News Intel Core i9-12900K and Core i5-12600K Review: Retaking the Gaming Crown

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It seems that the 11900K has Adaptive Boost disabled unless specified in the charts? If so that's a huge disservice and misleading. What about MCE? By default on most if not all Z590 boards MCE is enabled and neither are considered overclocking by Intel thus is covered under warranty. I had both a 11900K and 5900X rig and fell in love with the 11900K with MCE left on and ABT enabled to where I sold the 5900X. I don't care about power usage, I'm idling 90% of the hours the machine is on and just want the best performance when I need it. It hits 5.3GHz on 7 of 8 cores simultaneously (Imgur), and holds 5.1Ghz on all 8 cores while gaming, never dipping below. For a daily driver rig, it's quick, the fastest I've ever used.

Regardless, I'm looking forward to upgrading to the 12900K. Great chip, it'll be interesting to see how this evolves.

Yes, I'm sure the 11900K w/MCE gaming experience is quite substandard, and clearly worthy of an upgrade ASAP! :)
 
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m3city

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I think I have to back off from what I said about power efficiency. Could you guys check out this test at Igors Labs, that show 12900 is so MUCH MORE efficient that Ryzen?
Just please don't remove this post for linking to external sites. It's for sake of getting a bigger picture.

05-720-Efficiency-1.png
 
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After watching both HUB's and GN's reviews both showed +7% more performance in games for 12900k vs Zen3 and that's all I need to know.

+7% is laughable, those synthetics and click bait leaks of +50% are BS, like I said then.

I'm really, really NOT impressed at all by the 12900k... Is this the best intel has now? +7% better in games vs Zen3 at 1080p?

If you look at most of the 1080P benchmarks, the 12900K does scale upwards quite darn nicely....
 
It will "beat" 5800x by 4% average in 1080p with a 3090, lmao. How about 1440p, 4k or a lesser GPU?

Yeah, sure take that amazing WIN! /s

Also why don't you pair your new Alder Lake with DDR4 so you can gimp yourself in the future and need to upgrade again for when DDR5 actually makes sense, right? Because now it will actually be much more expensive for little gain to do so... pfft.

There are so many holes in these Alder Lake CPUs, that the Swiss cheese will be jealous on them...

This barely a win Alder Lake has over Zen3 and is gonna be a laugh when Zen3D comes. Enjoy it while it lasts, it won't be for long.
Eh, if you go at it like that the most expensive CPU in this chart the 5950x running full blast PBO was only 15% faster than the cheapest CPU in this chart the 11600k stock at half the price and that's already at FPS of 154-179FPS.
Average in 1080p with a 3090, lmao. How about 1440p (less than 10%) , 4k or a lesser GPU?
Game benchmarks have become useless since any CPU can handle them with way more FPS than anybody needs.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i7-11700k-cpu-review/4
9htYmsNESD8CuwjCkKYjDY-970-80.png.webp
 
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Zarax

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At the bottom after the end of the review there is a table that says "Core i9-12900K and Core i5-12600K Test System Configurations"

It shows:


CoolingCorsair H115i, Custom loop

I must have missed it, thank you!
I wonder if there is any chance of a review with air cooling?
 
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VforV

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I must have missed it, thank you!
I wonder if there is any chance of a review with air cooling?
Did you only look at one review? This one here on this site?

After watching a dozen by now the picture is clear, you need way better cooling (which means more expensive) than Zen3 for 12900k. This is why no reviews show it air cooled, because it gets too hot and it would throttle down...

A Dark Rock Pro 4 is not enough for this highly inefficient CPU and it will reach 100 degrees when maxed out. So a 360 liquid cooler is needed, not a smaller one.

You can see this here:
https://videocardz.com/newz/intel-c...5-12600k-last-minute-cinebench-results-leaked
 
I think I have to back off from what I said about power efficiency. Could you guys check out this test at Igors Labs, that show 12900 is so MUCH MORE efficient that Ryzen?
Just please don't remove this post for linking to external sites. It's for sake of getting a bigger picture.

05-720-Efficiency-1.png

If you look at power usage when gaming at Windows 11 at @720p (or according to he site also 1080p, 1440p and 4K) when not all cores are been taxed at 100% yes Alder Lake seems to be more power efficient under this conditions.
Of course this results don't take in consideration the total system power. I mean if the CPU can handle more frames to the GPU, then the GPU will probably use more power to keep it up. So numbers may differ a little bit if you take the full system power instead. Just a little bit.
I could not find on the article if AMD cpus were tested with or without PBO, which will also affect power usage for AMD for a little performance boost in FPS which I don't believ its worth it for the GPUs we have today when playing newer games, specially AAA ones.
 

