Intel 12x00 series Alder lake

[Greasy]

12700K is the one I would pick up. It runs much cooler, and isn't that much slower than the 12900. Not considering the price difference between the two.

[Shapeshifter]

[badsykes]

12600k review
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/i...2th-gen/2.html


12700k review
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/i...lake-12th-gen/


The 12700k is 6% better on average at 1440p and 9% in 1080p ....

[andino]

Tech Jebus...

[Nunz]

No good motherboards at Microcenter so I passed. They only had DDR5 5200 too, and I wanted 5800 or higher. I heard the rock solid OCs are showing up on 5800 and beyond.

One guy has 6800 28-30-30-28 1T on a 12900K and it's insane how fast that 2 stick quad-channel pumps the bandwidth. Latency isn't bad at all, still better than Ryzen.

[badsykes]

86 Motherboards Compared for Intel Z690 Alder Lake

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/i...-buying-guide/

The achile heel of the ADL platform is the motherboard itself

In this not-so-quick look at the upcoming Intel Z690-based motherboards, the thing that stands out is that most of them are overpriced. It might be a bit rude to start the conclusion in such a blunt way, but it's a fact and only made worse by the current graphics card situation. Yes, there's a shortage of all types of components ranging from capacitors to power regulation components, and PCB prices are up as well, but $200 for an entry-level motherboard is a big ask. In all fairness to most motherboard makers, the entry-level boards are actually quite decent overall, but a $40–50 premium over the last generation is a big ask when Intel is only charging an additional US dollar for the Z690 chipset compared to the Z590 and Z490 chipsets.

We'll have to wait and see how pricing settles since there isn't much differentiating the various Z690 motherboards in the same category in terms of feature sets. The rest comes down to personal preference, but the past few pages will have hopefully given you some kind of insight before reviews.

[Shapeshifter]

Originally Posted by Nunz

No good motherboards at Microcenter so I passed. They only had DDR5 5200 too, and I wanted 5800 or higher. I heard the rock solid OCs are showing up on 5800 and beyond.

One guy has 6800 28-30-30-28 1T on a 12900K and it's insane how fast that 2 stick quad-channel pumps the bandwidth. Latency isn't bad at all, still better than Ryzen.

gamers nexus said they weren't able to get a 6000mt kit stable with gear 1 or 2

so they dropped down to a 5200 kit for the review at gear 2

really watch the kitguru video, if you aren't planning on using this as a workstation which is where ddr5 shows it's biggest performance increases, stick with ddr4 if you already have a really good kit.

[Nunz]

Originally Posted by Shapeshifter

gamers nexus said they weren't able to get a 6000mt kit stable with gear 1 or 2

There is not a single youtuber that is a memory OC guru.

There are guys killing it on Overclock.net ..

If you buy a kit with good IC DDR5, it's faster than DDR4, but none of the good motherboards are DDR4

4400C19 DDR4 really isn't any good either.

Eventually we will see someone run one of these DDR4 god-tier kits with a 12900K and we can compare it to some of the better DDR5 .. fully expect to see the DDR5 kit stomp it.

[Shapeshifter]

Originally Posted by Nunz

There is not a single youtuber that is a memory OC guru.

There are guys killing it on Overclock.net ..

If you buy a kit with good IC DDR5, it's faster than DDR4, but none of the good motherboards are DDR4

4400C19 DDR4 really isn't any good either

yea a test with some 4000+ cl 12 tuned kits from someone who knows how to do that would be neat to see.

[Nunz]

There is a guy with 3866 C13 and that was probably the best anyone could do with RKL. Apparently, ADL acts more like Comet Lake (high frequency) even with DDR4, so that should be interesting.

[Greasy]

CPUs and boards available. No DDR5 though. I'm not planning on jumping onto this until a refresh, but sucks for people who want to build now.

[Nascar24]

Originally Posted by acroig

Tech jesus does not recommend buying this CPU if you have a ryzen 5000 CPU already KAC you done F’ed up!

[DeathKnight]

Originally Posted by Nascar24

Tech jesus does not recommend buying this CPU if you have a ryzen 5000 CPU already KAC you done F’ed up!

The hardware whores who always need the latest and greatest can't help themselves.

[Seyiji]

Originally Posted by DeathKnight

The hardware whores who always need the latest and greatest can't help themselves.

Easy now gai you're scarin the kids !___!

[acroig]

So at 1440p and higher what does this get you game performance wise? I don't want 1080p benchies.

[Nagorak]

What strikes me as odd is that in some games DDR4 is faster and in other DDR5 is substantially faster. I guess maybe it comes down to bandwidth versus latency? Could also be optimization issues, I suppose? With the high price of DDR5 I am not sure it is really justified at the moment.

Overall, I'd say this is a decent release for Intel, and a welcome change from the last few from them. The CPU is faster, in some cases impressively faster. On the other hand, considering it's an entirely new architecture with P and E cores, and finally getting off 14nm+++++, if it was any slower it would be pretty embarrassing. They hit their target, but didn't really blow it away, IMO.

It's not that much faster than Ryzen in a lot of situations, so those already on AM4 platform would probably be best served to wait to see what the 3D cache Ryzen chips can do because I suspect they'll close a lot of the performance deficit that exists, and it's potentially an easier and cheaper upgrade.

