Intel Core i7-12700K

[W1zzard]

With the Core i7-12700K, Intel has released a formidable competitor to AMD's Ryzen 5800X and even 5900X. Thanks to eight powerful Golden Cove cores, the processor handles all workloads very well, including gaming. Compared to the i9-12900K, it runs almost as fast, but much cooler, with better efficiency.

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[lexluthermiester]

The lack of 4 of the Ecores doesn't seem to hold it back much. IMHO, this is the better value of the three models.

 

[Outback Bronze]

The lack of 4 of the Ecores doesn't seem to hold it back much. IMHO, this is the better value of the three models.

Yep this would be the one I would purchase.

 

[Al Chafai]

it seems that the i5 is the star of the show yet again, the perfect balance between power consumption heat output and performance gains in terms of single and multithreaded workloads. a 360mm CLC is a must for people doing some heavy workloads indeed.

 

[Gradius2]

I can get a 5800X for $345 right now.

But I'll wait to see how 12700 prices goes. No rush, I'm still on 2600K.

5900X is in problem @ $524 (too expensive).

 

[RandallFlagg]

The lack of 4 of the Ecores doesn't seem to hold it back much. IMHO, this is the better value of the three models.

It's always strange how the middle child gets ignored.

Always been like that, no love for the 9700K 10700K 11700K and on team red the 5800X was much maligned and the 3700X/3800X were also often ignored. These were always my favorites.

That said the dynamic is changed a bit this time. 12600K 6+4 is not so much different from 8+4, which is not so much different from 8+8. Seems like less differentiation top to bottom now except in things like compress/decompress and encoding.

 

[r9]

Intel dominating the price/perf chart I thought I would never see that.

 

[WhoDecidedThat]

In Igor Lab's review, (<- linked here) they measure CPU power consumption when gaming -

and measure watts consumed per fps.

Just putting it out there as an additional data point to consider.

 

[ModEl4]

Hi @W1zzard, one of the most interesting pages (clock profiles) is missing from the reviews, there you used to give us an indication of what frequency the CPU cores working depending on the instruction set used in the workflow and also per number of cores used. Are you planning to update the articles? Even if the scheduler is directing the job at the efficiency cores only or doesn't distribute correctly in every case, it would also be interesting to disable the efficiency cores and check it or come with some other solution i guess. Thanks!

 

[W1zzard]

Are you planning to update the articles?

Yes, but I have to update my testing software with support for Alder Lake first.

 

[80-watt Hamster]

It's always strange how the middle child gets ignored.

Always been like that, no love for the 9700K 10700K 11700K and on team red the 5800X was much maligned and the 3700X/3800X were also often ignored. These were always my favorites.

That said the dynamic is changed a bit this time. 12600K 6+4 is not so much different from 8+4, which is not so much different from 8+8. Seems like less differentiation top to bottom now except in things like compress/decompress and encoding.

I liked the 9700K enough to buy one when MicroCenter had 9th-gen on fire sale. Definitely would have never gone for it at list.

It's not too surprising to me that the x700 parts lag a bit in mindshare. Performance junkies with money go for the x900s, and value-conscious buyers see the mismatch between performance gained vs. extra money spent and stick with x600.

 

[Outback Bronze]

It's always strange how the middle child gets ignored.

Always been like that, no love for the 9700K 10700K 11700K and on team red the 5800X was much maligned and the 3700X/3800X were also often ignored. These were always my favorites.

That said the dynamic is changed a bit this time. 12600K 6+4 is not so much different from 8+4, which is not so much different from 8+8. Seems like less differentiation top to bottom now except in things like compress/decompress and encoding.

Not for me : )

Had 7600K, 9700K and been playing around with a 11700K which is actually a pretty good CPU. Hence I would like a 12700K

Edit: Hey @W1zzard does the Alder Lake DDR5 have gear memory OC like Rocket lake?

Sorry if you mentioned this in your Intro, would just like to clear things up.

Thanks.

 

[Devastator0]

So, hopefully not an ignorant question here, if I have a device on Windows 10 running DDR4, I wouldn't see any benefits to these new chips? Also, I'd love to see a follow up on how the new chips affects older games as previously reported it would. I've got a few people lined up for new systems and I don't want them pulling the trigger on 12th gen CPU's if it messes with their old stuff.

