Tuesday, July 20th 2021
Intel Core i9-12900K Allegedly Beats AMD Ryzen 9 5950X at Cinebench R20
With qualification samples of the upcoming Intel Core i9-12900K "Alder Lake-S" processors and companion Socket LGA1700 motherboards hitting the black-market, expect a deluge of benchmarks on social media. One such that stands out makes a fascinating claim that the i9-12900K beats AMD's current flagship Ryzen 9 5950X processor at Cinebench R20, which has been AMD's favorite multi-threaded benchmark. At stock speeds, with liquid cooling, the i9-12900K allegedly scores 810 points in the single-threaded test, and 11600 points in multi-threaded.
To put these numbers into perspective, a retail Ryzen 9 5950X scores 641 points in the single-threaded test, and 10234 points in multi-threaded, in our own testing. The i9-12900K is technically a 16-core processor, just like the 5950X, but half its cores are low-power "Gracemont." The "Alder Lake-S" chip appears to be making up ground on the single-threaded performance of the "Golden Cove" P-core, that's a whopping 25% higher than the "Zen 3" core on the 5950X. This is aided not just by higher IPC, but also the max boost frequency of 5.30 GHz for 1~2 cores, and 5.00 GHz "all-core" boost (for the P-cores).Given the multi-threaded scores, it's safe to assume that either Intel or Microsoft has figured out a way to leverage the P-cores and E-cores simultaneously in peak multi-threaded workloads. This is possible when both the "Golden Cove" and "Gracemont" cores have the ISA capability needed by the workload, which in case of Cinebench R20, is AVX. "Gracemont" is Intel's first low-power core to support AVX, AVX2, and AVX-VNNI instruction sets. "Golden Cove" features a more lavish ISA that includes AVX-512 (select client-relevant instructions).
Sources:
OneRaichu (Twitter), VideoCardz
To put these numbers into perspective, a retail Ryzen 9 5950X scores 641 points in the single-threaded test, and 10234 points in multi-threaded, in our own testing. The i9-12900K is technically a 16-core processor, just like the 5950X, but half its cores are low-power "Gracemont." The "Alder Lake-S" chip appears to be making up ground on the single-threaded performance of the "Golden Cove" P-core, that's a whopping 25% higher than the "Zen 3" core on the 5950X. This is aided not just by higher IPC, but also the max boost frequency of 5.30 GHz for 1~2 cores, and 5.00 GHz "all-core" boost (for the P-cores).Given the multi-threaded scores, it's safe to assume that either Intel or Microsoft has figured out a way to leverage the P-cores and E-cores simultaneously in peak multi-threaded workloads. This is possible when both the "Golden Cove" and "Gracemont" cores have the ISA capability needed by the workload, which in case of Cinebench R20, is AVX. "Gracemont" is Intel's first low-power core to support AVX, AVX2, and AVX-VNNI instruction sets. "Golden Cove" features a more lavish ISA that includes AVX-512 (select client-relevant instructions).
155 Comments on Intel Core i9-12900K Allegedly Beats AMD Ryzen 9 5950X at Cinebench R20
But don't use Cinebench to extrapolate generic performance, it's very poor at representing that, and it's not even designed for that purpose.
You don't buy a ferrari and whine cos it only does 8mpg
i swear, each time i change CPU the other camp get up (are they waiting on me, or what :roll: ) well ... this time it is of no concern ... i like what i got.
6950X No OC
In water cooler
Cinebench R20
ST: 903
MT: 13 634
BOOM!
Intel 10nm is in laptops, they lost against Zen 3.....
Useless news is useless
ITX boards also command a premium generally.
It's logical that Ryzen 5000 being relatively old by the time Alder Lake releases means there will be a refresh including V-cache higher end SKUs around the same time. What, 200W is way too much? This is not a 32-core.
While I do dislike Intel's PL2, and it does unfortunately confuse a lot of people including you, having a burst power draw of 225W (?) for Alder Lake for a few seconds is not an issue for any half-decent cooler, even the likes of Hyper 212. This burst power draw is only an issue for PSUs, where you have to account for burst power draw. I don't know where you got the IPC figures, but please don't try to extrapolate that from Cinebench.
But Golden Cove is a major architectural overhaul, so there is certainly the possiblity of some gains.
Running the CPU stock is no problem for cooling, and is what "all" of you should do (unless you're intentionally overclocking). Unfortunately not all reviewers have enough knowledge to run CPUs completely at stock when comparing.
High end CPU's will have a high power draw, what do you people want?
that's impressive having small cores with single core performance of a 10900k is nothing short of amazing
It all adds up and makes and a lot of sense to use smaller cores also, that is, IF you can manage running all of them (big/small) in tandem with good efficiency.