Intel Core i9 Alder Lake i9-12900K BOX (BX8071512900K)

The flagship of the Alder Lake family

Core i9-12900K contains 8 high-performance cores and 8 power-efficient cores, however, the total number of threads reaches 24 instead of 32, since 8 auxiliary cores do not support Hyper-Threading technology. As for the frequency characteristics, the main cores can be overclocked up to 5.2 GHz, while the speed of the auxiliary ones is limited to 3.9 GHz. Plus, the Core i9-12900K is equipped with 30 MB L3 cache + 14 MB L2 cache, supports 16 PCI-E 5.0 bus lines. Or with four PCI-E 4.0 lanes. In addition to everything, the processor can work both with the usual DDR4 memory and with the new DDR5.

Ryzen 9 5900X competitor

What did all these improvements give? In most synthetic benchmarks that focus on instantaneous multithreading, the Core i9-12900K is slightly ahead of the competing Ryzen 9 5900X and 5950X chips. The excess is from 5 to 15%. Although there are also reverse examples, when the Ryzen 9 5950X, on the contrary, goes ahead by the same 10 – 12%. In gaming benchmarks, Intel still managed to regain leadership - in FarCry 6, Forza Horizon and F1 2021, the Core i9-12900K processor always turns out to be 8-12% faster than the Ryzen 9 5950X competitor.

unhealthy appetite

But here it is important to make two clarifications. First, AMD Vermeer processors came out a year ago, so the comparison is not entirely correct. The real fight for the championship belt is scheduled for early 2022, when the new Ryzen 6000 chips will be released with the new 3D V-Cache, which promises the same 15% increase in pure power. The second important nuance is that Intel CPUs pay for their acceleration with increased power consumption. If the power consumption of the system with the Ryzen 9 5950X was 221 watts, then the Core i9-12900K requires a little more than 350 watts. The final 130 W is not the most beautiful reverse side of the coin, which calls into question the victory of the Core i9-12900K. After all, it needs a more powerful power supply, and a more serious cooling system.