Alder Lake CPUs common discussion

[freeagent]

I am watching the GN video now, nice! Looks like Intel is back

I will grab a next gen unit and enjoy what I have for 1 more year

 

[15th Warlock]

It's a very interesting discussion, and nice to see Intel back in the game, competition is what we all need.

I was able to nab a 12900K and an Asus Strix Z690 motherboard, but I still haven't had any luck finding DDR5 modules, hope retailers can restock those soon!

I get my mobo from Amazon on Friday, and my CPU from Best buy on Monday.

Anyone else moving to Alder Lake for their main rig?

 

[Deleted member 202104]

Anyone else moving to Alder Lake for their main rig.

I had a 12700k and DDR4 board in my cart at Newegg this morning to try out. It was going to be a few weeks to get the LGA1700 mounting adapters to fit any of my coolers. Gave up and bought a set of fast RAM instead for the main rig. I usually want it now or not at all when it comes to that type of purchase.

 

[15th Warlock]

I had a 12700k and DDR4 board in my cart at Newegg this morning to try out. It was going to be a few weeks to get the LGA1700 mounting adapters to fit any of my coolers. Gave up and bought a set of fast RAM instead for the main rig. I usually want it now or not at all when it comes to that type of purchase.

I read Asus mobos have mounting holes that line up with previous gen coolers, I hope I can use my current cooler.

Hope that new RAM pushes your current rig to the limit, no need to "upgrade" from a 5950X!

 

[Deleted member 202104]

I read Asus mobos have mounting holes that line up with previous gen coolers, I hope I can use my current cooler.

Hope that new RAM pushes your current rig to the limit, no need to "upgrade" from a 5950X!

From what I've read also you should be good to go. The board I was willing to spend the money on (read cheap) said it required a LGA1700 specific bracket.

The RAM is something I've been trying to decide if I should buy, and I don't really need it, but... you know.

Keep us posted on the 12900k - excited to hear some first hand experience.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

As I said, i don't give a rats how much power it uses, main concern is, is it the fastest chip for my money, and can i cool it( i have a custom loop, so yes) otherwise what's the problem. Big deal it might use more power than AMD equivalent chip, but if it's faster and you can cool and power it so what. does the fact that it uses more power and may be more inefficient mean it's a bad chip? not imo if it is the fastest for my cash.

 

[15th Warlock]

From what I've read also you should be good to go. The board I was willing to spend the money on (read cheap) said it required a LGA1700 specific bracket.

The RAM is something I've been trying to decide if I should buy, and I don't really need it, but... you know.

Keep us posted on the 12900k - excited to hear some first hand experience.

Maybe your cooler manufacturer can send you the bracket?

Will definitely do! As soon as I can find some RAM to go with it

 

[docnorth]

It's a very interesting discussion, and nice to see Intel back in the game, competition is what we all need.

I was able to nab a 12900K and an Asus Strix Z690 motherboard, but I still haven't had any luck finding DDR5 modules, hope retailers can restock those soon!

I get my mobo from Amazon on Friday, and my CPU from Best buy on Monday.

Anyone else moving to Alder Lake for their main rig?

Probably yes for a new office PC, but it seems like 2H2022. I don't think I'll have the luxury to wait for Raptor Lake (or Zen 4).

At 125W 12900K is quite competitive though it's beaten by 5950X at just 88W. Looks like Intel wanted to achieve maximum performance at any cost :-( Let's see what Meteor Lake will bring.

View attachment 223689

Here's in-depth coverage from computerbase.de.



View attachment 223691

You can safely run the CPU at 125W power limit and lose almost nothing in terms of game performance.

And it's not even necessary for gaming:

View attachment 223693

Thanks to computerbase.de for a proper review. Haven't seen it anywhere else.

Yesterday we saw a last-minute CB23 "leak" before official reviews. It seems you can set PL1 to 150w and lose almost nothing, even for MT productivity work. Plus you can reuse your air cooler.

 

[Flanker]

Actually, it's a fair point with power consumption. They don't really affect me that much. Unless it's so bad that I'm forced to upgrade my cooler.

