34 ms·

Intel Core i7-12700K Review

105 points by ItsTotallyOn 5y ago

gsnedders 5y ago
At least to me, it always seems like the differences in gaming performance between mid-to-high end CPUs are relatively small, and frequently dominated by the differences between GPUs. Given a fixed budget, does it actually make sense from a gaming point-of-view to put the money into a high-end CPU any more? (Aside from gaming, there's definitely plenty of wins from going to higher end CPUs, but I'm curious about the gaming case specifically.)
- belval 5y ago
  You are pretty much right on that point, both a 5600X from AMD or a 12600k from Intel won't bottleneck a 3080Ti or 3090 when gaming.
  - zzt123 5y ago
    Only true if you are not playing esports games and trying to push maximum frame rate, such as for a 360hz display, or one of the upcoming 480hz ones. Fwiw my simple reaction time is 220ms on a basic 60hz display vs 170ms on a top end 360hz, so being able to push those frames has a significant quality of life delta, even though I’m unable to hit 360hz in most games due to cpu bottlenecks on my system.
- JaimeThompson 5y ago
  It depends on what sort of games you will be playing. For some simulation and related games such as Factorio and the like the CPU can make a large difference.
  - Macha 5y ago
    At the high end, factorio is one of those games (the other being flight sim) that also gains a lot from faster memory iirc. Though at the low end, factorio is also a really well optimised game and can run a 100spm factory at 60ups pretty comfortably on a mid range cpu. It's only the large multiplayer games or megabases where it starts to hit performance limits. Cities Skylines is probably the best example of a game where the average player has big gains in performance in regular play they could get from a cpu upgrade.
    - adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
      I think you're underestimating factorio significantly. There are 20kspm bases that are run at 60 ups. I doubt most people will even feel the game performance start to degrade before 1kspm.
      - Macha 5y ago
        > There are 20kspm bases that are run at 60 ups. There are, but megabase (>1k spm) territory is where players start making design decisions around ups impact like avoiding large logistics zones or avoiding heat pipes.
- LordKeren 5y ago
  Your assumption lines up with the general PC gaming advice. There are a few games that do strongly benefit from a better CPU, but those are the exception, and they still have significant dismissing returns
  - Drew_ 5y ago
    Not really true in my experience for multiplayer games. Pretty much every multiplayer game is CPU and memory bound and any GPU limitation can be mitigated by just lowering settings. Nothing can be done to compensate for weaker CPU performance unfortunately. If I had to skimp on GPU or CPU I would pick GPU every time.
- TheGuyWhoCodes 5y ago
  It depends on how much the game is CPU heavy, specially single core performance on some games makes a big difference. High end CPUs tend to have a higher single core performance.
- hmottestad 5y ago
  I had the understanding that once you move from 1080p to 4K then the GPU becomes the bottleneck for most AAA games. Pro gamers will probably stick to 1080p and a 144hz monitor.
  - bufferoverflow 5y ago
    Most fps pro gamers have switched to 240hz. I see a fewon 165hz, some on 300+.
  - redisman 5y ago
    Esports games are very greatly optimized to run at high frame rates. You don’t need a 3080 to get infinite FPS in CSGO
    - cedilla 5y ago
      CS:GO is also almost 10 years old, running on the venerable Source engine. While it was a nice graphical update over CS: Source, it wasn't exactly winning any beauty contests.
op00to 5y ago
Very nice, but you can’t buy ddr5 right now so … enjoy that fancy processor? Edit: Holy cow, you can use ddr4!
- Shosty123 5y ago
  You can get Z690 DDR4 boards. That's what I had to resort to so we could test our software on the i5-12600k. Getting a CPU cooler with an LGA 1700 compatible bracket was actually the hardest part.
  - cyber_kinetist 5y ago
    One downside of this current Alder Lake release might be the fact that the Z690 motherboards are much more expensive than the AMD's current mainstream motherboards. The CPU might be a tad cheaper but overall it might not be worth it (well, until more affordable motherboards appear).
- InvaderFizz 5y ago
  Alderlake supports DDR4 and the performance difference is minuscule. The downside of LGA 1700 is that budget boards don't exist right now. You can pick up a B550 board any day of the week for under $100, sales as low as $60. Z690 is all $200+. The Z690 is a nicer platform for sure, especially for peripheral connectivity.
  - 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
    > the performance difference is minuscule I thought DDR5 brought a 2× increase in throughput? It didn't help that much, it seems?
    - InvaderFizz 5y ago
      The timings on DDR5 are very loose right now. Don't expect much real gains for another year or two as it matures. If you have a specific task that is extremely memory bandwidth constrained, it's great. But then again, you are probably looking at something with 8 channels if it is that big of an issue to you.
VortexDream 5y ago
Wow, this seems like an impressive step forward for the CPU industry and the kind of change we've been hoping for since Ryzen started giving Intel a run for its money. I can only hope that AMD continues to stay competitive and keep Intel on its toes.
- xwdv 5y ago
  They are still far behind AMD.
  - ed25519FUUU 5y ago
