Intel 12th Gen Core – Benchmarks

Today’s the exciting day that we finally get to reveal benchmarks for Intel 12th Gen Core processors. It’s been a long road to get here, but the wait has definitely been worth it. Read on for some of the eye-popping benchmark results and why we think this may be one of the most exciting launches in years.

What is Intel 12th Gen Core?

Intel launched its revolutionary Core architecture in 2006, ushering in an era of multiple CPU cores on a single die. It was an enormous leap in innovation at the time, and a boon to multitaskers and developers able to take advantage of multiple CPU threads. Since, Intel has introduced incremental architecture changes – reducing transistor size and increasing voltages and core count to improve performance. 12th Gen (formerly codenamed Alder Lake) is the latest iteration of that model, but is hardly an incremental improvement in terms of performance.

What’s new?

We’ll go into more detail in later posts, but here’s a summary of what’s new with Intel’s latest CPU and corresponding Z690 chipset:

New P/E core model – With the introduction of Turbo Boost a few years ago, Intel started to move to a hybrid model to maximize performance and efficiency. With 12th Gen, Intel has taken that model even further with Performance (P) and Efficiency (E) cores. P cores run faster and are multithreaded while E cores have a lower clock and single threading. The goal there is optimizing the efficiency while maximizing the performance for better benchmarks at lower TDPs.

DDR5 – The latest iteration of RAM technology, DDR5 means higher bandwidths and faster speeds, up to 5200MHz depending on models and motherboards. One note: Z690 boards come in DDR4 and DDR5 versions, so if DDR5 is what you want, make sure your board is compatible.

PCIe Gen 5 – Gen 4 just came out a few years ago (and only months ago from Intel) but here’s Gen 5 right on its heels. We’re still some time away from supporting hardware, but for future proofing, Gen 5 is nice to have.

12th Gen Benchmarks

So how does Intel’s latest processor perform? Let’s take a look at some benchmark data of the flagship 12900k. First, Cinebench, a synthetic benchmarking application that evaluates CPU performance specifically.

The numbers here are impressive – coming in right in line with AMD’s top of the line Ryzen 9 5950X, but it’s the value proposition that really moves the needle. From a performance per dollar perspective, the $599 12900k is far and away the winner over the $799 5950X, or frankly any other CPU we tested. Perhaps most impressive are the numbers in comparison to the previous gen 11900k with over 70% multithreaded gains.

Next, 3DMark, a synthetic application mainly designed to measure gaming performance:

Here, the story is even more impressive. Not only is the 12900k the best gaming CPU we tested – and by a wide margin, again over Intel’s own and AMD’s competition – it’s a again the best value in terms of performance/dollar. According to these numbers, there’s a new gaming king.

Configure your 12th Gen Intel Core desktop in our Raptor Z55, available and shipping now for delivery in time for Christmas. As always, our sales team is available to assist with questions at 804-419-0900.