InvalidError

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This barely a win Alder Lake has over Zen3 and is gonna be a laugh when Zen3D comes. Enjoy it while it lasts, it won't be for long.
Wait to see the prices on Zen3-3D, I don't expect drilling thousands of TSVs to be cheap on a first/early-gen consumer process. Might be exclusive to the 5900/5950 to relieve fabric and memory controller bottlenecks on dual-CCD CPUs.
 
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The i5 12600KF and, from what HUB showed, the i7 12700KF look to be the CPUs which will carry Alder Lake for now.

This being said, looking at the numbers from the overall reviews and assuming upgrading from scratch (full platform), there is a case to be made for both the i5 and i7. The i9 is a harder pill to swallow, specially considering the cooling requirement and overall performance you get compared to the 5950X for productivity. But for everyone else, and a big majority of people, the i5 and i7 siblings are the interesting ones.

For gaming, the i5 is NOT going to be a value king, but at least it'll be slightly better than the 5600X for the time being assuming you'll make do with DDR4 while keeping enough grunt for a bit of multi-threading tasks. It definitely displaces the 5800X in my opinion and slots in perfectly well there. Out of all the line up from AMD, the only CPU that is really affected by Alder Lake is the 5600X IMO, and that was because they didn't want to make a cheaper version of it, lol.

Anyway, Win11 is still an annoyance, but seems like you can make do with Win10 at least. Until the quirks and annoyances are fleshed out, an i5 12K+DDR4 is looking to be a very good alternative to the reign of the 5600X. Platform-wise though, Intel is still a tad higher in price, but at least it is now a viable option for an all-around good build. While the i5 12K is AMD's biggest annoyance now, Intel's biggest annoyance is B550 being too good still as a chipset and they'll need to launch the B660* (or whatever is called) rather soon.

Regards.
 
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m3city

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If you look at power usage when gaming at Windows 11 at @720p (or according to he site also 1080p, 1440p and 4K) when not all cores are been taxed at 100% yes Alder Lake seems to be more power efficient under this conditions. (...)

Thanks for explanation.
If I get it right, then following scenarios - outcome may happen:

Scenario A: gaming where either GPU is bottleneck, utilized at 100% (lets say a current mainstream or old card), moreover game does not tax all cores specifically - system does the magic here. Pressure on AMD and Intel would be similar. Outcome according to that test would be more efficient Intel, no need for water cooling. In case of maxed out GPU and no artificial limits on fps, Intel would be sweating at 240W - with adequate cooling and provide 10% more fps OR throttle, power somewhere near Ryzen, provide similar/lower fps but actual calculated performance would be better than AMD.

Scenario B: encoding, streaming, multitasking with that and gaming together: intel cpu goes up to limits if possible. Efficency miserable.

As few posters indicated before, daily tasks do not compose from gaming only, 100% cpu loads. Most of the time it's idling. And thats where Intel really shines. Then its up to personal prefference, budget and approach to computer updates. I do start from entry CPU and update along the way using AM4 and FM1, 2 sockets before.

I have to admit I was wrong yesterday about this new series.

Did intel say whether this socket may stay for more than one iteration?
 
Thanks for explanation.
If I get it right, then following scenarios - outcome may happen:

Scenario A: gaming where either GPU is bottleneck, utilized at 100% (lets say a current mainstream or old card), moreover game does not tax all cores specifically - system does the magic here. Pressure on AMD and Intel would be similar. Outcome according to that test would be more efficient Intel, no need for water cooling. In case of maxed out GPU and no artificial limits on fps, Intel would be sweating at 240W - with adequate cooling and provide 10% more fps OR throttle, power somewhere near Ryzen, provide similar/lower fps but actual calculated performance would be better than AMD.

Scenario B: encoding, streaming, multitasking with that and gaming together: intel cpu goes up to limits if possible. Efficency miserable.

As few posters indicated before, daily tasks do not compose from gaming only, 100% cpu loads. Most of the time it's idling. And thats where Intel really shines. Then its up to personal prefference, budget and approach to computer updates. I do start from entry CPU and update along the way using AM4 and FM1, 2 sockets before.

