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Intel 12thGen Core I9-12900K Review: Hybrid Performance Brings Hybrid Complexity

29 points by amardeep 5y ago

sheepybloke 5y ago
Is the i7 dead at this point? Ars' review focused mostly on the i5 and i9, and both of them showed good progress. Is there a reason to go for an i7 now? If I want power, I just go straight for an i9 or AMD, and if I want something more budget, the I go for i5. Does the slight performance increase between the i5 and i7 make it much more of an option?
- IanCutress 5y ago
  Intel sampled the i9 and i5 to press.
imagetic 5y ago
Power hungry and HOT. Speed is there though.
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  So still solidly entrenched in the second era of Netburst. So Intel is chasing AMD...But AMD is actually chasing Apple now. So Intel has two frogs to jump this time. AMD has a real opportunity at long term strategic victory in computing. If they can be the leader in a mass shift of the Windows/PC ecosystem in an ISA change to ARM then Intel might be toast. Let's say AMD gets a near-M1 chip out quickly with the same gee-whiz battery life out 18 months before Intel, and can produce them at a cost the Intel's business people sniff at because they are so fat on margins, even now. And servers and laptops swarm the market such that it becomes an inevitability that mainstream PC/Servers will go ARM as the dominant ISA. Intel will be in deep trouble. It also would be an opportunity for Apple to dominate the PC market with OSX by making a more general-hardware OS, but they won't do that. And of course it is YET ANOTHER opportunity by desktop Linux to gain a foothold, but at this point it's more likely that Android or an evolved Windows-that-is-99% linux becomes that.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - IanCutress 5y ago
    I think you missed the review. SPEC shows a lead in ST for Intel over AMD and Apple.
    - rbanffy 5y ago
      > SPEC shows a lead in ST for Intel over AMD and Apple. A lead over AMD is one thing, but the M1 is a mobile CPU and this is a desktop one.
keldaris 5y ago
The AVX-512 story is just insane. I can't even begin to imagine the kind of corporate dysfunction that leads to, first, at long last introducing the biggest change in the instruction set since the Haswell era into the consumer CPU line, slowly getting some actual adoption on that, and then suddenly dropping it altogether (for rather dubious reasons), but actually not really, so random motherboard vendors get to re-enable it behind your back. This is crazy, both in terms of CPU design and just basic communication. Personally, I'll be waiting out this generation until I see AMD's response. Taking AVX-512 seriously is even harder than it already was.
- fstrthnscnd 5y ago
  Wouldn't it be possible for a process to ask to be pinned to a specific CPU core, or the OS to handle programs with extra tags indicating their ISA requirements, so that it could restrict the scheduling to those cores matching the requirements?
  - keldaris 5y ago
    That's what people generally expected when the whole P-core vs E-core on different microarchitectures design was announced. Instead of going for this, Intel went out of their way to state that there would be no AVX-512 even on P-cores and that's that. Ignoring this obvious solution is part of why I'm so flabbergasted at the situation.
    - fstrthnscnd 5y ago
      Perhaps there are undisclosed security implications?
      - keldaris 5y ago
        Then they can just say so and spin it as a PR win - "look how security conscious we are these days". Very publicly removing a formerly-headline feature with no explanation and then even failing at that is just mind boggling.
rowanG077 5y ago
Linus tech tips also showed this CPU almost can't be cooled. Even with the best air cooler that is better then some water cooling setups it hit 90+ degrees. This doesn't spell well for the mobile CPUs of this gen. Intel is already greatly exceeding thermal envelope on mobile CPUs for a few gens.
- IanCutress 5y ago
  I think there are some issues with temperature readings on ADL. A lot of software showcases 100C with only 3 P-cores loaded, but even with all cores loaded, the CPU doesn't de-clock at that temp. My MSI AIO has a temperature display, and it only showed 75C at load. I've got questions out in a few places - I think Intel switched some of the thermal monitoring stuff inside and people are polling the wrong things. Other press are showing 100C quite easily too. I'm asking MSI how their AIO had 75C at load, but I'm still waiting on an answer. An ASUS rep said that 75-80C should be normal under load. So why everything is saying 100C I have no idea.
Synaesthesia 5y ago
It's a pretty insane processor. Eg the Geekbench Multicore score of 18241 is faster than even the 16 Core 5950x. https://browser.geekbench.com/processor-benchmarks https://browser.geekbench.com/processor-benchmarks
- IanCutress 5y ago
  The review in the link has over a hundred different benchmarks.