 

[ir_cow]

Working on a DDR5 memory review right now. 6400 down to 5200. I'll throw in DDR4 3600, 4400 and 5100 if I can. I'm having to retest a few things which is causing the delay.

 

[15th Warlock]

For those interested in using their existing Corsair AIO cooler, you can purchase an LGA 1700 retrofit kit straight from them, it's only $2.99 with free shipping.

LGA1700 Retrofit Kit

This retrofit kit of standoffs enables you to use your existing LGA1200/LGA115x Retention brackets and backplates for modern CORSAIR AIO coolers with the new Intel ‘Alder Lake-S’ processors that require socket LGA1700 mounting kits. Please reference the tech specs below for compatibility...

www.corsair.com

Bestbuy just billed my card for the order, so I'm just waiting for the CPU to ship, I had a $350 gift card, so it was only $322 for the 12900K

 

[freeagent]

Why did you scribble out the shipping addy?

 

[tabascosauz]

Yesterday we saw a last-minute CB23 "leak" before official reviews. It seems you can set PL1 to 150w and lose almost nothing, even for MT productivity work. Plus you can reuse your air cooler.

tbh ADL looks unexpectedly impressive. Yeah it's hot at 250W, but that's like 4.9GHz all-core @ 1.3V at the same ridiculous density as N7. Running 4.9GHz @ 1.3V on a 5800X won't be really any easier on thermals and power, while quite a bit slower in all-core - not to mention I'm pretty sure 4.9 @ 1.3V would already be asking way too much of TSMC N7 volt-freq. Also that 12600K looking to really shake up the meta.

Intel could have reined it in a bit and still be fast but I guess they wanted to stick it to the 5950X stock for stock. Can probably cut a bit from the PL and watch the temps come way down, yet the Gracemonts will still be able to mitigate the performance impact.

Not to mention, looking forward to seeing what people can do with undervolting. Love how simple it is to UV an Intel.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

I am watching the GN video now, nice! Looks like Intel is back

I will grab a next gen unit and enjoy what I have for 1 more year

Probably best to wait for Meteorlake.... Raptorlake seems to only add more E cores

 

[freeagent]

Zen 3 was a heck of a lot of fun to play with, but these look pretty fun too

It will be nice to see what people can do with them once memory is available.

Probably best to wait for Meteorlake.... Raptorlake seems to only add more E cores

Yessir, I am still content with my system, I will wait till ML before I buy again, good DDR5 has to be out because I will be using it for awhile..

 

[Flanker]

Thinking about this, having E and P cores makes it really tricky for the OS. I would wait for things on the software side to catch up before recommending them.

 

[tabascosauz]

Thinking about this, having E and P cores makes it really tricky for the OS. I would wait for things on the software side to catch up before recommending them.

I think I might have been wrong initially about how the switching works. From reviews it doesn't seem like it behaves like Lakefield, so there's not nearly as much switching going on a la AMD (where load is juggled around every few seconds). At least the idea is that loads that should be on P-cores will be planted firmly on P-cores because Thread Director is helping out the scheduler on a hardware level. From AT:

Intel has said that Windows 11 does all of this. The only thing Windows 10 doesn’t have is insight into the efficiency of the cores on the CPU...Intel says the net result of this will be seen only in run-to-run variation: there’s more of a chance of a thread spending some time on the low performance cores before being moved to high performance, and so anyone benchmarking multiple runs will see more variation on Windows 10 than Windows 11. But ultimately, the peak performance should be identical.

So if there's one niche program that Thread Director hasn't yet been taught to handle, it still might be stuck on E-cores. But less likely on Win 11, would be a very visible and obvious bug, and I'd imagine Intel has left itself a means to update Thread Director's behaviour through microcode like AMD does AGESA.

It all sounds less random core switching, so more consistent performance than AMD?

 

[lexluthermiester]

Jay has some interesting perspectives.

 

[Psychoholic]

Picked up a 12900K and Asus ROG STRIX Z690-A today at microcenter.
Went with a DDR4 board since I already have 32GB of good DDR4 memory and according to reviews the currently available DDR5 doesn't make much difference.

