The Intel 12th Gen Core i9-12900K Review: Hybrid Performance Brings Hybrid Complexity
by Dr. Ian Cutress & Andrei Frumusanu on November 4, 2021 9:00 AM ESTCPU Tests: SPEC MT Performance - DDR5 Advantage
Multi-threaded performance is where things become very interesting for Alder Lake, where the chip can now combine its 8 P-cores with its 8 E-cores. As we saw, the 8 E-cores are nothing to sneeze about, but another larger consideration for MT performance is DDR5. While in the ST results we didn’t see much change in the performance of the cores, in MT scenarios when all cores are hammering the memory, having double the memory channels as well as +50% more bandwidth is going to be extremely beneficial for Alder Lake.
As we noted, the DDR5 vs DDR4 results showcase a very large performance gap between the two memory technologies in MT scenarios. Running a total of 24 threads, 16 for the SMT-enabled P-cores, and 8 for the E-cores, Alder Lake is able to take the performance crown in quite a lot of the workloads. There are still cases where AMD’s 16-core setup with larger cores are able to perform better, undoubtedly also partly attributed to 64MB of on-chip cache.
Compared to the 11900K, the new 12900K showcases giant leaps, especially when paired with DDR5.
In the FP suite, the DDR5 advantage in some workloads is even larger, as the results scale beyond that of the pure theoretical +50% bandwidth improvement. What’s important for performance is not just the theoretical bandwidth, but the actual utilised bandwidth, and again, the doubled up memory channels of DDR5 here are seemingly contributing to extremely large increases, if the workload can take advantage of it.
In the aggregate results, there’s very clearly two conclusions, depending on whether you use the chip with DDR5 or DDR4.
With DDR4, Alder Lake and the 12900K in particular, is able to showcase very good and solid increases in performance, thanks to the IPC gains on the Golden Cove core, but most importantly, also thanks to the extra 8 Gracemont cores, which do carry their own weight. The 12900K falls behind AMD’s 5900X with DDR4, which is fair given the pricing of the chips here are generally in line with teach other.
With DDR5, the 12900K is able to fully stretch its multi-threaded performance legs. In less memory dependent workloads, the chip battles it out with AMD’s 16-core 5950X, winning some workloads, losing some others. In more memory dependent workloads, the DDR5 advantage is extremely clear, and the 12900K is able to blow past any competition, even slightly edging out the latest Apple M1 Max, released a few weeks ago, and notable for its memory bandwidth.
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xhris4747 - Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - link
They should use pbo it's fair toxhris4747 - Tuesday, November 9, 2021 - link
Is you using pbo some people are t using pbo which I think isn't fair because that i9 is oc to snotEnglishMike - Thursday, November 4, 2021 - link
It's not just the gaming world -- it's the entire world except for long-running CPU intensive tasks. Handbrake and blender are valuable benchmarking tools for seeing what a CPU is capable of when pushed to the limit, but the vast majority of users -- even most power users -- don't do that.Sure, Intel has more work to do to improve power efficiency in long running CPU intensive workloads, but taking the worst case power usage scenarios distorts the picture as much as you're claiming the reviewers are doing.
Wrs - Thursday, November 4, 2021 - link
Can't calculate efficiency without scores. Also, well known that power scales much faster than performance. The proper way to compare efficiency is really at constant work rate or constant power.blanarahul - Thursday, November 4, 2021 - link
Sorry sir I can't. You haven't provided me the data for how much time each test took! Would you be so kind as to do that?Netmsm - Thursday, November 4, 2021 - link
Sorry, this is a direct link to Tom's bench:https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/if3Lox9ZJBRxjbhr...
this is for "blender bmw27" in which both 12900k and 5950x finish the job around 80 seconds BUT 12900k sucks power for about 70 percent more than 5950x.
you can find other benches here:
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-core-i9-12...
I'm wondering why Ian hasn't put 12900k nominal TDP in results just like all other CPU's! When 10900k was released with nominal TDP of 125, Ian put than number in every bench while in reality 10900k was consuming up to 254 (according to the Ian's review)! When I asked him to put real numbers of power consumption for every test he said I can't because of time and because I've too much to do and because I've no money to pay and delegate such works to an assistant!
But now we have 12900k with nominal TDP of 241 which seems unpleasant to Ian to put it in front of it in results.
Zingam - Friday, November 5, 2021 - link
Last gen game. How about glquake?1 billion computing devices and just a few million game units sold? What does it mean? Gamers are a tiny but vocal minority.
If they bring this performance at 5W on low and 45W on high then its good for majority of people. This is just a space heater.
Gothmoth - Friday, November 5, 2021 - link
so throwing more cores on a game that can´t make use of them is usless thanks for clarifing that.... genius!!when a 5600x is producing 144 FPS and a 5950x is producing 150 FPS the 5600x is the clear winner when it comes to efficency.
now try to cool the 12900K in a work environment with an air cooler.
i can cool my threadripper with a noctua aircooler and let it run under full load for ours.
i am really curious to see how the 12900k will handle that.
i am not an amd fanboy. i was using anti-consumer intel for a decade before switching to ryzen.
i would us intel again when it makes sense for me (i need my pc for work not gaming).
but with this power draw it does not make sense.
Wrs - Saturday, November 6, 2021 - link
The 12900k is fine with a Noctua D15 in a work environment. Doesn't matter if you're hammering it at 95C the whole time, the D15 doesn't get louder. But it's no megachip like a Threadripper. For that on the Intel side you'd wait for Sapphire Rapids or put up with an existing Xeon Gold with 8-32 Ice Lake cores at 10nm.Netmsm - Saturday, November 6, 2021 - link
How would it be justified to buy Xeon Gold in place of Threadripper and Epyc?!