Intel 12th-gen Core i9-12900K & i5-12600K Workstation Performance Review

[PAGETITLE=Introduction][Top Ad] With as exciting as the CPU market has been the past few years, it's easy to forget that we had a long run leading up to 2017 where it felt like true advancement in CPUs just wasn't happening. AMD's chips were notably slower than Intel's, and Intel's seemed to only see modest performance improvements with each new generation. Compare this to GPUs, where a new generation is typically a lot faster than the previous one. We all know the story of AMD's Zen. When its first generation was released, it felt like we had true competition back, and even at that time, we had no idea what was coming. In the years that followed, core counts exploded, and with its most recent Zen 3 generation, AMD managed to match or best Intel from most angles. Intel 12th-gen Core Alder Lake Review Kit Well, with Intel's 12th-gen Core processors, it's clear that while many were wondering when or how Intel would strike back at AMD, Intel was busy churning out a majorly different architecture that would get it back on track. It's not often that our expectations are exceeded, but the 12th-gen Core series manages to do just that. We have plenty of benchmarks to explain why. "It's not often that our expectations are exceeded, but the 12th-gen Core series manages to do just that." We talked a length about what Intel's new 12th-gen chips bring to the table a few weeks ago, but let's reiterate some of the most important points here. In a huge departure from previous architecture designs, Intel has opted for one with Alder Lake that's similar to Arm's big.LITTLE, in that energy-efficient cores are saddled up with high-performance cores. On Intel's new mainstream flagship, the Core i9-12900K, eight high-performance cores are paired up with eight energy-efficient cores. This design confuses things a wee bit, because it's strange to see a chip like the 12900K, which has 16 cores, but only 24 threads. We're so used to seeing the thread count being double the core count, but that's just not the case with these new designs. As you've likely surmised by now, the performance cores support SMT / HyperThreading, while the efficiency cores do not. Intel's current 12th-gen Core CPUs, with more expected soon With this design change, Intel is using a hardware solution called Thread Director to make sure that processes are allocated to the correct threads at the right time. Ideally, applications that actually require high-performance will use those respective cores, while background or simple tasks can use the efficiency cores. Ultimately, the goal is to deliver performance when it's needed, and to sip power when it's not. Currently, Thread Director is only guaranteed to work ideally in Windows 11, as that OS features kernel upgrades that were performed in anticipation of this architecture. Intel is planning future improvements to Windows 10, and likewise Linux. If you're devoted to Windows 10 or use Linux, now is probably not the time to upgrade to Intel's 12th-gen. While we didn't test it for this review, this latest-gen of Core also sports Intel's latest and greatest integrated GPU, called UHD Graphics 770. We'll be giving this IGP a test in the future, probably first with VEGAS Pro, since that solution seems to jive well with Intel graphics. As for other hardware, Intel's latest chips require a brand-new chipset (Z690) as well as a brand-new socket (LGA1700), so you can't plop a new chip into your preexisting motherboard. However, if you already have a CPU cooler for an Intel Core platform, you're likely good on that front. That said, some of the top 12th-gen SKUs get toasty, so you won't want to cheap out on your cooling. One of the most significant changes with the Z690 chipset is that support for DDR5 is enabled, with DDR5-4800 being the officially supported spec. Faster kits exist, but it's never guaranteed that you'll enjoy complete stability (even though you will probably be fine if you stick to the XMP). Fortunately, DDR4 is also supported, so if you happen to have a beefy kit already, you may not need to buy another. While we didn't test DDR5 vs. DDR4 for this article, what we've seen so far has shown that the differences are generally not major, with strengths between either flip-flopping all over the place. To add to that, it's really difficult to find DDR5 in stock right now, and as we wrote about in our news last week, price-gouging is intense, with some kits selling on eBay for five times as much as their SRP. At this point in time, we'd suggest considering going the DDR4 route, since current DDR5 kits are going to be considered modest when even faster kits arrive later on. It's currently cheaper to go with DDR4, allowing creators to opt for a healthy amount of memory (64~128GB) for a better price than DDR5. If you're a gamer and can find a 32GB DDR5 kit at its expected price, then it's not a bad way to go. Intel's Core i9-12900K installed in ASUS' Z690-PLUS WiFi D4 On that note, we do have plans to conduct some DDR4 vs. DDR5 performance testing soon, as we're