 

[ncrs]

So, hopefully not an ignorant question here, if I have a device on Windows 10 running DDR4, I wouldn't see any benefits to these new chips? Also, I'd love to see a follow up on how the new chips affects older games as previously reported it would. I've got a few people lined up for new systems and I don't want them pulling the trigger on 12th gen CPU's if it messes with their old stuff.

Those are not an ignorant questions at all.

You will require a new motherboard to specifically allow these new CPUs and DDR4. Upgrading to DDR5 will require another new motherboard.

The Windows 10 question is complex, and better described by AnandTech's article. If you disable the E-cores in BIOS, the compatibility should be OK, and you will potentially get AVX-512 back (if the motherboard exposes this: ASUS, Gigabyte and AsRock seem to, but MSI doesn't, yet).

Old game issues are related to 2 types of cores present. One solution is a BIOS setting that will disable/park the E-cores when Scroll Lock is enabled, which should avoid those issues (theoretically). The availability of this BIOS setting is another unknown that has to be research when choosing the motherboard.

 

[RandallFlagg]

According to Igor Lab's review (<- linked here) where they measure CPU power consumption when gaming -

and measure watts consumed per fps

Alder Lake is doing very very well.

It's kind of funny how much flack the AMD crowd has given, and failed to look at that site.

In the gaming benchmarks there, the AMD boxes are running DDR4-3800 1:1 meaning IF is 1900. That's like the 1% for IF.

By contrast he must've lost the DDR5 lotto as he is running it in Gear 2 on Alder Lake. Meaning, it is 1:2

DDR4 on AL seems to pull more power, DDR5 is more efficient so its saving power there. Also running Gear 2 will make AL even more efficient

Of course this puts Zen 3 in the best light for performance (running 3800 1:1 IF 1900) and AL in the worst light for performance. At the same time putting Zen 3 in the worst light for efficiency. In their gaming benchmarks it's effectively a tie between AL and Zen 3, except that AL still wins 1% lows in that setup.

Results are I'm sure totally valid for the configured systems but few bother to actually read the test setup.

My interpretation of all of this along with other reviews is that you can make AL as fast as you want or as efficient as you want, and you can win or tie on the other metric, which is effectively a clean sweep as far as AL vs Zen 3. Me personally, I'd go for performance primarily, and thinking most around here would.

 

[W1zzard]

does the Alder Lake DDR5 have gear memory OC like Rocket lake?

Alder Lake has Gear 1 and 2 like Rocket Lake, but also Gear 4, which does exactly what you'd expect given the name. DDR5 at any reasonable speed requires Gear 2, which is what I used (and double checked)

 

[lexluthermiester]

12600K 6+4 is not so much different from 8+4, which is not so much different from 8+8.

Except the power usage and heat. The 6+4 & 8+4 both eat up far less power and produce far less heat...then the price.

Yes, but I have to update my testing software with support for Alder Lake first.

I imagine that is a real problem for most testers and reviewers..

These initial runs of tests will likely just be a sneak-peek of the potential these CPU's have to offer. Once software support is more fleshed out the full potential will be easier to measure.

 

[HenrySomeone]

It's kind of funny how much flack the AMD crowd has given, and failed to look at that site.

In the gaming benchmarks there, the AMD boxes are running DDR4-3800 1:1 meaning IF is 1900. That's like the 1% for IF.

By contrast he must've lost the DDR5 lotto as he is running it in Gear 2 on Alder Lake. Meaning, it is 1:2

DDR4 on AL seems to pull more power, DDR5 is more efficient so its saving power there. Also running Gear 2 will make AL even more efficient

Of course this puts Zen 3 in the best light for performance (running 3800 1:1 IF 1900) and AL in the worst light for performance. At the same time putting Zen 3 in the worst light for efficiency. In their gaming benchmarks it's effectively a tie between AL and Zen 3, except that AL still wins 1% lows in that setup.

Results are I'm sure totally valid for the configured systems but few bother to actually read the test setup.

My interpretation of all of this along with other reviews is that you can make AL as fast as you want or as efficient as you want, and you can win or tie on the other metric, which is effectively a clean sweep as far as AL vs Zen 3. Me personally, I'd go for performance primarily, and thinking most around here would.

I think you might have mixed this chart up though and it's actually the combination with ddr4 that is more efficient:

And considering that a decently high clocked ddr4 also seems to be the best performer, that's even better as you can get both better fps, less power and cheaper mobos&ram. It's like a triple win!

