Intel Core i9-12900K 36% Faster Than Stock in Maximum Turbo Power Mode

[Uskompuf]

The recently announced Intel Core i9-12900K is set to launch on November 4th alongside the i7-12700K, and i5-12600K which is the date when we will see reviews for the processors released. We have already seen numerous leaks regarding the processors performance leading up to the announcement and we have now received some new leaked performance figures for the processors when operating in Maximum Turbo Power (MTP). The MTP is defined by Intel as the maximum sustained power dissipation of a processor compared to TDP which is the base power draw. The performance difference between these two power modes has been revealed from Cinebench R20 multi-threaded results posted by Wofstame the Gaming Desktop Product Planning Manager for Lenovo China.

The Intel Core i9-12900K scores 7492 points when running at its TDP of 125 W and 10180 points or 36% faster when operating at the MTP of 241 W. This performance difference is less notable for the other processors with the Core i7-12700K seeing a 30% improvement between its 125 W and 190 W power modes while the Core i5-12600K sees a 10% improvement from the 125 W TDP to 150 W MTP. Intel appears to be extracting the maximum performance from their Core i9-12900K with diminishing returns from the increased power budget compared to the other processors.



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[Crackong]

More power more performance.

We are approaching Captain Obvious territory here

 

[Dyatlov A]

Wow, better AMD halves the prices

 

[Rares]

Wow! 241W... nice job Intel, nice job...

 

[Caring1]

faster THAN stock, not faster then stock.

 

[Guwapo77]

Why did they pick 241w? They didn't want to officially double the required wattage of 250w because of the optics?

*edited originally had two thoughts in one sentence*

 

[Melvis]

So it takes a 241W 12900K (Basically OC) to match a stock 5950X......oh dear

 

[The Quim Reaper]

As someone who much prefers traditional CPU coolers over AIO's, you have to ask if there is any current tower cooler out there that can cope with a 12900K at full power..The (supposedly) best of the best, the Noctua DH15 has a TDP limit of 250w, so at 241w, its going to be right on the edge of thermal throttling territory, in 100% CPU load productivity work like rendering and encoding, at least Gaming will be no problem, I suppose, as that never pushes any CPU to all core 100% load for anything other than brief periods for stuff like shader compilation.

 

[Bwaze]

And let me guess - all the motherboards will come configured to push the Adler Lake CPUs to long term PL2, so it will be "stock configuration" for purposes of benchmarking, but Intel will still claim low "processor base power", compared to Ryzen chips...

Benchmarking for high performance? Of course "PL2" is not overclocking, it's on by default on motherboards! Measuring power consumption? Of course TDP guidance from Intel is observed. Measuring power consumption while in "PL2"? We'll let Anandtech do that, and they don't get free CPUs any more for doing that...

 

[theGryphon]

So it takes a 241W 12900K (Basically OC) to match a stock 5950X......oh dear

Further unfortunately for Intel, that's not even the relevant generation of AMD processors...

 

[Pilgrim]

So it takes a 241W 12900K (Basically OC) to match a stock 5950X......oh dear

It's still slower than a stock 5950X. So much for hoping for an AMD price cut.

 

[Melvis]

It's still slower than a stock 5950X. So much for hoping for an AMD price cut.

Ive already seen a $100 Price cut here for the 5950X in the past few weeks, so its close enough to move those prices a little. But i think the biggest drops will be the 5600/5800X in a few weeks maybe?

 

[Pilgrim]

So it takes a 241W 12900K (Basically OC) to match a stock 5950X......oh dear

It's probably using around 180-190W to achieve that score just by extrapolating btw. 5950X does that with 142W

 

[owen10578]

Wow the 12600K is beating my PBO curve optimized Ryzen 7 5800X at 6344~! That's awesome news for everyone that Intel is actually fighting back, because AMD is getting a bit too comfortable at the top right now...