eager to see which workloads may actually benefit from that added bandwidth. In addition to DDR5 support, another major update is to PCIe, version 5.0. It seems like only yesterday AMD introduced the first PCIe 4.0 platform, but here we are with 5.0 already. While PCIe 5.0 is going to have virtually no use over 4.0 at the moment, future graphics cards and SSDs will naturally update to it, so it's nice that this platform will prepare you for them. With that all covered, this feels like a good time to move on. On the next page, we're going to discuss our tests, methodologies, and the PCs used for testing. If you don't care about that, feel free to hop on over to page three. [PAGEBREAK][PAGETITLE=Test Methodology & Systems][Top Ad] Benchmarking a CPU may sound like a simple enough task, but in order to deliver accurate, repeatable results, strict guidelines need to be adhered to. This makes for rigorous, time-consuming testing, but we feel that the effort is worth it. This page exists so that we can be open about how we test, and give those who care about testing procedures an opportunity to review our methodology before flaming us in the comments. Here, you can see a breakdown of all of our test machines, specifics about the tests themselves, and other general information that might be useful. For testing AMD's Ryzen AM4-based CPUs, we're using ASRock's X570 TAICHI motherboard. For Intel's 11th-gen Core processors, we use ASUS' ROG MAXIMUS XIII HERO. For Intel's 12th-gen, we're using ASUS' Z690-PLUS WiFi D4. Note that while Intel's 12th-gen supports DDR5, we're kicking off our coverage with a DDR4 platform, as our DDR5 memory kit didn't arrive in time for our testing to get underway. That of course will be rectified soon, as we plan to get down and dirty with DDR4 vs. DDR5 testing shortly. The same DDR4 64GB kit of Corsair DOMINATOR Platinum memory is used on each of the test platforms. After resetting each EFI to its default values, we enable the primary XMP option, and then manually downgrade the DDR speed to 3200MHz. We do this because DDR4-3600 has given us enough headaches in the past that we just don't want to set ourselves up to having to waste a bunch of time because one platform decides to be fussy (and yes, we've had platforms suddenly become fussy.) In a similar note, while in the past, we obsessed over changing motherboard settings to replicate "stock" or "reference" values, for this article, we simply enabled the memory profile, and left it at that. That means that in some cases, these CPUs may run a bit faster than they will on your own rig, if you disable things like ASUS' MultiCore Enhancement. Similar to how DDR4-3600 has been fussy for us, we obsessed too much in the past about "apples to apples", which increasingly seems like a pipe dream due to how complex motherboards have become. Just bear in mind that your platform, when all built, could be either a bit slower or faster based on your settings. As of the time we got down to testing, Intel's 12th-gen CPUs were primarily encouraged for use with Windows 11, whereas launch issues for that OS made things a bit iffy for other architectures. For this article, we stuck to Windows 10 for both Intel's 11th-gen chips, as well as AMD's AM4. For Intel's 12th-gen, we used a fully up-to-date Windows 11. As always, an updated chipset driver was used for each platform. Most of the tests in this article were run with the help of automated test scripts to help ensure that the same settings and actions are applied each and every time. This generally means that we don't need to run a test too many times over to generate an accurate and repeatable result - but generally speaking, most tests are run at least three times over. Here's the full breakdown of the test platforms: Techgage's CPU Testing Platforms. AMD AM4 Test Platform Processors AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (3.4GHz, 16C/32T) AMD Ryzen 5 5600X (3.7GHz, 6C/12T) Motherboard ASRock X570 TAICHI CPUs tested with BIOS P4.60 (August 3, 2021) Memory Corsair VENGEANCE (CMT64GX4M4Z3600C16) 16GB x4 Operates at DDR4-3200 16-18-18 (1.35V) Graphics NVIDIA RTX 3070 (8GB; GeForce 496.49) Storage WD Blue 3D NAND 1TB (SATA 6Gbps) Power Supply Corsair RM850X (850W) Chassis Fractal Design Define C Cooling Corsair Hydro H100i PRO RGB (240mm) Et cetera Windows 10 Pro (21H1, Build 19043) Intel LGA1700 Test Platform Processors Intel Core i9-12900K (3.2GHz, 16C/24T) Intel Core i5-12600K (3.7GHz, 10C/16T) Motherboard ASUS Z690-PLUS WiFi D4 CPUs tested with BIOS 0503 (September 10, 2021) Memory Corsair VENGEANCE (CMT64GX4M4Z3600C16) 16GB x4 Operates at DDR4-3200 16-18-18 (1.35V) Graphics NVIDIA RTX 3070 (8GB; GeForce 496.49) Storage WD Blue 3D NAND 1TB (SATA 6Gbps) Power Supply EVGA Bronze 600B1 (600W) Chassis Corsair Crystal X570 RGB Cooling Corsair Hydro H115i PRO RGB (280mm) Et cetera Windows 11 Pro (21H2, Build 22000) Intel LGA1200 Test Platform Processors Intel Core i9-11900K...

Intel 12th-gen Core i9-12900K & i5-12600K Workstation Performance Review

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Rob Williams