    These benchmarks suggest they are much slower at bringing the chips to market than AMD, but they’re able to match or beat performance dollar-for-dollar.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      Assuming the chips and motherboards are actually available (at normal prices), and that the production systems will perform in the same way as the benchmark systems.
      - Sponge5 5y ago
        what are normal prices anymore?
    - devonkim 5y ago
      It’s a bit of a complicated matter in terms of pricing as a measure of performance / dollar because with the current Ryzen CPUs AMD increased pricing relative to the previous generation and Intel being in its current position is lowering pricing to remain competitive. So AMD is reducing pricing accordingly and it’s not clear what the margins look like (the 5800X in particular is an awkward chip to produce and now may be forced to even sell at a loss). There’s many factors to consider in TCO like performance / watt as well combined with motherboard ecosystem which has been a historical AMD weak point. So it’s tough to compare CPU pricing on an apples to apples basis even if the CPUs were otherwise exactly the same performance and pricing
tehbeard 5y ago
125 - 190W thermals.... That seems like a lot, almost into server territory. Sacrificing ~5% "game performance" (such a nebulous number given how varied the CPU/GPU load can be between games) for being able to sit comfortably in the same room seems like a no brainer. This still feels like a halo product? Except does the i5 or such compete well enough with Ryzen for that to work? I'm curious to see how AMD responds, I wonder if they're chiplet method lends itself well to launching their own hybrid E/P core architecture alongside "3D V-cache".
- jpalomaki 5y ago
  Maybe we should start looking at placing the computer away from the gamer. There seems to be for example optical TB3 cables, maybe something like this could be part of the solution. https://www.macrumors.com/2020/03/26/optical-thunderbolt-3-cables/amp/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/03/26/optical-thunderbolt-3-c...
- cyber_kinetist 5y ago
  I don't think most consumers would really care about power consumption at full load. From looking at some benchmarks, Intel seems to have okay thermals for gaming or light productivity tasks (thanks to the P-E core split). If you're doing any sort of rendering or number-crunching you're in trouble (unless you have a liquid cooler, which to be honest really sucks), but most people aren't that kind of person.
  - tehbeard 5y ago
    > Intel seems to have okay thermals for gaming or light productivity tasks That's not what you buy an i7 for though, is it? An i7 is typically for "I have work to do when not gaming" or content creators starting out, where as an i5 is more the category for gaming and light productivity / "the family pc". Getting an i7 exclusively for gaming seems more for bragging rights on "fastest CPU".
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
      Depends on the type of game. There was a period of time in the 2010s where CPUs were rarely the bottleneck in gaming. But with the advent of better graphics techniques and more powerful graphics cards, along with more ambitious scenes and simulations, there are many cases today where a strong CPU is required for gaming. A recent example is Battlefield 2042. When I first got the game I had an AMD 3700X, which is no slouch of a CPU. But it could only drive the game at about 70fps, no matter the resolution. After an upgrade to a 5900X, I can run the game at 110-120fps. The strongest i5s would likely struggle to hit a stable 60fps on this game.
boyadjian 5y ago
Just buy the Core i7-12700 non K version : It is cheaper, have lower thermals, and is almost as fast in most usages
- piyh 5y ago
  Non K SKUs don't boost forever
miohtama 5y ago
Does K stand for Kelvins? :)
SmellTheGlove 5y ago
This was hard to read. I felt like the content was a little repetitive - maybe for SEO purposes? And full of over the top superlatives, mostly focused on the performance per dollar, and mostly ignoring the increased costs of motherboards (DDR5 aside) over the prior generation or the current generation of the competitor's product. [0] Not to mention focusing on an OS that basically no one uses right now. I'm sorry but it reads more like an ad. And just because it often needs to be said, I have no brand loyalty here, and mostly think brand loyalty in this space is kind of dumb. [0]: An example: ```Given its more amenable $409 price tag, it is quite shocking to see the Core i7-12700K deliver such a stunning blow to the $549 Ryzen 9 5900X in threaded work, highlighting the advantages of the x86 hybrid architecture.``` I'd love to save $140 and get better performance, but where am I getting a motherboard that doesn't eat up most of that savings? Maybe it exists, but it's not mentioned. That's fine, it's a CPU review, but then leave the dollar figures out of it if they aren't complete.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  TomsHardware has been doing this ever since I remember getting on the internet.
  - SmellTheGlove 5y ago
    True. This made me remember that I complained about the same thing when I founded and ran a competitor site in the late 90s/early 2000s. Of course, tomshardware is still around and I can’t even find mine on archive.org!
- jeffbee 5y ago
  The writing really is offensive, but at least it's all on a single page instead of spread across 75 pages like Anandtech.
  - zitterbewegung 5y ago
    Those are for ad impressions and they do a much better job testing and being neutral
HelixEndeavor 5y ago
