The new Alder Lake chips by Intel are finally here and leading this new generation of central processing unit (CPU) is Intel’s Core i9-12900K, which Intel dubs the “world’s best gaming processor”.
The company has been teasing the new chips since CES 2021 back in January, when they revealed that they are utilising the ARM’s big.LITTLE technology using high performance and high efficiency cores in a single package to maximize both power and efficiency.
Intel then revealed details of the hybrid architecture approach for the Alder Lake CPUs in their 2021 Architecture Day.
The New Chips
The Core i9-12900K is the flagship ushering the new era of Intel’s 12th Gen CPUs.
The i9-12900K offers 16 cores, which are split between eight performance forced “P-cores” and eight efficient “E-cores”. It has 24 threads and is capable of reaching clock speeds of up to 5.2GHz using Intel’s Turbo Boost Max 3.0 technology.
Intel promises a 19% increase in performance compared to the 11th Gen CPU, all thanks to the new P-core architecture.
Intel also has other chips;
- Core i7-12700K (12 total cores and 20 threads, with eight P-cores and four E-cores).
- Core i5-12700K (10 total cores and 16 threads, with six P-cores and four E-cores).
These are for users who don’t need that much muscle for their PCs.
Intel also has these chips available in the KF variant (unlocked and lacking integrated graphics) for those looking to save a few bucks.
Game, Create and Overclock with Unlocked 12th Gen Desktop Processors
Intel’s Thread Director enables the two new core microarchitectures to work seamlessly together by guiding the operating system (OS) to place the right thread on the right core at the right time.
Intel has worked with Windows to optimise performance and compatibility as part of their reinforced investments in the developer community, and guides for independent software vendors can optimise applications for the hybrid platforms have been published.
We’re at the beginning of a new era for the PC led by the introduction of Windows 11. With Windows 11 and Intel’s new Thread Director technology, users will see their PC performance reach new heights on the new 12th Gen Intel Core family of processors
Panos Panay, executive vice president and chief product officer, Microsoft.
Intel promises improved single-threaded and multi-threaded performance with their new Alder Lake chips and new 7 process technology enabling:
The World’s Best Gaming Processor:
The Core i9-12900K provides amazing gen-over-gen performance increases, including;
- Up to 25% more FPS on Troy: A Total War Saga.
- Up to 28% more FPS on Hitman 3.
- Up to 23% more FPS on Far Cry.
Enhanced by Intel® Killer™ Wi-Fi 6E for up to 75% less latency while gaming when multitasking, high-frequency P-cores paired with E-cores for offloading parallel tasks enable up to 84% more frames per second for simultaneous gaming, streaming, and recording.
A Leap in Content Creation Performance:
The responsive performance of the P-cores and the ability to move data at incredible speeds with DDR5 enable leadership across all types of content creation experiences, including:
- Up to 36% faster photo editing performance.
- Up to 32% faster video editing performance.
- Up to 37% faster 3D modeling performance.
- Up to 100% faster multi-frame rendering.
The Best Overclocking Experience:
According to Intel, the new CPUs offer industry leading overclocking tools for ultimate performance customisation that includes overclocking the E-cores and DDR5 memory.
Gamers and Overclock Ethusiasts can try the new feature as part of the latest Intel® Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU) 7.5.
Starting with Core i9-12900K, XTU supports one-click overclock with Intel Speed Optimizer for unlocked 12th Gen processors.
Intel introduced the Intel Extreme Memory profile (XMP) 3.0 with DDR5 support, offering additional profiles including rewriteable custom profiles and flexible tuning for memory overclocking.
Enabling Desktop Platforms with Industry-Leading Features
The new 12th Gen Intel desktop processor equips users with performance and industry leading feature for a better experience in gaming, content consuming and creating.
The key improvements made on the platform include:
- The first processors in the industry to offer DDR5 memory for up to 4800MT/s.
- The first processors in the industry to offer PCIe 5.0 (up to 16 lanes), which offers up to 2X I/O throughput over PCIe 4.0, with up to an additional four lanes of PCIe 4.0 support.
- Up to 30MB Intel® Smart Cache (L3) and 14MB L2 cache for increased memory capacity with reduced latency.
- Integrated high-speed wireless with Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6E, which combines industry-leading Wi-Fi 6E connectivity with powerful gaming network technology to minimize lag, latency, and packet loss10.
- Discrete Thunderbolt 4 universal cable connectivity for external device expansion.
