[Hardware] Intel 12th-Gen Alder Lake Pricing, Benchmarks, Specs and All We Know

[Artic]

Alder Lake has finally arrived to the market and we now have our reviews of the leading-edge Core i9-12900K, Core i7-12700K, and Core i5-12600K, and Core i5-12400 with all of the performance benchmarks and analysis. Overall, the Core i5-12600K is now the Best CPU for gaming on the market, while the Core i7-12700K slots in as the best high-end processor for mainstream platforms. Intel has also released a full lineup of 22 additional lower-priced desktop Alder Lake chips and a new lineup of Laminar coolers. We've also included our full performance benchmarks in the article below. 

Price Cores | Threads P-Core Base/Boost E-Core Base/Boost TDP / PBP / MTP DDR4-3200 L3 Cache

Core i9-12900K / KF $589 (K) - $564 (KF) 8P + 8E | 16 Cores / 24 Threads 3.2 / 5.2 GHz 2.4 / 3.9 GHz 125W / 241W DDR4-3200 / DDR5-4800 30MB

Core i7-12700K / KF $409 (K) - $384 (KF) 8P + 4E | 12 Cores / 20 Threads 3.6 / 5.0 GHz 2.7 / 3.8 GHz 125W / 190W DDR4-3200 / DDR5-4800 25MB

Core i5-12600K / KF $289 (K) - $264 (KF) 6P + 4E | 10 Cores / 16 Threads 3.7 / 4.9 GHz 2.8 / 3.6 GHz 125W / 150W DDR4-3200 / DDR5-4800 16MB

Core i5-12400 / F Estimated ~ $185 - $160 6P + 0E | 6 Cores / 12 Threads 4.4 / ~2.5 GHz n/a 65W / 117W DDR4-3200 / DDR5-4800 18MB

Intel's initial Alder Lake lineup starts with three chips and their graphics-less variants, with the flagship $589 Core i9-12900K, which Intel bills as the 'world's fastest gaming processor,' leading the charge with 16 cores and 24 threads. Intel claims this chip provides an average 13% generational jump in gaming performance, beats AMD's Ryzen 9 5950X flagship by up to 30% in gaming, and offers up to twice the performance of its predecessor in content creation workloads. Intel even claims up to an 84% generational gain in fps in some game streaming scenarios we have our own testing in the article below, and there's no doubt that the Alder Lake chips are now the fastest gaming chips on the planet. They also bring amazing overclocking headroom for enthusiasts, offering up much more extra performance than AMD's Ryzen 5000 chips. You can see the breakdown of that advantage in our How to Overclock 12th Gen Intel Alder Lake CPUs feature, or head to our How to Overclock a CPU guide for more detail. You can also see how Alder Lake fares against AMD's comparable chips in these dedicated head-to-head articles:

 

Intel Core i9-12900K vs Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X: Alder Lake and Ryzen 5000 Face Off

Intel Core i5-12600K vs AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and 5800X Face Off: Ryzen Has Fallen

Intel Core i7-12700K vs AMD Ryzen 9 5900X and 5800X Face Off: Intel Rising

Alder Lake represents a massive strategic shift as Intel looks to regain the uncontested performance lead against AMD's Ryzen 5000 series processors. AMD's Zen 3 architecture has taken the lead in our Best CPUs for gaming and CPU Benchmarks hierarchy, partly on the strength of Ryzen's higher core counts. That's not to mention the pressure from Apple's M1 processors that feature a similar hybrid design to Alder Lake and come with explosive single-threaded performance improvements of their own.

 

Intel's Alder Lake brings disruptive new architectures and supports features like PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 that leapfrog AMD and Apple in connectivity technology and also outstrip Ryzen's core counts in mobile designs.

 

It all starts with a new way of thinking for x86 chips by pairing high-performance and high-efficiency cores within a single chip. That well-traveled design philosophy powers billions of Arm chips, often referred to as Big.Little (Intel calls its implementation Big-Bigger), but it's a first for x86 desktop PCs. The Golden Cove architecture powers Alder Lake's 'big' high-performance cores, while the 'little' Atom efficiency cores come with the Gracemont architecture. Intel etches the cores on its 'Intel 7' process, marking the company's first truly new node for the desktop since 14nm debuted six long years ago. 

 

Intel is going all-in: the company will reunify its desktop and mobile lines with Alder Lake. Intel says it will tune Alder Lake for high-performance, a must for desktop PCs and high-end notebooks. As evidenced by its opening salvo of 12th-Gen Alder Lake mobile lineup that tops out at 14 Cores and 5.0 GHz, it appears the company has done just that for mobile, too. 

        Link: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-alder-lake-specifications-price-benchmarks-release-date