Feels to me like we're starting to hit the brick wall with x86-64. Only way we can squeeze more performance out of these chips to make them physically larger, squeeze the components into tighter space, and suck more and more power and generate more and more heat. As much as I dislike Apple's overall business practices, they are 100% correct about ARM being the future of high performance, high efficiency computing. And we need high efficiency in a world that is becoming starved of energy as more and more people get connected every day.
- monocasa 5y ago
  It's Intel's stagnant process nodes you're seeing here more than x86_64.
  - wmf 5y ago
    Intel is on "7" and AMD is on "N7" so I'm not seeing stagnation.
    - adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
      Intel's "7" is just their 10nm node that they renamed (that was originally supposed to launch in 2018 and was delayed to 2020). Intel "4" (their 7nm node) was supposed to be out already, but now looks like it will be 2023 at the earliest.
      - wmf 5y ago
        But 10nm isn't 10nm so the renaming doesn't prove anything.
        Chyzwar 5y ago
        It proves that they keep shifting goalposts. Once Ryzen was starting to dominate, they were against benchmarks[1]. Now they released CPU that is only good in benchmarks (expensive platform, per watt performance, limited software support, further fragmentation avx-512). [1] https://www.extremetech.com/computing/311275-intel-doesnt-want-to-talk-about-benchmarks-anymore https://www.extremetech.com/computing/311275-intel-doesnt-wa...
vondur 5y ago
It looks like to get the best performance benefits out of these newer CPU's, you need to run Windows 11. (Linux will have support for them in the near future I believe)
jbverschoor 5y ago
At the current energy prices, intel needs to up their game.
- zamadatix 5y ago
  Energy prices aren't really a factor in high end gaming CPUs. It's $409 for the CPU alone but a game which maxes a single core out played 8 hours a day for 1 year is ~$30 to the average American for power to CPU+Motherboard+RAM so even if the alternative were $0 of power it's not really a factor https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i7-12700k-alder-lake-12th-gen/20.html https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i7-12700k-alde.... I mean yeah if you're on a budget and plan to sit there with a ~230 watt all core AVX stress test benchmark running 24/7/365 for a couple of years it might matter but in that case you're probably not looking for the fastest high frequency gaming CPU in the first place. Or you're building a custom laptop and would like a long lasting battery, sure bad idea to stick a desktop gaming CPU in. Same when it comes to picking a CPU for the cheap family computer that needs to cost in total what this CPU alone does.
chmod775 5y ago
Those (blender) benchmarks are interesting: - The Intel processors with DDR4 are doing better than with DDR5. This is unlike some of the other benchmarks we have seen. What's happening here? - In Blender, the 12900k impressively got really close in performance to the 5950x ($200 more expensive) and beat the 5900x (similar price). That's... somewhat unexpected. - I wonder whether their cooling could keep up all the way through. They mention a custom water cooling loop. What is the performance with a 'typical' cooling setup? How much performance is lost if these CPUs have to throttle to something you can expect a typical boxed cooler to handle? - Will you actually be able to buy these high-end CPUs? Or are they pure marketing that won't be profitable for Intel and will only be available in small quantities?
- rasz 5y ago
  tomshardware is all about performing benchmarks exactly to their corporate masters specification in product briefings. Here https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hot-spot,365-4.html https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hot-spot,365-4.html they "tested" throttling in a somewhat famous burning Athlon video (later revealed they used board with disabled/non functioning thermal cutout) during Intel Pentium 4 payola timeframe. Some quotes: "AMD did not bless the Thunderbird core with ANY thermal protection whatsoever." In reality AMD socket certification required thermal cutout, same as Intel for Pentium 3. AMD processors do include thermal diode just like Intel ones. "Intel's older processor is also equipped with a thermal diode and a thermal monitoring unit" is a lie. Pentium 3 thermal throttling is performed by the Bios just like in Athlon case. Serendipitously tomshardware picked broken Siemens motherboard for AMD system as recommended by Intel, imagine that. Tomshardware eventually published a non-retraction retraction after AMD pointed out Siemens lie/defect (not adhering to socket certification requirements) and showed proper AMD setup safely shutting down. Of course you cant read that one because its buried down, excluded from wayback machine and deadlinked http://www.tomshardware.com/column/01q4/011029/index.html http://www.tomshardware.com/column/01q4/011029/index.html
ncmncm 5y ago
OK, Intel has reclaimed the performance crown, at least for the moment, though AMD will not be sitting still. But Intel's QA has been slipping for a long time, with buggy instructions in shipped chips. (Anybody remember transactional memory?) Have they turned that around, yet? That seems harder than getting better performance on a new process node.
wly_cdgr 5y ago
Cool but can it run the new Baba Is You level pack?
bobbob1921 5y ago
One possible explanation I haven’t seen in the comments (or gotten to yet) is the massive increase in revenue related to graphics/GPU, partly from greater GPU as compute (ai/deep learning/non-display gpu tasks), as well as crypto mining. (And a larger gaming market/audience over the past four or so years- gaming on mobile / live game streaming) More $ / TAM = more R&D and competition in the space. (And more power/capabilities available for gaming may just be a nice byproduct )

