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Intel 12900KS Review Thread: 5.5 GHz Boost. The World's Fastest Gaming CPU.

First results are coming in.
The takeaway seems to be that you can match Intel's best right now by a much cheaper price. Anyone with an old cheap AM4 mobo and 3200 DDR4 can keep up with the 12900 series with (mandatory) more expensive mobos and RAM and cooling. 12900 series benefits greatly from DRR5, will probably win against 5800X3D but mostly because the 3D cache forces a clock reduction.
 

Bojji

Member
First results are coming in.
The takeaway seems to be that you can match Intel's best right now by a much cheaper price. Anyone with an old cheap AM4 mobo and 3200 DDR4 can keep up with the 12900 series with (mandatory) more expensive mobos and RAM and cooling. 12900 series benefits greatly from DRR5, will probably win against 5800X3D but mostly because the 3D cache forces a clock reduction.

And 3D 5800 probably won't be much hotter and power hungry than 5800x, Intel is chasing GHz again..
 

PnCIa

Member
What an amazing CPU. Its going to provide another service: Pleasuring your electricity bill by sucking your power socket right out of the wall.
 
Techpowerup review is up, and this page uses a nice graphic to show exactly how each CPU performs:

 
Techpowerup review is up, and this page uses a nice graphic to show exactly how each CPU performs:

Can't say I'm impressed, and they even brought out the 720p benches lol.

It lost a bit of performance due to clock speed in a couple of spots..

Thing is going to run hot, but only a bit worse than 5800x it seems.

5700x is the way to go, it's twice as efficient as 5800x for virtually identical performance. Hell I saw in some tests it used a touch less power than 5600x... that is awesome.

If you need more multithread perf on your current am4 board, get the 5900/5950x, not x3D.
 
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Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Techpowerup review is up, and this page uses a nice graphic to show exactly how each CPU performs:

Ahh fuck.
I was hoping it could atleast absolutely walk the 12600K in productivity.
Looks like outside of gaming basically no gains.

And in gaming the 12600K basically gets GPU bottlenecked with my system....not like im gonna be doing UW1440p144 with my GPU anyway.

Looks like im sticking with Intel, already got a Z690 so should be ready for RaptorLake.
 

Xyphie

Member
5800X3D was always only ever going to improve performance in highly cache sensitize games/apps and like a 5800X in everything else. As it trades blows with Alder Lake with decent DDR4/DDR5 timings it's not really ever a sensible option unless you spend alot of time playing some game it's significantly better than ADL. A 12700K gets both a massive multithreaded and singlethreaded performance boost across the board for cheaper.
 
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A 12700K gets both a massive multithreaded and singlethreaded performance boost across the board for cheaper.
Definitely not massive, but it's a step up from 5800/5700x overall.

Still if you're already on AM4 it doesn't make sense to switch to alder lake, alder lake is for people who need to do a new build from scratch. Raptor lake will be a different story if you want it for high fps gaming, esp. if DDR5 prices come down which are ridiculous atm.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
5800X3D was always only ever going to improve performance in highly cache sensitize games/apps and like a 5800X in everything else. As it trades blows with Alder Lake with decent DDR4/DDR5 timings it's not really ever a sensible option unless you spend alot of time playing some game it's significantly better than ADL. A 12700K gets both a massive multithreaded and singlethreaded performance boost across the board for cheaper.
Hell id argue the 12600K is still the better by the 5800X3D.

The 7000 series better jump even the 13 series from Intel.
Granted we need to honestly look at these frames per second.....you are fine with a 12400 that costs half the price of those 8 core chips.
And youll still be able to upgrade to a none K 13 series CPU that when paired with an MSI motherboard will still boost to about K series levels.
 

manfestival

Member
Techpowerup review is up, and this page uses a nice graphic to show exactly how each CPU performs:

Not too crazy about the 720p benchmarking. Though the 1080p stuff holds out mostly. This is very nice but it is a headscratcher. I guess they are doing it to shut down the 12900k and the KS but.... why release a halo product at their even own self declared end of life cycle. Especially since we are supposedly on the cusp of their next generation launching?
Yeah this undercuts intel among the gamer crowd for sure. I guess AMD just wanted to spite Intel.

I am sure 5900x and 5950x owners that are primarily gamers are rejoicing right now lul.
 
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Xyphie

Member
Still if you're already on AM4 it doesn't make sense to switch to alder lake, alder lake is for people who need to do a new build from scratch.

No one should buy a 5800X3D if you're coming from some Ryzen 1000/2000 build with 300/400-series chipset. just buy the 5600 for $199 to hold you over until you can get a modern platform in that case.
 
