Intel has provided us with information on the new 12th generation Alder Lake processors, an evolution of its processors that stands out for the use of two types of cores in the same package.
The range presented now is intended for the Gamer sector and offers a lot of power, although we also have a fairly high power consumption as we shall see. The K and KF variants presented are intended for those who require higher performance and want to squeeze the system by overclocking with the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU) 7.5.
This range of new Intel Alder Lake processors is manufactured in 10nm SuperFin and undoubtedly highlights its most powerful processor Core i9-12900K that comes with 16 cores / 24 threads, eight of them of the Performance type with higher performance and other eight Efficient with lower power consumption and speed up to 2.4 GHz. This processor is called by Intel as the most powerful for the Gaming sector of the moment offers 30 MB of L3 cache and 14MB of L2 cache, reaches up to 5.2 GHz. In the K versions of these processors we have integrated Intel HD Graphics 770 GPU.
Undoubtedly the biggest novelty of this 12th generation of Intel is the new processor design with two types of core, the so-called P-core of the Performance type for demanding tasks and the lower consumption E-Core of the Efficient type that will be active when less raw power is required. As we can see in the data of the K and KF models we have a consumption that varies between 125 / 150 / 190 / 241 W depending on the processor. This new combination of new P and E is sure to offer low power consumption when we see other ranges of processors for Ultrabooks or mini PCs.
As for performance, in the first results that Intel has offered us we can see an interesting improvement in performance, but it is better to wait for independent analysis. For now the new Intel Core i9-12900K seems to stand up to the powerful AMD Ryzen 5950X. These new processors feature support for DDR5 RAM and are compatible with PCIe 5.0 interface, as well as having native support with Wi-Fi 6E and Thunderbolt 4 connections.
As is tradition at Intel these new processors are accompanied by a new set of 600 chipsets series, led by the top-of-the-line Z690. The Z690 chipset features 16 lanes 3.0 and 12 lanes 4.0 of its own and native support for Wi-Fi 6E. It should be noted that we will have to change boards for these new processors.
Pricing and availability
- Intel Core i9-12900K is officially priced at $589
- Intel Core i9-12900KF is officially priced at $564
- Intel Core i7-12700K is officially priced at $409
- Intel Core i7-12700KF is officially priced at $384
- Intel Core i5-12600K officially priced at $289
- Intel Core i5-12600KF has an official price of $264