105 points by ItsTotallyOn 5y ago

At least to me, it always seems like the differences in gaming performance between mid-to-high end CPUs are relatively small, and frequently dominated by the differences between GPUs. Given a fixed budget, does it actually make sense from a gaming point-of-view to put the money into a high-end CPU any more? (Aside from gaming, there's definitely plenty of wins from going to higher end CPUs, but I'm curious about the gaming case specifically.)

belval 5y ago
You are pretty much right on that point, both a 5600X from AMD or a 12600k from Intel won't bottleneck a 3080Ti or 3090 when gaming.
- zzt123 5y ago
  Only true if you are not playing esports games and trying to push maximum frame rate, such as for a 360hz display, or one of the upcoming 480hz ones. Fwiw my simple reaction time is 220ms on a basic 60hz display vs 170ms on a top end 360hz, so being able to push those frames has a significant quality of life delta, even though I’m unable to hit 360hz in most games due to cpu bottlenecks on my system.
JaimeThompson 5y ago
It depends on what sort of games you will be playing. For some simulation and related games such as Factorio and the like the CPU can make a large difference.
- Macha 5y ago
  At the high end, factorio is one of those games (the other being flight sim) that also gains a lot from faster memory iirc. Though at the low end, factorio is also a really well optimised game and can run a 100spm factory at 60ups pretty comfortably on a mid range cpu. It's only the large multiplayer games or megabases where it starts to hit performance limits. Cities Skylines is probably the best example of a game where the average player has big gains in performance in regular play they could get from a cpu upgrade.
  - adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
    I think you're underestimating factorio significantly. There are 20kspm bases that are run at 60 ups. I doubt most people will even feel the game performance start to degrade before 1kspm.
    - Macha 5y ago
      > There are 20kspm bases that are run at 60 ups. There are, but megabase (>1k spm) territory is where players start making design decisions around ups impact like avoiding large logistics zones or avoiding heat pipes.
LordKeren 5y ago
Your assumption lines up with the general PC gaming advice. There are a few games that do strongly benefit from a better CPU, but those are the exception, and they still have significant dismissing returns
- Drew_ 5y ago
  Not really true in my experience for multiplayer games. Pretty much every multiplayer game is CPU and memory bound and any GPU limitation can be mitigated by just lowering settings. Nothing can be done to compensate for weaker CPU performance unfortunately. If I had to skimp on GPU or CPU I would pick GPU every time.
TheGuyWhoCodes 5y ago
It depends on how much the game is CPU heavy, specially single core performance on some games makes a big difference. High end CPUs tend to have a higher single core performance.
hmottestad 5y ago
I had the understanding that once you move from 1080p to 4K then the GPU becomes the bottleneck for most AAA games. Pro gamers will probably stick to 1080p and a 144hz monitor.
- bufferoverflow 5y ago
  Most fps pro gamers have switched to 240hz. I see a fewon 165hz, some on 300+.
- redisman 5y ago
  Esports games are very greatly optimized to run at high frame rates. You don’t need a 3080 to get infinite FPS in CSGO
  - cedilla 5y ago
    CS:GO is also almost 10 years old, running on the venerable Source engine. While it was a nice graphical update over CS: Source, it wasn't exactly winning any beauty contests.