29 points by amardeep 5y ago

Is the i7 dead at this point? Ars' review focused mostly on the i5 and i9, and both of them showed good progress. Is there a reason to go for an i7 now? If I want power, I just go straight for an i9 or AMD, and if I want something more budget, the I go for i5. Does the slight performance increase between the i5 and i7 make it much more of an option?

IanCutress 5y ago
Intel sampled the i9 and i5 to press.

imagetic 5y ago

Power hungry and HOT. Speed is there though.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago
So still solidly entrenched in the second era of Netburst. So Intel is chasing AMD...But AMD is actually chasing Apple now. So Intel has two frogs to jump this time. AMD has a real opportunity at long term strategic victory in computing. If they can be the leader in a mass shift of the Windows/PC ecosystem in an ISA change to ARM then Intel might be toast. Let's say AMD gets a near-M1 chip out quickly with the same gee-whiz battery life out 18 months before Intel, and can produce them at a cost the Intel's business people sniff at because they are so fat on margins, even now. And servers and laptops swarm the market such that it becomes an inevitability that mainstream PC/Servers will go ARM as the dominant ISA. Intel will be in deep trouble. It also would be an opportunity for Apple to dominate the PC market with OSX by making a more general-hardware OS, but they won't do that. And of course it is YET ANOTHER opportunity by desktop Linux to gain a foothold, but at this point it's more likely that Android or an evolved Windows-that-is-99% linux becomes that.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- IanCutress 5y ago
  I think you missed the review. SPEC shows a lead in ST for Intel over AMD and Apple.
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    > SPEC shows a lead in ST for Intel over AMD and Apple. A lead over AMD is one thing, but the M1 is a mobile CPU and this is a desktop one.

keldaris 5y ago

The AVX-512 story is just insane. I can't even begin to imagine the kind of corporate dysfunction that leads to, first, at long last introducing the biggest change in the instruction set since the Haswell era into the consumer CPU line, slowly getting some actual adoption on that, and then suddenly dropping it altogether (for rather dubious reasons), but actually not really, so random motherboard vendors get to re-enable it behind your back. This is crazy, both in terms of CPU design and just basic communication. Personally, I'll be waiting out this generation until I see AMD's response. Taking AVX-512 seriously is even harder than it already was.

fstrthnscnd 5y ago
Wouldn't it be possible for a process to ask to be pinned to a specific CPU core, or the OS to handle programs with extra tags indicating their ISA requirements, so that it could restrict the scheduling to those cores matching the requirements?
- keldaris 5y ago
  That's what people generally expected when the whole P-core vs E-core on different microarchitectures design was announced. Instead of going for this, Intel went out of their way to state that there would be no AVX-512 even on P-cores and that's that. Ignoring this obvious solution is part of why I'm so flabbergasted at the situation.
  - fstrthnscnd 5y ago
    Perhaps there are undisclosed security implications?
    - keldaris 5y ago
      Then they can just say so and spin it as a PR win - "look how security conscious we are these days". Very publicly removing a formerly-headline feature with no explanation and then even failing at that is just mind boggling.

rowanG077 5y ago

Linus tech tips also showed this CPU almost can't be cooled. Even with the best air cooler that is better then some water cooling setups it hit 90+ degrees. This doesn't spell well for the mobile CPUs of this gen. Intel is already greatly exceeding thermal envelope on mobile CPUs for a few gens.

IanCutress 5y ago
I think there are some issues with temperature readings on ADL. A lot of software showcases 100C with only 3 P-cores loaded, but even with all cores loaded, the CPU doesn't de-clock at that temp. My MSI AIO has a temperature display, and it only showed 75C at load. I've got questions out in a few places - I think Intel switched some of the thermal monitoring stuff inside and people are polling the wrong things. Other press are showing 100C quite easily too. I'm asking MSI how their AIO had 75C at load, but I'm still waiting on an answer. An ASUS rep said that 75-80C should be normal under load. So why everything is saying 100C I have no idea.

Synaesthesia 5y ago

It's a pretty insane processor. Eg the Geekbench Multicore score of 18241 is faster than even the 16 Core 5950x. https://browser.geekbench.com/processor-benchmarks https://browser.geekbench.com/processor-benchmarks

IanCutress 5y ago
The review in the link has over a hundred different benchmarks.