The flagship Intel Alder Lake Core i9-12900K Desktop CPU has once again appeared within the SiSoftware SANDRA benchmark database and spotted by TUM_APISAK. This time, we get to see much higher clock speeds & inter-thread efficiency performance.
Intel Core i9-12900K Alder Lake Flagship Spotted With Over 5 GHz Boost Clocks, Blows Away The Core i9-11900K & Core i9-10900K In Inter-Thread Efficiency Benchmark
The Intel Core i9-12900K will be the flagship chip within the 12th Gen Alder Lake Desktop CPU line. The software lists down the processor with various clock speeds that might be the boost clocks for both, the P-Core (Golden Cove) and E-Core (Gracemont). So with that said, let's take a look at the specifications of the upcoming Core i9 chip.
Intel's Core i9-12900K Alder Lake-S CPU will rock 16 cores and 24 threads. That's arranged in 8 P-Core (with 16 threads) and 8 E-Core (with 8 threads). The CPU features 30 MB of L3 cache which is arranged in 3 MB per core partitions on the P-Core (Golden Cove) and 3 MB per cluster on the E-Core (Gracemont). That's 8 P-Cores for 24 MB from the P-Cores and 6 MB from the two clusters comprising 4 E-Cores each. There's also 1.25 MB of L2 cache for a total of 12.5 MB on the entire chip.
As for clock speeds, the Intel Core i9-12900K is expected to feature a P-Core base and boost clocks of 3.2 GHz / 5.3 GHz and E-Core base and boost clocks of 3.0 / 3.9 GHz. These boost clocks are for a single-core. The all-core boost frequencies are expected to be 5.0 GHz for the P-Core and 3.7 GHz for the E-Core. The upper speeds will be achieved only when TVB (Thermal Velocity Boost) has been activated so normal boost speeds might be a little lower.
Intel 12th Gen Alder Lake Desktop CPU Specs
| CPU Name | P-Core Count | E-Core Count | Total Core / Thread | P-Core Base / Boost (Max) | P-Core Boost (All-Core) | E-Core Base / Boost | E-Core Boost (All-Core) | L3 Cache | TDP (PL1) | TDP (PL2) | Expected (MSRP) Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core i9-12900KS | 8 | 8 | 16 / 24 | 3.4 / 5.5 GHz | 5.2 GHz | 2.4 / 3.9 GHz | 3.7 GHz | 30 MB | 150W | 260W | $739 US |
| Core i9-12900K | 8 | 8 | 16 / 24 | 3.2 / 5.2 GHz | 5.0 GHz | 2.4 / 3.9 GHz | 3.7 GHz | 30 MB | 125W | 241W | $599 US |
| Core i9-12900 | 8 | 8 | 16 / 24 | 2.4 / 5.1 GHz | TBA | 1.8 / 3.8 GHz | TBA | 30 MB | 65W | 202W | $489 US $464 US (F) |
| Core i9-12900T | 8 | 8 | 16 / 24 | 1.4 / 4.9 GHz | TBA | 1.0 / 3.6 GHz | TBA | 30 MB | 35W | 106W | $489 US |
| Core i7-12700K | 8 | 4 | 12 / 20 | 3.6 / 5.0 GHz | 4.7 GHz | 2.7 / 3.8 GHz | 3.6 GHz | 25 MB | 125W | 190W | $419 US |
| Core i7-12700 | 8 | 4 | 12 / 20 | 2.1 / 4.9 GHz | TBA | 1.6 / 3.6 GHz | TBA | 25 MB | 65W | 180W | $339 US $314 US (F) |
| Core i7-12700T | 8 | 4 | 12 / 20 | 1.4 / 4.7 GHz | TBA | 1.0 / 3.4 GHz | TBA | 25 MB | 35W | 99W | $339 US |
| Core i5-12600K | 6 | 4 | 10 / 16 | 3.7 / 4.9 GHz | 4.5 GHz | 2.8 / 3.6 GHz | 3.4 GHz | 20 MB | 125W | 150W | $299 US |
| Core i5-12600 | 6 | 0 | 6 / 12 | 3.3 / 4.8 GHz | 4.4 GHz | N/A | N/A | 18 MB | 65W | 117W | $223 US |
