Last November we took a look at Intel’s first 12th generation desktop processors, and today we’re back to finish the job. In that initial piece, we reviewed the Core i9 12900K and Core i5 12600K and came away impressed. As it turns out, a modern 10nm process, a larger L3 cache and a new hybrid architecture with ‘Performance’ and ‘Efficient’ cores adds up to a very capable CPU lineup. However, both the $589 12900K and $289 12600K have cheaper equivalents with fewer E-cores that ought to provide very similar gaming performance – so this time we’re taking a look at those chips, the $409 Core i7 12700K and the $167 Core i5 12400F.
Looking at the specs for each CPU in the table below, you can see that the logic behind the 12900K/12700K and the 12600K/12400F pairings. In each case, we have the same number of hyper-threaded Performance cores – eight for the high-end (i9/i7) parts and six for the mid-range (i5) offerings – with four fewer Efficient cores in the lower-end example. That means moving from eight E-cores in the 12900K to four in the 12700K, while the 12600K’s four E-cores turn into zero E-cores on the 12400F.
As well as having fewer E-cores for background tasks to run, L3 cache sizes and maximum turbo clocks are reduced as you go down the stack. It’ll be fascinating to see how these changes affect gaming and content creation performance. We also expect to see an effect on thermal output, with the cheaper chips likely running cooler and therefore requiring less intense cooling apparatus to run at their best.
| Processor | Cores (P/E) | Threads | P Max Turbo | E Max Turbo | Smart Cache | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| i9-12900K | 16 (8E/8P) | 24 | 5.2GHz* | 3.9GHz | 30MB | $589 |
| i7-12700K | 12 (8P/4E) | 20 | 5.0GHz* | 3.8GHz | 25MB | $409 |
| i5-12600K | 10 (6P/4E) | 16 | 4.9GHz | 3.6GHz | 20MB | $289 |
| i5-12400F | 6 (6P/0E) | 12 | 4.4GHz | n/a | 18MB | $167 |
As a recap, the 12700K and 12400F require 600-series Intel motherboards. These support Alder Lake’s new taller CPUs with the LGA 1700 socket, PCIe 5.0 and either DDR4 or DDR5 RAM. We think that DDR4 will prove the better value option in the here and now, while DDR5 boards will come into their own months or years later. The new chips rely on Intel’s Thread Director and the Windows 11 OS to put performance-critical gaming or content creation tasks on the P cores, while background tasks like updates or streaming run on the E cores. The new CPUs do work on Windows 10, but you’ll see reduced performance as running programs can’t be assigned to the correct cores as intelligently.
Let’s take a quick look at the test rig we’ll be working with, before we get into the content creation and game benchmarks.
We’re using the Asus ROG Maximus Z690 Hero, a premium Z690 motherboard with DDR5 support. We tested two dual-channel RAM kits: a 32GB Corsair DDR5-5200 CL38 Dominator Platinum kit with fancy RGB lighting and 32GB Crucial DDR5-4800 CL40 kit that looks a little more basic but costs less. Our other motherboards used the fastest DDR4 we had on hand: a 3600MHz CL16 G.Skill Trident Z Royal kit. This memory hits much lower frequencies, but it does offer significant better timings and costs less too, so it’ll be interesting to see how it performs in a Z690 DDR4 board once we get one in house to test.