I have to admit I was wrong yesterday about this new series.

Did intel say whether this socket may stay for more than one iteration?

Well, thing is Win 11 still too young and BIOS and drivers are also too young, so as Phaaze88 wrote earlier, I would wait a few months and re-run all this test again.

Now, from what I seen soo far it seems the only "issue" this Alder Lake CPU have is temnperature when runing without limits. In this scenario they are hot so you will most likely want a big AIO (360mm) for the core i7 and i9 (you may get by with a good 280mm for the core i7 if you don't mind runing near or above to the 85°C in many intensive tasks).

More important, if you look at HUB (Intel Core i7 12700KF Review, Core i7 Goes After Ryzen 9!) review of the Core i7 12700KF, you will realize that for the time been it seems the 12900K is really not worth it at all for gaming, and probably not even woth it for productivity value CPU (when you consider power usage, cooling and price).

In fact the 12700k accoridng to that review have a very interesting efficiency vs Ryzen even in productivity, when you not only consider the power usage alone, but also the performance.

So yeah, If I have to pick a great, probably best all around CPU for gaming and productivity today will probably be the Core i7 12700K/KF.

Too bad at this point we don't have a 12700 (non-k) to test, that may even be a better value overall, but im jumping into the future here lol.

Cheers!
 
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Eh, I'm not so sure. Even with a DDR5 kit currently costing more than double what a DDR4-3600 kit can be had for, the DDR4 appears to be able to outperform it in things like games, and performs fairly similar overall, making the gains from using DDR5 kits rather questionable. Sure, all-around faster DDR5 will come eventually, but there's no guarantee it will necessarily be fully compatible with these processors.

And it's not like people are going to be clamoring to upgrade to faster RAM that improves their performance slightly over their existing RAM. RAM upgrades typically only make sense if you need more RAM than you currently have, but it seems likely that 32GB will be plenty for the vast majority of systems for a number of years to come, given the slow increase in memory utilization that we've been seeing for years. 32GB of DDR4-3600 CAS18 is readily available for around $120. Going with DDR5 for some slight performance gains in certain software is a bit like paying a huge premium for higher-frequency DDR4. In general, the faster RAM doesn't tend to make that much of a difference, at least not enough to justify the price difference. I suppose going the DDR5 route might not make a huge difference to a multi-thousand dollar enthusiast-level system built around a 12900K, but DDR4 might be better suited to most 12600K builds.

By the time faster DDR5 is available and reasonably priced, there will undoubtedly be newer, faster CPUs out, that will probably require new motherboards anyway. I'm not even sure that getting an overclocking-capable motherboard will be worthwhile for these processors either, seeing as they don't appear to overclock particularly well.
I say to that, don't give people the benefit of the doubt. Some will/would do it. It's not going to be everyone, of course.
The rest will just need to be given time.


You were talking about forgetting air cooling even for games because apparently you think they are running at 241W but even the hardest heaviest core loads can be run at 125W and still roughly match the 5950x.
You could cool it with a stock intel cooler and it would be fine because it would automatically throttle down to using the 125W that the cooler would provide and you would still be close to 5950x performance.
Most games won't push a 12900K like Blender will, but it can't be ignored that there are some that can do similar to it - they are few.
I can't read minds and I can't predict the future in regards to what people play, or what they are going to play, but if random strangers on the internet asks what kind of cooler to pair with that cpu, I would play it safe and tell them to put a 280mm or larger liquid cooler on it... because I do not know what they are going to do with it.
Excuse me for trying to take into account an extreme variable.
 
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I'm sorry to say here, but so many people here are saying it's eitheer incorrect, or the page doesn't work. I don't believe it because not only is this an unreliable source, you aren't even a reliable poster yourself. Jayztwocents, nexus gaming and Linus hasn't put up a video yet about this being true. Untill they post something simalair, I won't believe this!


ok, thats fine but just to make things clear, which parts exactly are the ones you don't want to believe?
 
Most games won't push a 12900K like Blender will, but it can't be ignored that there are some that can do similar to it - they are few.
I can't read minds and I can't predict the future in regards to what people play, or what they are going to play, but if random strangers on the internet asks what kind of cooler to pair with that cpu, I would play it safe and tell them to put a 280mm or larger liquid cooler on it... because I do not know what they are going to do with it.
Excuse me for trying to take into account an extreme variable.
The only reason to suggest huge cooling is to play a bad joke at someones expense, to make them use 240w when they don't need to.
If you look at the computerbase numbers running full throttle 240+ w compared to PBP of pretty much sticking to 125 average is a 3% difference even in multi threaded workloads. So you want at least 125W of cooling but you don't need to cool for 240W.
intel is using turbo 2 and adaptive thermal monitor for years now and the CPU will automatically adjust to the cooling you have installed, you should go above 125 to have some headroom and better temps but you do not need to cool for 240W + .