| Core i5-12600T | 6 | 0 | 6 / 12 | 2.1 / 4.6 GHz | TBA | N/A | N/A | 18 MB | 65W | 74W | $223 US |
| Core i5-12490P | 6 | 0 | 6 / 12 | 3.0 / 4.6 GHz | TBA | N/A | N/A | 20 MB | 65W | 74W | ~$250 US |
| Core i5-12500 | 6 | 0 | 6 / 12 | 3.0 / 4.6 GHz | TBA | N/A | N/A | 18 MB | 65W | 117W | $202 US |
| Core i5-12500T | 6 | 0 | 6 / 12 | 2.0 / 4.4 GHz | TBA | N/A | N/A | 18 MB | 35W | 74W | $202 US |
| Core i5-12400 | 6 | 0 | 6 / 12 | 2.5 / 4.4 GHz | 4.0 GHz | N/A | N/A | 18 MB | 65W | 117W | $192 US $167 US (F) |
| Core i5-12400T | 6 | 0 | 6 / 12 | 1.8 / 4.2 GHz | TBA | N/A | N/A | 18 MB | 35W | 74W | $192 US |
| Core i3-12300 | 4 | 0 | 4 / 8 | 3.5 / 4.4 GHz | TBA | N/A | N/A | 12 MB | 60W | 89W | $143 US |
| Core i3-12300T | 4 | 0 | 4 / 8 | 2.3 / 4.2 GHz | TBA | N/A | N/A | 12 MB | 35W | 69W | $143 US |
| Core i3-12100 | 4 | 0 | 4 / 8 | 3.3 / 4.3 GHz | TBA | N/A | N/A | 12 MB | 60W 58W (F) | 89W | $122 US $97 US (F) |
| Core i3-12100T | 4 | 0 | 4 / 8 | 2.2 / 4.1 GHz | TBA | N/A | N/A | 12 MB | 35W | 69W | $122 US |
| Intel Pentium Gold G7400 | 2 | 0 | 2 / 4 | 3.7 GHz | N/A | N/A | N/A | 6 MB | 46W | N/A | $64 US |
| Intel Pentium Gold G7400T | 2 | 0 | 2 / 4 | 3.1 GHz | N/A | N/A | N/A | 6 MB | 35W | N/A | $64 US |
| Intel Celeron G6900 | 2 | 0 | 2 / 2 | 3.4 GHz | N/A | N/A | N/A | 4 MB | 46W | N/A | $42 US |
| Intel Celeron G6900T | 2 | 0 | 2 / 2 | 2.8 GHz | N/A | N/A | N/A | 4 MB | 35W | N/A | $42 US |
The Core i9-12900K in the benchmark was running at around 5.08 GHz which is close to its all-core frequency. There's also another clock mentioned at 3.6 GHz which could be the average boost clock of the E-cores though that remains to be seen. The SiSoftware Sandra benchmark was unable to get the exact power figures hence the standard 125W (PL1) TDP is mentioned. The good thing is that the benchmark this chip was tested within doesn't rely on power figures to measure the CPU inter-thread efficiency. In the recent leak, it is stated that Alder Lake CPUs will hybrid cores to work in parallel for improved thread handling while retaining a 125W TDP but we can't say if this works on existing benchmarks running on older Windows operating systems.
So in terms of Inter-Thread efficiency, a benchmark that measures the efficiency of inter-thread, core, module, node, & inter-package communication fabrics, the Intel Core i9-12900K scored an average of 112.30 GB/s. In the same benchmark, the Core i9-10900K scores 85.89 GB/s while the Core i9-11900K scores 80.60 GB/s.Both AMD Ryzen 9 5950X & Ryzen 9 5900X though deliver much faster performance within the same benchmark.
Intel Core i9-12900K Inter-Thread Efficency Performance Benchmark
The CPU was running on the Intel Alder Lake Client platform with DDR5 UDIMMs. So overall, you can see that the inter-core latencies are improved by a huge margin on the upcoming Alder Lake CPUs. The Intel Alder Lake CPUs are expected to launch in November with an announcement by end of October.