Can't say I'm impressed, and they even brought out the 720p benches lol.

Thing is going to run hot, but only a bit worse than 5800x it seems.

Of course they tested in 720p! It's only natural.
Did you see the rest? Just 10-20 more watts and 2 degrees more.

Ahh fuck.
I was hoping it could atleast absolutely walk the 12600K in productivity.
Looks like outside of gaming basically no gains.

As everyone knows since 2020, this 3D cache would only give a boost on games and games only.

It's still a champ, no matter what people here may think.
It offers the same performance than Intel top of top dog even though it had its frequency a bit reduced. Naturally at 1440 and 4K all high end CPUs are very close, but for 1080p high refresh is excellent, not just because of the averages, also because of the lows. And it's a drop in replacement even for cheap and old mobos and RAM.


But I wonder, how will be the performance of the next generation?
Seems like Zen 4 is intended to be a big IPC jump. CPUs should also start coming with much more cache. If I understood right Zen 4 will have a much bigger L2 and some models should also come with 3D cache. Consoles always get behind PCs fast just this time it'll be faster than ever.
 

Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
But I wonder, how will be the performance of the next generation?
Seems like Zen 4 is intended to be a big IPC jump. CPUs should also start coming with much more cache. If I understood right Zen 4 will have a much bigger L2 and some models should also come with 3D cache. Consoles always get behind PCs fast just this time it'll be faster than ever.
This is what im most curious about.
That extra L2 cache and/or having 3D V-Cache plus nextgen architecture is gonna be quite the jump in performance....atleast on paper as it sounds right now.
AMD might have some real beast CPUs till Intel shrinks down...maybe all the way down to Nova Lake.


This generation of consoles got left behind within months.
A gimped 3700 dare I say 3600 level CPU isnt exactly something that will set the world on fire.
I remember people on here saying you will need 8 cores just to keep up.
I told them 6 cores was gonna be plenty for the generation.....seeing what the 12100 can do.....im going to take it a step further and say 4 currentgen cores will play every XSX/PS5 game just fine.

quote me when Arrow Lake 4 core CPUs are eating 30fps console games at 100fps.
 
No one should buy a 5800X3D if you're coming from some Ryzen 1000/2000 build with 300/400-series chipset. just buy the 5600 for $199 to hold you over until you can get a modern platform in that case.
5600 is the value option, get 5700x 8 cores for longer system life and extra headroom. Agree no one should buy the x3D.

I have an x570 board but with a zen+ 6 core, the 5700x will be an excellent upgrade. X570 is definitely modern because it supports pcie gen 4. I have 32gb 3200mhz c15 ram as well, no way I'd get just another 6 core.

No one at all should buy am4 if you don't already have a Mobo.
 
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Of course they tested in 720p! It's only natural.
Did you see the rest? Just 10-20 more watts and 2 degrees more.
720p tests with an modern cpu are just ridiculous at this point. It is somewhat interesting to see but even as a way to see how much headroom you have, higher resolutions do have an small impact on cpu and no one is going to be gaming 720p 300fps lol.

I get why they do it but it makes no practical sense.
 
720p tests with an modern cpu are just ridiculous at this point. It is somewhat interesting to see but even as a way to see how much headroom you have, higher resolutions do have an small impact on cpu and no one is going to be gaming 720p 300fps lol.

I get why they do it but it makes no practical sense.

You're so wrong... lower resolution have smaller impact ON THE GPU.
It's to see how far the CPU can push the simulation. CPUs that achieve higher FPS on lower resolutions will last longer with future GPUs.

The real criticism that people make is that instead of using these light games like CS and R6 reviewers should use instead simulation games where the CPU really matters.
 
You're so wrong... lower resolution have smaller impact ON THE GPU.
It's to see how far the CPU can push the simulation. CPUs that achieve higher FPS on lower resolutions will last longer with future GPUs.
You didn't know higher resolution has a marginal cpu hit? I mean the gains shown at 720p will be a little less when that power ends up mattering at higher resolution. That's a side point though.

Yes, I get what you're saying.

But by the time any of the cpu gains shown at 720p, your cpu will need an upgrade anyways, and it's not indicative of how people will actually play these games, so it's useless. These tests are with today's cross gen game engines, so they're also misleading in telling you how much difference there will be running completely different and heavier software loads.

This is the kind of crap tests these sites used to pump up Intel performance back when Ryzen first launched... "Yeah but look how the 7700k does at 720p!". Oh please.

Why not test at 640x480 😁
 

rofif

Can’t Git Gud
I sometimes regret getting 3700x on release. I should get some cheaper Intel and call it a day. These cpus don’t matter at 4k or high graphics settings
 
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