 

[lexluthermiester]

Always been like that, no love for the 9700K 10700K 11700K and on team red the 5800X was much maligned and the 3700X/3800X were also often ignored.

Interestingly enough, those are the models I sell many more of. I think people are smart enough to know good value.

 

[RandallFlagg]

I think you might have mixed this chart up though and it's actually the combination with ddr4 that is more efficient:

And considering that a decently high clocked ddr4 also seems to be the best performer, that's even better as you can get both better fps, less power and cheaper mobos&ram. It's like a triple win!

I actually like the way computerbase.de did it better though - limited the 12900K to 88 watts and it only lost 2% FPS or 125W and lose only 1%. That's less than the avg difference between the 12900K vs 5950X. So, if one wanted to, they could limit power and be more efficient and faster at games and not have to buy more than a $20 air cooler.

Edit: I should point out that while the 12900K was fine in games at 88 and 125W, it suffered in their application tests by 10-15% if I recall. This knocked it well below a 5950X in multithreaded app performance.

It's only when one unlocks the thing or set it to 241/241W PL1=PL2 (or similar) that you lose efficiency. Naturally there are all kinds of gradients in-between.

It's pretty clear a lot of folks don't know what the K series chips are for - they are flexible. The idea of out of the box experience with a K chip is kind of silly, sorta like what's the out of the box experience with play-doh. You're supposed to mold the thing.

Except the power usage and heat. The 6+4 & 8+4 both eat up far less power and produce far less heat...then the price.

Yup, I think the 12900K officially became unobtanium in the afternoon of Nov 4th, 2021. Last price I saw was $1450 and it was bouncing between $1300 and $1600.

Interestingly enough, those are the models I sell many more of. I think people are smart enough to know good value.

That is interesting. Reviews typically give them short shrift.

 

[Minus Infinity]

As someone that enjoyed Intel being smashed the last few years, I was still saying a year ago AL would surprise many people and being laughed at. Not going to buy AL at all, but looking forward to Raptor Lake and from what I'm hearing Zen4 has a huge surprise in store for those that need multi-threaded performance ahead of single threaded. Zen 4 comes in two flavours and the Zen 4D will be up to 32 cores on desktop and with a lot of stuff removed from the Zen 4 cores so IPC is maybe 20% lower, but will be multi-thread monsters. Zen 5 is even better, and as I said earlier this week, Zen 5 is indeed Big.little, but the little cores will be Zen 4D cores, that will destroy Gracemont's successor in Meteor Lake. RL will indeed face stiff competition and we know it's using the same Gracemont E cores as AL, just 2x as many.

 

[AlwaysHope]

I wonder what effect high DDR4 bandwidth & timings has on rocket lake with all these tests in comparison to alder lake with DDR5?
Also difficult to tell what effect win 10 has on all these tests too...
Some more variable to throw into the mix... oh the joys of I.T !

 

[Vader]

It's pretty clear a lot of folks don't know what the K series chips are for - they are flexible. The idea of out of the box experience with a K chip is kind of silly, sorta like what's the out of the box experience with play-doh. You're supposed to mold the thing.

I agree in sentiment, but... lowering/raising Power Limits as a feature has always been available for non-K chips.

IMO, since Comet Lake and onwards intel chips have consumed (when unrestrained) so much power, that you could buy the non-K SKU and "overclock" it by raising PL1/PL2, save some money and call it a day. Then intel enabled memory OC on non-Z chipsets and made K SKUs even less interesting still.

The only exception to all this has been the i5 1X600K, it could gain enough performance by OC to justify it's price. But for this release there is so little gained by overclocking, that i think even the 12600K might not be the more interesting chip of the lineup. We still don't know how non-K i5s will be configured though, there where some rumors that they might lose the E-cores. I guess we'll see next year.

 

[arni-gx]

i7 12700k = the empire strikes back............ darth vader is the badass and the greatest supervillain on history..........

 

[lexluthermiester]

I wonder what effect high DDR4 bandwidth & timings has on rocket lake with all these tests in comparison to alder lake with DDR5?
Also difficult to tell what effect win 10 has on all these tests too...
Some more variable to throw into the mix... oh the joys of I.T !

My guess? DDR4 would not degrade performance much if at all. These new CPUs don't seem RAM speed bottlenecked/dependent/limited given the reviews elsewhere on the net.

i7 12700k = the empire strikes back............ darth vader is the badass and the greatest supervillain on history..........

Um, why is Intel the evil empire? Seem like fanboying going on there..