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/processors/core/core-technical-resources.html
VOLUME 1
CIcPR0J.jpg

using a 47W passive cooler will limit you at around that.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhKOHKOSa6Y

Using a single raw egg as liquid cooling will limit you to whatever that is.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL40UN5p6IY
 
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Then why do they do it? Why do motherboard manufacturers go with this high power limit, and why does Intel either not object to it, or possibly even encourage it, if all it does is make them look bad, and there's no serious benefit to it?
 

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12600K and 12700K looking real nice, so far, especially the latter. It might be 'the one'... until 12400 and B660 come around.

Then why do they do it? Why do motherboard manufacturers go with this high power limit, and why does Intel either not object to it, or possibly even encourage it, if all it does is make them look bad, and there's no serious benefit to it?
Sweet, sweet marketing sales.
It helps make their products look good, not bad; most PC users don't look at power metrics except when it's actually the cause for any problems they might have.
Your cpu will perform better on our product than the competitions'. Get ours for the ultimate in performance. It doesn't even matter if the performance difference is less than 1%, but the use of 'honey-dipped' words + slides will draw customers in, and it'll be a success.
 

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How is this a scientific test? No PBO on any of the AMD processors? A AMD 5600x still wrecks these new intel chips. Literally with the click of the button in the bios you enanble PBO and safely run AMD overlocking without any issues and you go straight to the leaderboards. Would love to see some more scientific and fair testing.
Ask AMD to cover PBO under warranty. Until then PBO shouldn’t be reviewed. Also 12600k is a k chip and should have been overclocked since warranty covers overclocking
 

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Also 12600k is a k chip and should have been overclocked since warranty covers overclocking
Nope. Intel's official stance is that overclocking and even just enabling XMP (operating at voltages and frequencies above specifications) voids your warranty.
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005494/processors.html

I doubt there is much "overclocking" headroom left on a CPU that will already happily boost to 230W stock as long as the VRM and cooling can keep up with it.
 

VforV

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Wait to see the prices on Zen3-3D, I don't expect drilling thousands of TSVs to be cheap on a first/early-gen consumer process. Might be exclusive to the 5900/5950 to relieve fabric and memory controller bottlenecks on dual-CCD CPUs.
To be honest I don't care much about prices of Zen 3D, I'll most likely buy a Zen3 when Zen3D comes. I usually do that, buy the last gen at a good discount. I moved from Zen+ to Zen2 at the start of this year for a difference of $50 after selling my Zen+.
I like these kind of deals and considering my B450 MAX will support even Zen3D I can still do this jump 2 more times, next year to Zen3 and later to Zen3D, before I even consider jumping to the AM5 platform.

But if AMD wins, it's better for me than if intel does. I can't like a company that gave us for 7 years 5% increments of performance gen to gen and milked everyone until there was only dust left...
 
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Then why do they do it? Why do motherboard manufacturers go with this high power limit, and why does Intel either not object to it, or possibly even encourage it, if all it does is make them look bad, and there's no serious benefit to it?
Motherboard manufacturers want to look good or at least not worse than the other ones in benchmarks so everybody has ridiculous settings.
If intel locks power draw down everybody is going to talk about how intel locks everything down again and that's something that intel doesn't want.

There is a big benefit for light threads like games or general multitasking because they can boost single/few thread as high as possible and as long as possible within power and temps instead of being cut off at 125 (or whatever other point) and leaving performance on the table.

For hardcore productivity though you do want to cut the power off at some point because those always run at maximum and lifting power limits doesn't increase clocks so you don't get any better performance for more power.
 
But if AMD wins, it's better for me than if intel does. I can't like a company that gave us for 7 years 5% increments of performance gen to gen and milked everyone until there was only dust left...
Because AMD was sitting on their thumbs for 7 years giving us 0% increments of performance "gen" to "gen" coming out with new generations of the exact same CPU clocked differently.
I rather be milked and get 5% than to be milked and get 0% .
 
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