+8 config to be any faster than a full power 16 core processor, i.e. 5950X.
Coffee Lake was released a year and a half before Zen 2. What Intel did with that series had nothing at all to do with Zen 3 which was 3 years away. Dump on Skylake all you want, it wasn't until Zen 3, released less than a year ago that AMD had a CPU that was faster on a per core basis.
 

spongiemaster

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It's called big.bigger because both types of cores are going to be decent, at least that's what intel says.

Link?

With up to 8cores, yes you can, but on 16 cores like the 5950x you need liquid nitrogen and a very expensive setup to even consider it.

You don't need liquid nitrogen to all core clock a 5950x to 4.7-4.8Ghz.

With alder you will still be able to get the 8 main cores + HTT to 5 Ghz all core and all the other cores will still be there for bonus multithreaded performance or ideally you will also be able to disable them completely to get better clocks on the main cores, depending on what you want.
The leaks are saying boosting could go as high as 5.3Ghz, making your 5Ghz all core not big core equivalent as you say. You don't need a crystal ball to know single core boosting will be higher than all core boosting. Every single Intel CPU has worked that way since boosting has been introduced.
 

Bazzy 505

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Pretty bold asking price for what is essentially stolen property.
Oh well that's China for you, if it happened in US somebody would be sitting in jail about now.
 
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/i...dy-looks-confusing-12-configurations-possible
Intel first used this design on its 3D Lakefield chips for laptops and dubbed it "Big-Bigger." Alder Lake will bring the concept to desktop PCs.
You don't need liquid nitrogen to all core clock a 5950x to 4.7-4.8Ghz.
But you do to get all cores up to single core boost.
The leaks are saying boosting could go as high as 5.3Ghz, making your 5Ghz all core not big core equivalent as you say. You don't need a crystal ball to know single core boosting will be higher than all core boosting. Every single Intel CPU has worked that way since boosting has been introduced.
Sure, 5.3 on all main cores is going to be very tough, the 11900k also has 5.3 single and all core within at least some degree of reason reaches 5.1-5.2 Ghz all core.
 

Conahl

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The default PPT (equivalent of the pl2 ) for the 5950x is 200W.

Ryzen master auto PBO in this example uses 19% of the max 1200W which comes out to 228W....coincidence?! It also shows 200W usage on the CPU.
and intel will STILL use more power over all then amd. this is FACT. pretty much EVERY review states this. you seem to be the ONLY one that keeps trying to say other wise by cherry picking a graph, or phrase in a review to try to convince people other wise. i guess this is why you didnt reply to my post here, as i proved you wrong.

and again, toms own review here says this about the 11700k :
Against
  • Price
  • No bundled cooler
  • No PCIe 4.0 from PCH
  • Power Consumption
  • Runs hot
  • No TVB or Adaptive Boost Tech
page 3 reiterates this in the graphs on the page, and says this : " Bear in mind that faster compute times, and lower task energy requirements, are ideal. That means processors that fall the closest to the bottom left corner of the chart are best. That distinction still belongs to Ryzen. "

so where you get this false info about intel uses less, or the same power as ryzen, who knows, but, obviously, you are getting the wrong info from some where, as you go against what seems to be the majority of reviews state.

until alder lake is out and reviewed, how it performs, and its power usage, is still a big question mark.
 
and intel will STILL use more power over all then amd. this is FACT. pretty much EVERY review states this. you seem to be the ONLY one that keeps trying to say other wise by cherry picking a graph, or phrase in a review to try to convince people other wise. i guess this is why you didnt reply to my post here, as i proved you wrong.

and again, toms own review here says this about the 11700k :
Against
  • Price
  • No bundled cooler
  • No PCIe 4.0 from PCH
  • Power Consumption
  • Runs hot
  • No TVB or Adaptive Boost Tech
page 3 reiterates this in the graphs on the page, and says this : " Bear in mind that faster compute times, and lower task energy requirements, are ideal. That means processors that fall the closest to the bottom left corner of the chart are best. That distinction still belongs to Ryzen. "

so where you get this false info about intel uses less, or the same power as ryzen, who knows, but, obviously, you are getting the wrong info from some where, as you go against what seems to be the majority of reviews state.

until alder lake is out and reviewed, how it performs, and its power usage, is still a big question mark.
Do you even look at the reviews you are posting?
The 11700k is faster than the 5800x in productivity even with power limits enforced and the power draw is barely higher than that of the 5800x.

Tom's chooses to use the lifted power limits numbers for the power comparison for absolutely no good reason.
Or there are different people writing the different parts of the review because it doesn't make any sense.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i7-11700k-cpu-review/2
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