INTEL’S CORE I7 and i9 chips are all-round performance leaders, at least within Intel’s own range of CPUs. But for gamers, it’s actually the Core i5 that rules. Cheaper than an i7 or i9, i5 chips usually give up significant multi-threaded throughput but more or less match their more expensive siblings when it comes to in-game frame rates.
With the Core i5-12600K, the first Core i5 of the Alder Lake generation, that usual refrain may actually understate its abilities. That’s because the 12600K is something even more impressive entirely. In many ways, it matches Intel’s previous-gen top chip, even in multithreading, but in a package that’s almost half the price. That’s Core i9 performance for Core i5 money.
The 12600K is a six-plus-four design. It has six Performance Cores (P-Cores) and four Efficient Cores (E-Cores). This is Intel’s new hybrid approach to CPU design, which we reviewed last month in the top-end Core i9-12900K. The Performance Cores are codenamed Golden Cove and deliver maximum grunt at the highest possible clock speeds.
Meanwhile, the Efficient Cores are based on the Gracemont architecture, essentially a derivative of Intel’s low-power Atom processor. They physically use much less die space and consume far less power. That does not, however, mean they are useless for serious computing tasks. Intel has said that Gracemont cores are roughly on a par with the old Skylake design of 2015 when it comes to single-threaded performance per clock.
Denne historien er fra January 2022-utgaven av Maximum PC.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra January 2022-utgaven av Maximum PC.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
NZXT C1500 Platinum
Top-tier performance and efficiency
Nvidia DLSS vs AMD FSR
Which AI upscaling technique has the edge?
World of Goo 2
Goo-d enough for two
BenQ X300G 4K Short Throw Projector
Priced high, yet punchy
Hyte Thicc Q60
Almost more mobile phone than CPU cooler
Remove stalkerware from your PC
ACCORDING TO KASPERSKY’S LATEST ‘State of Stalkerware’ report, over 40 percent of those surveyed worldwide said they’d experienced stalking or suspected that they were being stalked.
BUILD AN IT SUPPORT HUB
Discover how to use RustDesk to provide remote assistance and control your own devices remotely with Nick Peers
AMD's turn to drop the ball?
WITH INTEL'S RAPTOR LAKE CPUs falling over, the company firing around 15,000 employees, and cancelling its 2024 innovation event, AMD must have been enjoying the view - until its new Ryzen 9000 desktop CPUs rolled out. So, is AMD's CPU a minor stumble or game-changing fumble?
Intel issues fix for Raptor Lake degradation
EARLIER THIS YEAR, I wrote about difficulties I was having with a Core 19-13900K processor (see MPC230 Tech Talk). Little did we realize that we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg. While most complaints have involved the unlocked Core i9 Raptor Lake CPUs, it appears the instability problems build up and potentially impact many Raptor Lake-13th and 14th Gen Core CPUs, with Intel identifying 22 different desktop parts.
AMD Ryzen 7 9700X
The new Zen 5 CPUs are here—time to benchmark!