Friday, January 7th 2022
Curious-looking Core i5-12490F Surfaces in China with Additional L3 Cache
Intel released the substantive portion of its 12th Generation Core, Pentium, and Celeron desktop processors to the retail market, based on the latest "Alder Lake" architecture. The part that's making the most waves is the Core i5-12400, a 6-core/12-thread part that only features "Golden Cove" P-cores (no E-cores or the software-optimization issues they bring). The i5-12400/F, i5-12500, and i5-12600, are based on the "H0" die of "Alder Lake-S," which physically only features six "Golden Cove" P-cores, no "Gracemont" E-core clusters, and only has 18 MB of L3 cache. The larger "C0" die is used across the i5-12600K, Core i7 and Core i9 chips, physically has 8 "Golden Cove" P-cores, 8 "Gracemont" E-cores across two E-core clusters, and 30 MB of L3 cache. It's important to lay out this piece of information to understand what Intel did with the new Core i5-12490F processor that's spotted in markets across Asia.
Apparently Intel is sitting on a pile of "C0" dies, and decided to create the i5-12490F. This chip has 6 "Golden Cove" P-cores, no E-cores, but 20 MB of L3 cache; and is based on a heavily cut-down "C0" silicon. As an "F" SKU, it also disables the iGPU on the silicon. The clocks set are 3.00 GHz nominal, and 4.60 GHz boost, compared to 2.50 GHz nominal, and 4.40 GHz boost of the i5-12400/F, and identical clock speeds to the i5-12500. It's quite puzzling how the "H0" based i5-12500 is differentiated from this chip, given its lower 18 MB L3 cache amount. The base power value is set at 65 W, with maximum turbo power at 117 W. The i5-12490F can hence be simulated using an i5-12600K.
Sources:
Zed__Wang (Twitter), VideoCardz
Apparently Intel is sitting on a pile of "C0" dies, and decided to create the i5-12490F. This chip has 6 "Golden Cove" P-cores, no E-cores, but 20 MB of L3 cache; and is based on a heavily cut-down "C0" silicon. As an "F" SKU, it also disables the iGPU on the silicon. The clocks set are 3.00 GHz nominal, and 4.60 GHz boost, compared to 2.50 GHz nominal, and 4.40 GHz boost of the i5-12400/F, and identical clock speeds to the i5-12500. It's quite puzzling how the "H0" based i5-12500 is differentiated from this chip, given its lower 18 MB L3 cache amount. The base power value is set at 65 W, with maximum turbo power at 117 W. The i5-12490F can hence be simulated using an i5-12600K.
13 Comments on Curious-looking Core i5-12490F Surfaces in China with Additional L3 Cache
Intel Core i5-12400F $179.99
www.newegg.com/amd-ryzen-5-5600x/p/N82E16819113666
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X $293.99
www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/core-i5-12400-processor-review,1.html
but the intel 12400f is much cheaper
The wikipedia article has no match for C0 or H0, doesn't seem to list which die is used, only lists core types and quantities per SKU.
The database implies everything is either C0 or H0 at the moment, I'm curious about H0 because it wasn't divested during announcement, deep-dive, or at launch.
So C0 is "Desktop" as pictured. H0 is apparently not shown but is a smaller die that maxes out at 6P cores, 0E cores, and a small 32EU IGP.
We have yet to see a single mobile part as shown and I guess I'd be naive to assume that the two mobile dies shown were the entire die lineup given that H0 wasn't shown here.
Intel is disabling 1 E core cluster on certain L0 chips, such as the i3-12300HE, i5-12450H, and i7-12650H. For C0, Intel disabled 1 E core cluster from the 12600K/KF, and all i7s. I have no idea what the status is for the 12400/F C0s or the 12490F, Intel likely disabled both E core clusters on the 12490F, however they may have forgotten to do that for the 12400/F C0 variants, who knows. I also am curious as to whether the 12400/F C0 CPUs have 20MB of L3 cache instead of 18, because that wasn't clear either. While the ordering page on Intel ARK states 18MB as the title for the C0 variants, but I just have a hunch it isn't the case, because every other C0 CPU has L3 MB in 5MB multiples (i5 is 20MB, i7 is 25MB, and i9 is 30MB), while H0 CPUs are in 6MB multiples. So this may end up becoming the case where the 12400/F C0 CPUs might actually be faster than the 12400/F H0 CPUs. Not to mention, I would expect the 12400/F C0 samples to have better thermals because of the physically larger die, plus it is likely that there are 6 good P cores out of 8 on an otherwise defective C0 die, compared to 6 low bin P cores out of 6 on an H0 die, so binning wise you could potentially undervolt a C0 12400/F way further than a normal H0 version. Okay maybe I'm going into tangents now...Intel also had the Pentium E6500K as a China only CPU, but they listed it in the USA Intel ARK website. I've also got one in my possession, it's a dogshit overclocker, could only do around 4436 MHz lol.