op00to 5y ago

Very nice, but you can’t buy ddr5 right now so … enjoy that fancy processor? Edit: Holy cow, you can use ddr4!

Shosty123 5y ago
You can get Z690 DDR4 boards. That's what I had to resort to so we could test our software on the i5-12600k. Getting a CPU cooler with an LGA 1700 compatible bracket was actually the hardest part.
- cyber_kinetist 5y ago
  One downside of this current Alder Lake release might be the fact that the Z690 motherboards are much more expensive than the AMD's current mainstream motherboards. The CPU might be a tad cheaper but overall it might not be worth it (well, until more affordable motherboards appear).
InvaderFizz 5y ago
Alderlake supports DDR4 and the performance difference is minuscule. The downside of LGA 1700 is that budget boards don't exist right now. You can pick up a B550 board any day of the week for under $100, sales as low as $60. Z690 is all $200+. The Z690 is a nicer platform for sure, especially for peripheral connectivity.
- 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
  > the performance difference is minuscule I thought DDR5 brought a 2× increase in throughput? It didn't help that much, it seems?
  - InvaderFizz 5y ago
    The timings on DDR5 are very loose right now. Don't expect much real gains for another year or two as it matures. If you have a specific task that is extremely memory bandwidth constrained, it's great. But then again, you are probably looking at something with 8 channels if it is that big of an issue to you.

VortexDream 5y ago

Wow, this seems like an impressive step forward for the CPU industry and the kind of change we've been hoping for since Ryzen started giving Intel a run for its money. I can only hope that AMD continues to stay competitive and keep Intel on its toes.

xwdv 5y ago
They are still far behind AMD.
- ed25519FUUU 5y ago
  These benchmarks suggest they are much slower at bringing the chips to market than AMD, but they’re able to match or beat performance dollar-for-dollar.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Assuming the chips and motherboards are actually available (at normal prices), and that the production systems will perform in the same way as the benchmark systems.
    - Sponge5 5y ago
      what are normal prices anymore?
  - devonkim 5y ago
    It’s a bit of a complicated matter in terms of pricing as a measure of performance / dollar because with the current Ryzen CPUs AMD increased pricing relative to the previous generation and Intel being in its current position is lowering pricing to remain competitive. So AMD is reducing pricing accordingly and it’s not clear what the margins look like (the 5800X in particular is an awkward chip to produce and now may be forced to even sell at a loss). There’s many factors to consider in TCO like performance / watt as well combined with motherboard ecosystem which has been a historical AMD weak point. So it’s tough to compare CPU pricing on an apples to apples basis even if the CPUs were otherwise exactly the same performance and pricing

tehbeard 5y ago

125 - 190W thermals.... That seems like a lot, almost into server territory. Sacrificing ~5% "game performance" (such a nebulous number given how varied the CPU/GPU load can be between games) for being able to sit comfortably in the same room seems like a no brainer. This still feels like a halo product? Except does the i5 or such compete well enough with Ryzen for that to work? I'm curious to see how AMD responds, I wonder if they're chiplet method lends itself well to launching their own hybrid E/P core architecture alongside "3D V-cache".

