With the new Alder Lake CPUs, or the 12th generation Core processors, Intel is releasing its biggest innovation in years. The latest processors take a big step forward in performance and are once again putting the fire at the competition’s shins. They also bring us one of the biggest changes of recent years: the introduction of the hybrid processor. But what exactly is that, how do these processors compare to the alternatives and how relevant are they for you? We tell it in this Intel Alder Lake review.
For years, Intel had it simple. If you wanted to buy a desktop PC, it was obvious that it had an Intel processor in it. Intel has traditionally had the upper hand in virtually every area: performance, reliability, and even budget.
This budget advantage allowed the company to put an Intel sticker on almost every product that consumers saw, such as computers and laptops in the store. As a result, Intel also became synonymous with a good computer among the mainstream public, ie everyone who does not check all kinds of benchmarks on a daily basis.
It was exceptionally good marketing that people told us they had “an i7 PC”, believing that automatically they would have a good computer, when the concept of ‘i7 PC’ doesn’t say much. After all, this processor series has been around for more than thirteen years, so there are really models that are no longer so high-end by today’s standards.
Years of stagnation
That reputation has come in handy in recent years. Because while the developments in the field of desktop and laptop processors spontaneously stagnated at Intel, several competitors presented themselves.
AMD apparently came back out of nowhere in 2017 with highly competitive products. And although Intel was still able to parry the first generations of these new Ryzen processors with minor adjustments, the conclusion at the end of 2020 was that AMD really had the stronger product in its hands. After a few years, the idea that Intel was an obvious choice was lost. And the company mainly owed this to itself and its limited innovation.
Finally innovation
With Alder Lake, Intel is not only changing the market in one go, but also its own habit of only making small developments every year. These new processors bring a completely new architecture and are manufactured on a smaller process, which also makes them immediately more efficient than previous generations.
In addition, they are the first desktop processors to combine different types of cores. Previous processors from both Intel and AMD were always based on one type of core, with the exact model then determining how many you got. For example, an i3 had four cores of one type, and an i7 had eight cores of the same type. With Alder Lake, Intel combines different types of cores in one product.
These are so-called Performance or P-cores, where the focus is on maximum performance, combined with a number of Efficiency or E-cores, where the emphasis is on efficiency. In this way, Intel says it can make better use of the valuable space on the chip. A P-core is indeed faster, but Intel can fit four E-cores in the space of one P-core. As a result, the manufacturer has been able to provide its new Core i9 processor with sixteen cores (eight P and eight E cores).
Big.LITTLE or big.BIGGER?
The comparison with the big.LITTLE concept of smartphones is quickly made. Most phones have been running a combination of a few fast and a few efficient cores for years. But the comparison is flawed when we look at the performance of each of the cores.
For example, the new P-cores appear to be roughly 20 percent faster than both previous generations and their direct AMD counterparts. That’s nice, but the small E-cores also perform roughly the same as the ‘normal’ cores of recent years. Contrary to what the name suggests, those E-cores are also just capable computing cores.
Intel initially introduces the fastest models in the form of the Core i5, i7 and i9. We tested the Core i5-12600K and the Core i9-12900K for this article. The KF variants also available are the same in terms of specifications, but do not have an integrated GPU. The i9 is equipped with all cores, while the i5 has six P and four E cores. The Core i7-12700K(F) that we haven’t tested yet is in between with eight P and four E cores.
Performance
After years of settling for small percentage upgrades, it’s good to see Alder Lake making a big step forward in every way. The Intel Core i9-11900K had the fastest core to date, good for a score of 647 points in the singlecore Cinebench R20 benchmark. The AMD Ryzen 9 5950X followed closely with a score of 634 points. Intel’s new i9-12900K scores a whopping 777, a 23 percent improvement. And the cheaper Intel Core i5-12600K also scores excellent with 737 points.
Intel’s previous generation especially failed in tests that use multiple cores. The Core i9-11900K has only eight cores and scores 6247 points, while the Ryzen 9 5950X with sixteen cores scores 9808 points. In short, AMD’s best processor was roughly 50 percent faster than what Intel had to offer.
Thanks to its eight P and eight E cores, the new i9-12900K manages to achieve a score of 10,577. This makes Intel a serious player in the high-end desktop market in one fell swoop. The i5-12600K also achieves an excellent score with 6764 points. This makes the new i5 more powerful than the i9 of the previous generation, but it also scores better than the Ryzen 5 5600X, which also costs 300 euros, which remains at a score of 4322.
