Leaked LTT AlderLake Benchmarks (Intel 12th Gen desktop, 12900K, 12600K)

enthusiast29 said:
More power = more heat generated = needs a better cooler = more you pay for electricity.
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I understand the concept, but did you look at actual power consumption during non synthetic tasks for 12900K?
Most folks using a 5950x / 12900K would be buying a good AIO, IMO.

kiran6680 said:
I guess content creators were mentioned because they are the ones who care more about silent PCs.
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Hmm, hadn't factored in noise, makes sense.
 
It's a win for consumer end of the day. Intel getting back in the game was much needed. Competition is what will keep the innovation and pricing in check. Raptor Lake & Meteor Lake might be able to go head to head with Zen4 I think. What should be the way to go now? 5950x vs i9 12900K?
 
JMP said:
I understand the concept, but did you look at actual power consumption during non synthetic tasks for 12900K?
Most folks using a 5950x / 12900K would be buying a good AIO, IMO.
Hmm, hadn't factored in noise, makes sense.
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Yes, true. They will have either a 240mm to 360mm AIO or Like a Noctua or some-other good cooler.
 
JMP said:
As a 5950x user, does power consumption really matter in the real world for a non corporate user?
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JMP said:
Most folks using a 5950x / 12900K would be buying a good AIO, IMO.
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It's more about the thermals and consequently, the heat dumped into your room. Most testing shows that the Noctua D15 is barely enough to keep temperatures in check, when we know from other other tests that the D15 outperforms a lot of AIO's. So you're looking at at a custom loop (which adds cost) or a premium 360mm AIO (which needs a larger case). Also, you're looking at a few hundred watts of heat being dumped in your room over the course of a day, which needs to be exhausted or cooled. My tuned FX9590 system pulled less than the stock 12900k at load and the heat dumped was oppressive. And that was years ago when the summers weren't as hot as they are now.

But this only applies for people who constantly have their CPU's pegged at doing something or the other. For general use, or gaming, or light editing, 12th gen is extremely attractive.

JMP said:
There is significant improvement in single thread performance, they are going head to head with a 16 core AMD offering with 8+4 cores, whilst offering PCIE5 and other new features. IMO, overall its a win. Availability of reasonable DDR4 motherboards will determine initial success.
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Yes, there is definite improvements in single thread performance which is commendable (especially with the efficiency cores, which was a surprise), and DDR5/PCIe Gen5 are all exciting technologies. It's an awesome step forward in terms of computing milestones, but the architecture itself needs refining to dial down the power consumption. So I'm hopeful that 12th gen refresh or 13th gen would be far more attractive at the high end, just like Ryzen 2000 series vs 1000 series.

For now, the 12th gen i5 appears to be best overall processor for mid range systems, provided that you're on Windows 11.

TinTinSnowy said:
What should be the way to go now? 5950x vs i9 12900K?
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If gaming has any priority in your life, the consensus seems to be with the 12th gen i9.
 
JMP said:
I understand the concept, but did you look at actual power consumption during non synthetic tasks for 12900K?
Most folks using a 5950x / 12900K would be buying a good AIO, IMO.


Hmm, hadn't factored in noise, makes sense.
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Are you saying you must go water on the newer CPUs?
 
I've been going through Anandtech's writeup about the 12th gen i9, and I almost feel like a kid again when I used to print out their reviews and spend hours going back and forth between choice quotes and graphs!

www.anandtech.com

The Intel 12th Gen Core i9-12900K Review: Hybrid Performance Brings Hybrid Complexity