Originally Posted by Gandalfthewhite

Power load doesn't seem to be an issue in gaming just in all core workloads

All core power consumption is pretty insane though. It doesn't seem like a good choice for workstation type tasks. Even in situations where it's slightly faster if you're pulling 50% more power it's not going to be worth it unless every single minute of time is absolutely critical.

Originally Posted by acroig

So at 1440p and higher what does this get you game performance wise? I don't want 1080p benchies.

Even in 1080P some of the tested games are still GPU bound. If you're not seeing major CPU limitations in the games you play then it's unlikely to be worth it. Overall it's only about 10-15% faster on average than the 11900K even at 1080P so you're not going to see a night and day difference in gaming. I'm sure there are some specific games where it will make a difference but if you're playing those with heavy priority then you'd likely already know.

[acroig]

Thanks!

[KAC]

Well 1450 bucks is a bit much for only board, processor and ram. Also every review has said that if you are in a 5000 series and especially 5900x or 5950x then it is not worth the upgrade right now. So in this spirit I am cancelling my orders.

Intel did good though.

[KAC]

Also the full order wasn’t what I wanted.
I wanted an ASUS Strix E but got an F.
I wanted a 12900K but got a 12900KF.
I wanted a 5200 C36 Trident Z ram or better but got a non RGB XPG 5200 C38 ram.

So will need to wait till mid next year for my next chance to order.

[kboye]

The E-cores seem very effective (around 5W vs around 50W e vs p), just saw the Anandtech graphs showing watt consumption between different core loads. It's almost like core execution order in W10 is p, p HT, then e instead of p, e then p HT?

[badsykes]

Originally Posted by KAC

Also the full order wasn’t what I wanted.
I wanted an ASUS Strix E but got an F.
I wanted a 12900K but got a 12900KF.
I wanted a 5200 C36 Trident Z ram or better but got a non RGB XPG 5200 C38 ram.

So will need to wait till mid next year for my next chance to order.

There will be the Zen 3 with 3d cache with up to 15% more performance in games.Easy upgrade for you.

[Nunz]

Originally Posted by kboye

The E-cores seem very effective (around 5W vs around 50W e vs p), just saw the Anandtech graphs showing watt consumption between different core loads. It's almost like core execution order in W10 is p, p HT, then e instead of p, e then p HT?

I think that's part of the issue with the Win10 scheduler. AlderLake is really, really efficient in gaming workloads. It's pretty high wattage in stress-tests (Ryzen is too) but in gaming this thing is killing it.

I am officially skipping this gen. I'll be reevaluating when HEDT comes out or 13th gen, but it's too hard to find the motherboard and RAM I want for me right now.

It's a lot faster than anything else on the market, though. Like CML and RKL, it requires tweaking and understanding how to memory OC beyond clicking XMP - but the gains are there. There's 15-20% gains coming just from OCing some DDR5 with tighter timings and mem at 6000 with Gear1 vs 5200 XMP.

Really good stuff

[KAC]

15% in gaming? At 1080P or 4K?
Don’t think that is possible. Maybe in workloads but for gaming it is about 1-4% faster than 5900X at 1080P.

[Nunz]

Originally Posted by KAC

15% in gaming? At 1080P or 4K?
Don’t think that is possible. Maybe in workloads but for gaming it is about 1-4% faster than 5900X at 1080P.

15-20% gains from one memory setting to the other, and yes, in games. SOTTR is a game that responds really well to memory OC.. even with a small bump in frequency up to 5600Mhz and tighten timings down to mid 30s, it's grabbing an extra 40FPS in the benchmark.

You don't need to believe it's possible. The real tweakers and OCers are going bananas with ADL and it's posted on other forums. Benchmarks, comparisons, etc. You can believe the Linus dummy who can't figure out how to OC past XMP, or the other YouTubers who are not tweakers.. but the info is out there. The numbers you've seen are with very slow DDR5 and it's hamstringing the chip hard, just like CML and RKL. When you open up the memory and especially tighten down the timings, ADL is showing some massive gains.

[KAC]

I see. I am unable to find any memory that is worth the investment. Maybe next year there are options and then I can build a rig. For now it was too pricey so I booked a trip to Switzerland instead.

[badsykes]

Intel publishes list of incompatible games with Alder Lake (due to DRM)

https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/in...e-to-drm).html

[KAC]

That’s not a small list of games. I think trick is to use scroll lock as an option to turn off e cores on the fly and then most games can work. You can find this option in bios of motherboards. I read it somewhere but can’t remember where.

[Nunz]

Bunch of garbage games, sports games (including outdated years) .. there's maybe 4 games total on that list that are significant? And there's a workaround for the majority. completely overblown as I expected.

[Mangler]

Anything that causes companies to remove denuvo is a win, lets go Alder Lake!

[badsykes]

Originally Posted by KAC

That’s not a small list of games. I think trick is to use scroll lock as an option to turn off e cores on the fly and then most games can work. You can find this option in bios of motherboards. I read it somewhere but can’t remember where.

It's in the article the link to the intel oficial page where it writes the workaround.