Intel 12th-gen Alder Lake CPUs: Everything you need to know1
There’s a lot to talk about with Alder Lake. We rounded up everything you need to know about 12th-gen Alder Lake processors, including how much they cost, what kind of performance you can expect, and how they work with new Z690 motherboards.
The first batch of Alder Lake chips arrived on November 4. The company announced them during the Intel Innovation event on October 27, revealing six new CPUs to kick off the range. The Core i9-12900K was the original flagship model, but in April 2022, the Core i9-12900KS was launched and became the new flagship. Many models also have an “F” variant, which means the integrated graphics are disabled, and F models are also cheaper than their non-F counterparts. There are now seven 12th-gen CPUs that are unlocked:
- Core i9-12900KS — $739
- Core i9-12900K — $589
- Core i9-12900KF — $ 564
- Core i7-12700K — $409
- Core i7-12700KF — $384
- Core i5-12600K — $289
- Core i5-12600KF — $264
With Alder Lake finally here, we can validate some of Intel’s performance claims. In our testing of the Core i9-12900K, we found massive gains over the previous generation and a significant lead over the competing Ryzen 9 5950X. The Core i9-12900KS, which is essentially an overclocked 12900K, slightly extended Intel’s lead over the 5950X.
Gaming is a big focus of Alder Lake. Intel says the generation brings up to a 28% improvement in games like Hitman 3 over the previous generation. Some of that is on the back of Windows 11, which is optimized for Alder Lake’s Thread Director feature, and DDR5 memory, which benefits games with its increased bandwidth.
Our own benchmarks back up the improvements in games. In the synthetic 3D Mark Time Spy, the Core i9-12900KS was about 9% faster than the Ryzen 9 5950X and Core i9-10900K. In a real game, Forza Horizon 4, the 12th-gen chip managed a massive 19% lead over the other two processors.
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