 

[AusWolf]

So basically, Alder Lake is just another generation with artificially limited power limits. I don't think it's as bad as some of you may think. You have the option to customize your performance and power consumption to fit your cooling, which I've found really easy to do on Rocket Lake. The only catch might be the motherboard choice, but Intel could easily avoid a B560-like launch chaos with more rigid requirements towards motherboard VRMs. Although, 241 W on a 10 nm chip is a bit bonkers when you think of its heat density, but oh well... I'm still on a "wait and see" approach towards the whole concept.

 

[watzupken]

Looking forward to see what Alder Lake will bring to the table. As to higher power for boost clock speed, resulting in higher performance, I think that's pretty obvious. Is 36% a lot for double of the PL1 power? I doesn't sound good to me. In addition, if we consider the base clock of the P cores on the 12900K vs the boost clock, we are looking at 3.2 Ghz to 5.2Ghz, which is a 62.5% increase in clock speed. I actually feel Intel's obsession to win back single core performance made them push the chip hard, resulting in higher than necessary power draw. Had they scale back the P core clock speed somewhat, I think we can see better power draw and thermals like the 12700K.

 

[gravel]

241W la consommation de mon GPU...sérieusement

 

[Dristun]

I think were Intel alright with this sort of power draw 15 years ago we would've easily gotten that 10ghz Pentium.

 

[Guwapo77]

Wow the 12600K is beating my PBO curve optimized Ryzen 7 5800X at 6344~! That's awesome news for everyone that Intel is actually fighting back, because AMD is getting a bit too comfortable at the top right now...

AMD is anything but comfortable at the top... I must say, they have been doing some very respectable IPC gains over the years. From what I see, they aren't asleep at the wheel either.

 

[Broken Processor]

Thinking ahead to zen3d I'm counting on a resurgence from Intel to help keep the cost of my new AMD chip reasonable as we have all seen what happened with Intel's monopoly causing stagnation and price gouging.

 

[AusWolf]

Looking forward to see what Alder Lake will bring to the table. As to higher power for boost clock speed, resulting in higher performance, I think that's pretty obvious. Is 36% a lot for double of the PL1 power? I doesn't sound good to me. In addition, if we consider the base clock of the P cores on the 12900K vs the boost clock, we are looking at 3.2 Ghz to 5.2Ghz, which is a 62.5% increase in clock speed. I actually feel Intel's obsession to win back single core performance made them push the chip hard, resulting in higher than necessary power draw. Had they scale back the P core clock speed somewhat, I think we can see better power draw and thermals like the 12700K.

Power to performance ratios work pretty much the same on every chip. My 11700 with its 65 W PL1 achieves 9200 points in Cinebench R23. With unlocked power limits, it eats about 180 W which is 2.75x as much, while scoring only 1.5x than that, around 14000 points. Lowering the power target on my RTX 2070 by 28% from 175 W to 125 W, I get about 5-7% lower performance, depending on the game.

 

[Metroid]

Wow, better AMD halves the prices

Better intel halves the watts, I see amd winning big in the watts.

 

[Bruno Vieira]

the price says everything intel thinks about the 12900k. A bit faster than the 5900X and not as close to the 5950X.
36%+performance for 100%+ power? Sure no.
If the little cores were as good as they say, they would do a 4P + 24E design with the same area.

 

[Mussels]

Yeah, as expected they have power and heat issues like recent intel generations. Damn.

 

[Vayra86]

Why did they pick 241w? They didn't want to officially double the required wattage of 250w because of the optics?

*edited originally had two thoughts in one sentence*

Probably because any higher is not a good idea given the IHS solution they implement. Its thin. Also, there is the problem of heat concentration, even with the thinner IHS/paste/solder solution.

If they can't dissipate fast enough, you can run more power through the chip, but it'll just not work within safe parameters even in the typical 24/7 Intel test bed of water chiller plus nuclear plant.

Aaand... boy what a surprise, Intel chips still get hot on the fabled 10nm that is ALSO clocked way out of its comfort zone like 14nm was. You don't say.