jpalomaki 5y ago
Maybe we should start looking at placing the computer away from the gamer. There seems to be for example optical TB3 cables, maybe something like this could be part of the solution. https://www.macrumors.com/2020/03/26/optical-thunderbolt-3-cables/amp/ https://www.macrumors.com/2020/03/26/optical-thunderbolt-3-c...
cyber_kinetist 5y ago
I don't think most consumers would really care about power consumption at full load. From looking at some benchmarks, Intel seems to have okay thermals for gaming or light productivity tasks (thanks to the P-E core split). If you're doing any sort of rendering or number-crunching you're in trouble (unless you have a liquid cooler, which to be honest really sucks), but most people aren't that kind of person.
- tehbeard 5y ago
  > Intel seems to have okay thermals for gaming or light productivity tasks That's not what you buy an i7 for though, is it? An i7 is typically for "I have work to do when not gaming" or content creators starting out, where as an i5 is more the category for gaming and light productivity / "the family pc". Getting an i7 exclusively for gaming seems more for bragging rights on "fastest CPU".
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
    Depends on the type of game. There was a period of time in the 2010s where CPUs were rarely the bottleneck in gaming. But with the advent of better graphics techniques and more powerful graphics cards, along with more ambitious scenes and simulations, there are many cases today where a strong CPU is required for gaming. A recent example is Battlefield 2042. When I first got the game I had an AMD 3700X, which is no slouch of a CPU. But it could only drive the game at about 70fps, no matter the resolution. After an upgrade to a 5900X, I can run the game at 110-120fps. The strongest i5s would likely struggle to hit a stable 60fps on this game.

boyadjian 5y ago

Just buy the Core i7-12700 non K version : It is cheaper, have lower thermals, and is almost as fast in most usages

piyh 5y ago
Non K SKUs don't boost forever

miohtama 5y ago

Does K stand for Kelvins? :)

SmellTheGlove 5y ago

This was hard to read. I felt like the content was a little repetitive - maybe for SEO purposes? And full of over the top superlatives, mostly focused on the performance per dollar, and mostly ignoring the increased costs of motherboards (DDR5 aside) over the prior generation or the current generation of the competitor's product. [0] Not to mention focusing on an OS that basically no one uses right now. I'm sorry but it reads more like an ad. And just because it often needs to be said, I have no brand loyalty here, and mostly think brand loyalty in this space is kind of dumb. [0]: An example: ```Given its more amenable $409 price tag, it is quite shocking to see the Core i7-12700K deliver such a stunning blow to the $549 Ryzen 9 5900X in threaded work, highlighting the advantages of the x86 hybrid architecture.``` I'd love to save $140 and get better performance, but where am I getting a motherboard that doesn't eat up most of that savings? Maybe it exists, but it's not mentioned. That's fine, it's a CPU review, but then leave the dollar figures out of it if they aren't complete.

systemvoltage 5y ago
TomsHardware has been doing this ever since I remember getting on the internet.
- SmellTheGlove 5y ago
  True. This made me remember that I complained about the same thing when I founded and ran a competitor site in the late 90s/early 2000s. Of course, tomshardware is still around and I can’t even find mine on archive.org!
jeffbee 5y ago
The writing really is offensive, but at least it's all on a single page instead of spread across 75 pages like Anandtech.
- zitterbewegung 5y ago
  Those are for ad impressions and they do a much better job testing and being neutral

HelixEndeavor 5y ago

Feels to me like we're starting to hit the brick wall with x86-64. Only way we can squeeze more performance out of these chips to make them physically larger, squeeze the components into tighter space, and suck more and more power and generate more and more heat. As much as I dislike Apple's overall business practices, they are 100% correct about ARM being the future of high performance, high efficiency computing. And we need high efficiency in a world that is becoming starved of energy as more and more people get connected every day.

