Intel Alder Lake-H Core i9-12900HK Review: MSI's Raider GE76 Goes Hybrid
by Brett Howse on January 25, 2022 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- MSI
- Laptops
- Alder Lake
- GE76 Raider
- 12th Gen Core
- Alder Lake-H
Gaming Performance
With gaming, there are two camps. With the focus on e-Sports, lower resolution gaming with ultra high framerates is often the key. That is why MSI offers a 360 Hz refresh rate 1920x1080 display in the Raider GE76 that was supplied for testing. If you are after the lowest latency this is a sizable difference over a standard 60 Hz display. The other camp prefers resolution, although ultimately everyone would likely prefer to have both. Unfortunately, current graphics cards for notebooks are still barely able to handle 3840x2160 UHD gaming, although NVIDIA has just released the RTX 3080 Ti for Laptops, which is installed in this test system.
As the focus of this article is on the new Alder Lake processor, the gaming focus needs to be at 1920x1080 where the GPU is the smallest bottleneck, but the Raider GE76 was also connected to a UHD display for additional testing. The CPU will have the biggest impact at 1920x1080, whereas the GPU will be the sole bottleneck at 3840x2160. Let’s start with some synthetics, then move on to gaming tests.
We have recently added some new games to our testing suite, as well as testing at UHD, but since all our review laptops are returned to the manufacturer, there is no way to backfill the data. If a laptop is missing from a result that means it was never tested on that game or resolution.
3DMark
UL’s 3DMark has a variety of graphics tests available to match up with different power devices. We’ve begun the transition to the latest DirectX 12 Time Spy test but will also continue testing the older tests to keep the database current.
The new Raider GE76 is significantly ahead in both Time Spy and Fire Strike, thanks to the new Alder Lake processor and RTX 3080L Ti.
GFXBench
GFXBench offers DirectX 12 versions of Aztec Ruins in both 2560x1440 as well as 1920x1080 resolutions. Although this test is designed for smartphones and low-end PCs, we will include it here since it was run. All of the systems do very well here, although the new Alder Lake system is again in the lead.
Tomb Raider
The original reboot of Tomb Raider can still be a challenge for lower-powered laptops, but not the Raider GE76.
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Although much more demanding than the first game in the rebooted franchise, and featuring DirectX 12 support, Rise of the Tomb Raider is not a huge challenge to this system at 1920x1080.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
The latest installment is even more demanding, and we capture UHD results as well now for gaming laptops. The Alder Lake system has a sizable lead at 1920x1080 and is able to achieve over 60 FPS average at UHD Ultra.
Strange Brigade
Strange Brigade is not a very demanding game at low settings, allowing it to achieve reasonable framerates on even integrated graphics. The powerful gaming systems can run this at UHD without too much issue.
Shadow of War
At 1920x1080 the Alder Lake system has a commanding lead. As this is an older game that is being phased out, UHD results are not available.
Borderlands 3
The new Alder Lake system has a slight advantage at 1920x1080 but is almost identical to the previous generation GE76 at UHD.
Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla
Again, the Alder Lake system has a reasonable lead at 1920x1080, and a smaller lead at 3840x2160.
F1 2021
Codemasters F1 series tends to be more CPU bound than some of the other games, so the Alder Lake system can stretch its legs a bit more here at FHD resolutions. At UHD, it is GPU bound.
Far Cry 5
Far Cry is also a title that is more CPU bound than most, and the Alder Lake system can pull ahead here as well.
Godfall
Unlike the other games, the previous generation GE76 Raider with Tiger Lake and RTX 3080L achieves a small win here, but it is likely within the margin of error.
Gaming Performance Summary
With the fastest CPU and the fastest GPU, it should be no surprise that the Raider GE76 system Intel shipped is incredibly potent for gaming. At the lower resolution of 1920x1080 the extra CPU power helps to stretch ahead a bit. At UHD though, where it is GPU bound, unsurprisingly it is not a huge impact on average framerates.
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soloracerx - Tuesday, January 25, 2022 - link
NewEgg just put up the pre-orders today for the MSI line 12th gen lappys. Staggered release from Feb through April. The one reviewed here will be available 3/28/22 for $4199. https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?d=12th+gen+laptopmabellon - Tuesday, January 25, 2022 - link
“The new Alder Lake system could only average 83% of its original frames per second, because that task was deprioritized by Thread Director to free up additional resources for the foreground jobs.”Foreground and background detection is provided by the OS. The CPU alone has no way to identify which threads are rendering on screen, the OS and window management tracking is responsible. This window tracking, and more, are critical for hybrid scheduling, favored core scheduling, etc. Https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/procthread/quality-of-service
If you want to test Thread Director you need to test workloads with multiple concurrent workload classifications by Thread Director. A complex workload (or multiple concurrent workloads) with different thread execution (I.e. some AVX, some not). For example, if you have two on-screen workloads (I.e. both prefer performance), but there are more concurrent workload threads to schedule than there are P-Cores, which subset of those threads will get the most performance out of the limited set of P-Cores?Homogenous workloads where all threads are roughly equivalent and running the same instruction mix are unlikely to have much impact (e.g. Cinebench, Handbrake). Workloads that fit entirely on P-Cores are unlikely to have much impact as there is no overflow to E-cores.
Another alternative would be if a particular workload classification was inverted versus the norm. For example, normally one would expect E-cores to be the most efficient. On a laptop you might want background services and apps scheduled to the most efficient cores for battery life. But what if the workload running happens to heavily exercise instructions that are actually more efficient to run on P-cores?
Those are some examples of how Thread Director plays a role.
kenansadhu - Thursday, January 27, 2022 - link
Will it be where the AMD's design win out? Because there wouldn't be any risk for the user of any OS or scheduler's mistake (since all cores are the same).Da W - Tuesday, January 25, 2022 - link
I remember back in the days when AMD GPU was beating NVIdia but with 50 watt more power draw, they were discarded as crap!How things change. Wattage does not seem to matter anymore.
Calin - Wednesday, January 26, 2022 - link
I chose nVidia because I didn't had a PCI-E power cable (or the wattage). At roughly similar price and performance, AMD broke the 75W limit and nVidia didn't.With processors already installed in systems, the equation changes a bit - you can still get the performance, at a lower battery life.
Spunjji - Thursday, January 27, 2022 - link
Generally speaking, you can assume that watts are important when AMD draw more of them; not so much when Intel or Nvidia draw more and win.TheinsanegamerN - Friday, January 28, 2022 - link
Nobody disregarded AMD's hawaii GPUs for pulling more power, tech media was singing their praises from every rooftop.They slammed the 390x for being just a rebranded 290x that drew even more power but couldnt keep up with nvidia's high end.
But context is the enemy of the fanboi.
BillBear - Tuesday, January 25, 2022 - link
You guys really need to start posting performance numbers when the laptop is unplugged, now that power draw figures have become so ridiculous that laptops immediately have to throttle down when unplugged.TekCheck - Tuesday, January 25, 2022 - link
Benchamark tech-tubers and tech website should follow Anandtech's practice and start publishing performance+power benchmarks for laptops, to give us better context behind high bars in any test. This is less important for desktops, but as laptops are usually portable devices, it is paramount that we know the power behind performance.If 12900HK is winning in any bars, say 20% over 6900HX, we need to know at which power level. Is it at 45W? At 60W? At 115W? If the win is at high wattage only, users will have a wrong impression that such CPU has "better" performance, which is untrue without knowing the power needed for such performance.
Brett Howse - Tuesday, January 25, 2022 - link
Mentioned this in the review. The AMD 5900HX system also draws the same power at load.