Achievements in games
Gaming was once one of the main reasons to frequently upgrade your PC, but in this area we have mainly run into a GPU bottleneck in recent years. Games normally rely heavily on the performance of a single core in your CPU, which basically makes Alder Lake an excellent option for gamers.
The differences with other recent CPUs are often small or only visible at unusual settings, such as 1080p with low image quality. If you just bought a PC last year with a Ryzen 5000 or a 10th or 11th generation Intel Core processor, don’t expect huge differences. There are a number of games where the CPU has a huge impact (Far Cry 6 for example), but those are exceptions, not the rule.
But if you’re still on an older platform and need an upgrade, it’s a different story. Intel is taking a big step forward and in gaming benchmarks there is no CPU that can match the performance of these new processors.
Hybrid architecture
Before you run straight to the store, there are still some caveats to make. First of all, a PC is more than a processor and the introduction of the hybrid architecture is not entirely without a struggle. There are some teething problems to be aware of.
The operating system must also know how to handle that CPU. Intel itself has done a lot of work with its Thread Director, which puts tasks on the P or E cores as best as possible. But the Thread Director clearly works better with Windows 11 than it does with Windows 10. While Alder Lake CPUs generally work well with Windows 10, there are a few applications that don’t take full advantage of the new chips, resulting in lower performance.
The choice for Windows 11 is therefore obvious. But Windows 11 has only just been released and there are still some problems lurking there, including some applications that do not yet work optimally. It is therefore advisable to google your specific applications to see if they work well before switching.
Perhaps worse is that the security of some applications and games cannot handle hybrid processors. Some games that use the dramatic Denuvo DRM don’t work yet, including Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Many games have already been updated and now work, but there are still dozens of titles that are not running at all. That will probably be fixed with patches.
Also, some motherboards have a BIOS setting to temporarily disable the E-cores to work around the hybrid architecture issues.
Expensive motherboards
Another challenge is financial in nature. To use these new processors, you need a new motherboard with a Z690 chipset (so not Z590) and socket LGA 1700. In many ways, these new motherboards are excellent: even entry-level models quickly have three or four connections for M. 2 SSDs and often there are many (fast) USB ports on board.
But they are also expensive. The cheapest capable Z690 board we’ve tested so far costs about $200. You can find nice motherboards for AMD’s Ryzen chip these days for 120 to 150 euros. In the long run, the price level will of course drop somewhat, but for the time being it is a nice damper, especially in combination with the cheaper i5-12600K.
You will also need a new cooler on the new socket, or you should be lucky that the manufacturer sells a mounting kit for the cooler you already own. Practically any cooler will suffice for the i5, but for the i9 you have to take into account a (pricey) high-end cooler such as the Noctua NH-D15 or a sturdy water cooler.
DDR5
Another good innovation is the introduction of the first DDR5 working memory. Intel Alder Lake and Z690 motherboards are the first to support the latest, fastest RAM. It’s a necessary innovation, but also one where you will see only limited gains in the short term, just as was the case with the first introductions of DDR4 and DDR3 years ago. Some specific tasks are very memory intensive, but most things, such as photo or video editing or even gaming, simply aren’t.
You can find a nice DDR4 memory kit of 32 GB for 130 euros, but for 32 GB DDR5 memory you can pay 300 euros or more. And that while most users will not notice it. For that it really has to wait until better, faster DDR5 kits come out in the coming years.
Incidentally, we should note that the switch to DDR5 is not a hard requirement. If you buy a Z690 motherboard with DDR4 support, you can just stick with DDR4 for now.
Conclusion
After years of stagnation, Intel is once again putting down the most interesting desktop processors of the year. The switch to a hybrid processor, plus the (practical) need to move to Windows 11, comes with some minor teething problems, but overall, Alder Lake is an excellent step forward and the resulting processors are simply excellent. For anyone who is ready for a new desktop PC, the choice for a 12th generation Intel Core processor is again completely obvious.
Intel Core i9-12900K
Price
€ 695,-
Website
www.intel.com 9 Score 90 
- Pros
- Ultimate singlecore performance
- Excellent multicore performance
- Attractive Z690 platform
- Negatives
- Z690 platform is pricey
- DDR5 memory is expensive
- Strong cooling required
Intel Core i5-12600K
Price
€ 299,-
Website
www.intel.com 9 Score 90
- Pros
- Excellent singlecore performance
- Excellent multicore performance
- Broadly beats the Ryzen 5 5600X
- Negatives
- Z690 motherboards are expensive
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