monocasa 5y ago
It's Intel's stagnant process nodes you're seeing here more than x86_64.
- wmf 5y ago
  Intel is on "7" and AMD is on "N7" so I'm not seeing stagnation.
  - adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
    Intel's "7" is just their 10nm node that they renamed (that was originally supposed to launch in 2018 and was delayed to 2020). Intel "4" (their 7nm node) was supposed to be out already, but now looks like it will be 2023 at the earliest.
    - wmf 5y ago
      But 10nm isn't 10nm so the renaming doesn't prove anything.
      - Chyzwar 5y ago
        It proves that they keep shifting goalposts. Once Ryzen was starting to dominate, they were against benchmarks[1]. Now they released CPU that is only good in benchmarks (expensive platform, per watt performance, limited software support, further fragmentation avx-512). [1] https://www.extremetech.com/computing/311275-intel-doesnt-want-to-talk-about-benchmarks-anymore https://www.extremetech.com/computing/311275-intel-doesnt-wa...

vondur 5y ago

It looks like to get the best performance benefits out of these newer CPU's, you need to run Windows 11. (Linux will have support for them in the near future I believe)

jbverschoor 5y ago

At the current energy prices, intel needs to up their game.

zamadatix 5y ago
Energy prices aren't really a factor in high end gaming CPUs. It's $409 for the CPU alone but a game which maxes a single core out played 8 hours a day for 1 year is ~$30 to the average American for power to CPU+Motherboard+RAM so even if the alternative were $0 of power it's not really a factor https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i7-12700k-alder-lake-12th-gen/20.html https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i7-12700k-alde.... I mean yeah if you're on a budget and plan to sit there with a ~230 watt all core AVX stress test benchmark running 24/7/365 for a couple of years it might matter but in that case you're probably not looking for the fastest high frequency gaming CPU in the first place. Or you're building a custom laptop and would like a long lasting battery, sure bad idea to stick a desktop gaming CPU in. Same when it comes to picking a CPU for the cheap family computer that needs to cost in total what this CPU alone does.

chmod775 5y ago

Those (blender) benchmarks are interesting: - The Intel processors with DDR4 are doing better than with DDR5. This is unlike some of the other benchmarks we have seen. What's happening here? - In Blender, the 12900k impressively got really close in performance to the 5950x ($200 more expensive) and beat the 5900x (similar price). That's... somewhat unexpected. - I wonder whether their cooling could keep up all the way through. They mention a custom water cooling loop. What is the performance with a 'typical' cooling setup? How much performance is lost if these CPUs have to throttle to something you can expect a typical boxed cooler to handle? - Will you actually be able to buy these high-end CPUs? Or are they pure marketing that won't be profitable for Intel and will only be available in small quantities?

rasz 5y ago
tomshardware is all about performing benchmarks exactly to their corporate masters specification in product briefings. Here https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hot-spot,365-4.html https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hot-spot,365-4.html they "tested" throttling in a somewhat famous burning Athlon video (later revealed they used board with disabled/non functioning thermal cutout) during Intel Pentium 4 payola timeframe. Some quotes: "AMD did not bless the Thunderbird core with ANY thermal protection whatsoever." In reality AMD socket certification required thermal cutout, same as Intel for Pentium 3. AMD processors do include thermal diode just like Intel ones. "Intel's older processor is also equipped with a thermal diode and a thermal monitoring unit" is a lie. Pentium 3 thermal throttling is performed by the Bios just like in Athlon case. Serendipitously tomshardware picked broken Siemens motherboard for AMD system as recommended by Intel, imagine that. Tomshardware eventually published a non-retraction retraction after AMD pointed out Siemens lie/defect (not adhering to socket certification requirements) and showed proper AMD setup safely shutting down. Of course you cant read that one because its buried down, excluded from wayback machine and deadlinked http://www.tomshardware.com/column/01q4/011029/index.html http://www.tomshardware.com/column/01q4/011029/index.html

ncmncm 5y ago

OK, Intel has reclaimed the performance crown, at least for the moment, though AMD will not be sitting still. But Intel's QA has been slipping for a long time, with buggy instructions in shipped chips. (Anybody remember transactional memory?) Have they turned that around, yet? That seems harder than getting better performance on a new process node.

wly_cdgr 5y ago

Cool but can it run the new Baba Is You level pack?

bobbob1921 5y ago

One possible explanation I haven’t seen in the comments (or gotten to yet) is the massive increase in revenue related to graphics/GPU, partly from greater GPU as compute (ai/deep learning/non-display gpu tasks), as well as crypto mining. (And a larger gaming market/audience over the past four or so years- gaming on mobile / live game streaming) More $ / TAM = more R&D and competition in the space. (And more power/capabilities available for gaming may just be a nice byproduct )