Intel Core i9-12900K Review

The Core i9-12900K is one of Intel's enthusiast Desktop processors. It was released in 2021 with 16 cores and 24 threads. With base clock at 3.2GHz, max speed at 5.2GHz, and a 125W power rating. The Core i9-12900K is based on the Alder Lake 10nm family and is part of the Core i9 series.

Core i9-12900K is also the successor of Intel's last gen Core i9-11900K processor that was based on the Rocket Lake and 14nm process and was released in 2021.

The Intel Core i9-12900K marks yet another blast from Team Intel, ramping up the intensity of the Intel vs AMD processor war. Still, though, there’s more than just core counts when it comes to a mainstream processor, as single-core performance needs to be on point, especially if you’re hoping to play the best PC games.

Intel Core i9 12th Generation, and the Alder Lake-S architecture itself, is notable because it leads 10nm processors to the mainstream for the first time. But, there’s a lot more going on under the hood than just a smaller manufacturing node.

The Intel Core i9-12900K is an absolute behemoth of a processor, as it absolutely should be with its 16 cores, 24 threads and high price tag. If you’re looking for the absolute best processor money can buy on a mainstream processor, then look no further. Whether you’re playing PC games or even doing hardcore video and 3D work, the Intel Core i9-12900K can handle them with ease.

This decision to 10nm has brought a beefy 15% boost to IPC (instructions per clock) performance. Effectively, compared to a Core i9 11-Generation processor at the same clock speed, you will get a straight 15% increase in performance. That’s not big enough to be evident in day-to-day workloads, but it does still mean something.

What this all means is that the Intel Core i9-12900K is an absolute beast when it comes to multi-threaded workloads, especially at this price point. If you're counting on doing some video editing or compiling one hell of an Excel spreadsheet, you're going to see firsthand a performance boost with the Core i9-12900K.

If you're mostly playing games on your PC, you will be happy buying either processor. Both proved to be solid options and are evenly matched with a slight advantage to the AMD chip if you don't tune up the Ryzen 9 processor. The base performance we showed for the Core i9-12900K can be achieved with $90 memory, while the Ryzen 9 5900X will require $110 - $120 memory in order to enable the frame rates shown here. It’s not a big cost difference and right now with anything less than an RTX 2070 or Vega 64 you’ll more than likely become GPU limited.

The gaming tests with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti installed in the test system showed the Intel Core i9-12900K was more capable than many might have expected. The basic enthusiast processor from Intel that can be picked up for $589.99 was able to out perform the Ryzen 9 5950X that runs $710 shipped in the three games we tested on. We know that you can’t test on just three games and declare something the overall victor, but it just goes to show that 16-core processors can still manage to get by today. Being able to play current game titles and stream to Twitch on the Core i9-12900K was something we give playable results, but we were pleasantly surprised. As games become more threaded the ‘value’ in a 16-core processor continues to go down, but you can still get by with something like the Core i9-12900K in a pinch.

That said, Intel still lags behind in frequency when the Ryzen 9 5950X operates at 3.7GHz at any given moment and 4.9GHz when push comes to shove.

By comparison, AMD’s current 16-core processor is the Ryzen 9 5950X, which runs for a significantly higher $710 price tag. Going back a generation to Matisse doesn’t make 16-core processors that much cheaper either, with the ageing AMD Ryzen 9 3950X running for $710.

Now the biggest question is can Intel’s Core i9 processor play games? The answer is simply yes as it got a respectable gaming score of 98% in our benchmarks.

Regardless of those external factors, the Core i9-12900K proves it has the chops to be your main gaming system and a just as effective media creation platform – two things that are becoming intrinsically connected in this age of live-streaming, eSports and uploading gameplay videos.

That said, to squeeze out all the potential of this surprisingly potent enthusiast chip, you’ll want (and need) to splurge on an enthusiast-grade Z670, H610, B660 motherboard.

Fresh from a successful roll-out of mainstream Core i9 CPUs, Intel's attack on AMD now extends down into the enthusiast with its Core i9-12900K processors, which the company is making available as of Nov 4th, 2021.