www.anandtech.com www.anandtech.com

  • The new P-core is faster than a Zen 3 core, and uses 55-65 W in ST
  • The new E-core is faster than Skylake, and uses 11-15 W in ST
  • Maximum all-core power recorded was 272 W, but usually below 241 W (even in AVX-512)
  • Despite Intel saying otherwise, Alder Lake does have AVX-512 support (if you want it)!
  • Overall Performance of i9-12900K is well above i9-11900K
  • Performance against AMD overall is a mixed bag: win on ST, MT varies
  • Performance per Watt of the P-cores still lags Zen3
  • There are some fundamental Windows 10 issues (that can be solved)
  • Don’t trust thermal software just yet, it says 100C but it’s not
  • Linux idle power is lower than Windows idle power
  • DDR5 gains shine through in specific MT tests, otherwise neutral to DDR4
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Alder Lake and the Golden Cove cores are able to reclaim the single-threaded performance crown from AMD and Apple. The increases over Rocket Lake come in at +18-20%
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we can see that the E-core is almost there at 4.2 GHz Skylake. Moving down to 3.9 GHz, perhaps something like the i7-6700, would put it on par.
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Now comparing the P-core to the E-core, and it’s a story of how the E-core individually can perform on par with a Skylake core. Having eight extra Skylake-class cores is nothing to be sniffed at. In a lot of tests the E-core is half the performance of the P-core, but the P-core is itself is now the market leader in performance. The Golden Cove core inside Alder Lake has reclaimed the single-threaded performance crown with an uplift in SPEC of 18-20%, which is in line with Intel’s 19% claim. This puts it ahead of Apple’s M1 Max or 6% (int) and 16% (fp) ahead of AMD’s Zen 3 core.
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Combining fast P-cores, Skylake-class E-cores, and DDR5 into one package means that Intel has certainly jumped from behind the competition to in front of it, or at least in the mix. When you have your operating system set up just right, and no issues with schedulers, it outperforms AMD’s offering when single core performance matters, and in multi-threaded workloads, it does tend to sit somewhere between a 5900X and a 5950X. It’s important to note that in some tests, the Core i9-12900K does win outright.
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For baremetal installs (likely 99% of enthusiasts) the 12th gen i9 is extremely compelling. Personally, I've moved to virtualized enviroments during the lockdown so hardware with a ton of high performance cores is better suited for that setup.

This in particular was very interesting:

Intel gave an example of a content creator, exporting a video, and while that was processing going to edit some images. This puts the video export on the efficiency cores, while the image editor gets the performance cores. In my experience, the limiting factor in that scenario is the video export, not the image editor – what should take a unit of time on the P-cores now suddenly takes 2-3x on the E-cores while I’m doing something else. This extends to anyone who multi-tasks during a heavy workload, such as programmers waiting for the latest compile. Under this philosophy, the user would have to keep the important window in focus at all times. Beyond this, any software that spawns heavy compute threads in the background, without the potential for focus, would also be placed on the E-cores.

Personally, I think this is a crazy way to do things, especially on a desktop. Intel tells me there are three ways to stop this behaviour:
  1. Running dual monitors stops it
  2. Changing Windows Power Plan from Balanced to High Performance stops it
  3. There’s an option in the BIOS that, when enabled, means the Scroll Lock can be used to disable/park the E-cores, meaning nothing will be scheduled on them when the Scroll Lock is active.
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I love the idea of using 'Scroll Lock' like the TURBO button on old computers, haha. I can almost see the mechanical keyboard community come up special keycaps and pcb's that light up the scroll lock key differently.
 
burntwingzZz said:
problem with intel is socket and board change within 2 years ,and am4 hands down won over here , got a 1700x at a good price in black friday deal and thanks to alder lake might get a 5xxx at good rate as well and 1700x goes into home server :cool:
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While the long life of AM4 is appreciated, I'm curious what was the maximum upgrade anyone ever made ? I understand that 5xxx was not available for mobos under 5xx due to BIOS incompatibility.
 
rsaeon said:
Yes, there is definite improvements in single thread performance which is commendable (especially with the efficiency cores, which was a surprise), and DDR5/PCIe Gen5 are all exciting technologies. It's an awesome step forward in terms of computing milestones, but the architecture itself needs refining to dial down the power consumption.
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I feel the same way too. I was impressed with all the single core performance charts until I noticed how much power is being exactly eaten.

One would assume that ideal progress would be to cut down energy, increase efficiency and higher performance. With that in mind, I'm not too impressed.

These CPUs also seem like heartbreakers for SFF users. D15 is just barely able to keep it in check. I hope AMD does not take a leaf out of this.
 
supporting older hardware is not the issue for amd but all the feature support is. people will start crying once they give official support that not all the features are support and the performance is less.
 
JMP said:
AMD recommendeds liquid cooling for 5950x.
Intel would recommend liquid cooling for 12900K I suppose.

i7/r7 and below may do fine on air cooling.
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I still run air without issues. But then I don't OC or run high loads 24x7.

I have a fear of the tubes leaking in water and the maintenance.
 
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