PSA: My Noctua U12A wouldn't work with this board, had to buy an AIO due to the height of the VRM Heatsinks.

Thankfully, Asus has the oblong holes so LGA1200 Coolers will mount.

 

[Hyderz]

im much jelly that some members are able to get a system with the new cpu and ddr5,
i wanna upgrade but i cannot justify the upgrade from my current system

 

[docnorth]

I think I might have been wrong initially about how the switching works. From reviews it doesn't seem like it behaves like Lakefield, so there's not nearly as much switching going on a la AMD (where load is juggled around every few seconds). At least the idea is that loads that should be on P-cores will be planted firmly on P-cores because Thread Director is helping out the scheduler on a hardware level. From AT:



So if there's one niche program that Thread Director hasn't yet been taught to handle, it still might be stuck on E-cores. But less likely on Win 11, would be a very visible and obvious bug, and I'd imagine Intel has left itself a means to update Thread Director's behaviour through microcode like AMD does AGESA.

It all sounds less random core switching, so more consistent performance than AMD?

Actually you had a point. As @W1zzard shows in 12900k review the hybrid architecture messes up with 4 CPU tests. 3 of them (i.e. wPrime, machine learning - classify images and database - MySQL) achieve huge performance increase just by disabling E cores. Probably most of this issues will be resolved soon.

 

[dyonoctis]

At 125W 12900K is quite competitive though it's beaten by 5950X at just 88W. Looks like Intel wanted to achieve maximum performance at any cost :-( Let's see what Meteor Lake will bring.

View attachment 223689

Here's in-depth coverage from computerbase.de.



View attachment 223691

You can safely run the CPU at 125W power limit and lose almost nothing in terms of game performance.

And it's not even necessary for gaming:

View attachment 223693

Thanks to computerbase.de for a proper review. Haven't seen it anywhere else.

That also show that the E-core are usefull...if you aren't a pure gamer. I'm having doubts about Goldencove ability to scale up beyond 8P core without having to severely lower the all core boost. And raptor lake will more E-core while the P-core count stays the same...

 

[Zyll Goliat]

Well...considering the higher price for DDR5 and Z690 motherboards a bit higher power consumption but never the less really good performance all I can said it's ....

 

[Bomby569]

Well...considering the higher price for DDR5 and Z690 motherboards a bit higher power consumption but never the less really good performance all I can said it's ....

I didn't had time to watch much, only saw the linus video, but at least for gaming the power consumption is about the same. And that's what matters most to me. Intel has a winner in the 12600, to bad that DDR5 and the price of the new boards makes it a stupid purchase.

 

[birdie]

So, having read quite a lot of reviews here are some pertinent and important conclusions:​

• Intel has pushed their P-cores for MT scenarios to extremes to be the absolute performance king and at least be faster than 5900X and rival 5950X in many cases. This results in an insane power consumption out of the box but only for heavy MT tasks, e.g. video encoding, rendering, software compilation, math calculations - not something average people do daily.
• This extreme power consumption does not translate into every day scenarios like modestly threaded applications or games - in fact many reviewers show that ADL CPUs are the most power efficient in games. Igor's Lab, AnandTech and computerbase.de have shown that limiting their TDP to 125W or even lower does not meaningfully affect frame rates.
• It seems very likely that if P-cores maximum frequency is decreased by just 200-300MHz their efficiency will be incredible.
• Factory OC'ing is not new and NVIDIA, AMD, Apple have been doing that for at least a couple of years. No one is crying foul because of that.

TLDR: Overall ADL CPUs are great sans an extreme factory OC for heavy MT scenarios which can be easily mitigated by limiting their power consumption by setting the PL1 limit in BIOS. At the moment the only issue is the price of the platform because even though the CPUs are competitively priced, you need to purchase a quite expensive motherboard, DDR5 RAM (the faster the better) and a decent cooling solution (preferably AIO).

Too many reviewers are fishing for views and ad revenue, so having loud and disparaging headlines which aren't necessarily representative of the real world is their way of achieving that which is quite sad.