Intel Alder Lake 12th generation processors, including the Core i7-12700K, go on sale in November 2021, bringing new enthusiasm to the x86 processor segment. Taking its cue from the ARM big.LITTLE heterogeneous computing architecture, which has proven its utility in smartphones and tablets for more than 5 years, the Core i7-12700K chips also host 8 Performance or high-performance cores, in addition to 4 Efficient power-efficient cores. This combination allows the processor to run more efficiently, as the P-core is responsible for the highest performance on complex tasks, while the E-core handles background processes in the operating system and ensures low power consumption during web browsing and other less demanding activities.
The Core i7-12700K processor has 25 MB cache, 8 P and 4 E cores. It beat its predecessor, the i7-11700K, by an impressive 53% in the CineBench R23 test, which has become the most recognised measure of CPU performance. But that's not all, as the Core i7-12700K score also convincingly beats all Intel 10th and 11th generation Core i9 models and even the powerful AMD 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X, which is outperformed by 11 percent!
The new Alder Lake architecture has brought the biggest generation-on-generation growth in core performance in years, so the Core i7-12700K excels in the latest PC games. TechSpot has tested the processor in 10 of the most popular PC games, and the Core i7-12700K outperforms all Intel 10th and 11th generation models, as well as the AMD Ryzen 5000 series.
Thanks to the new architecture, Core i7-12700K has seen impressive performance gains in Adobe's most popular photo applications - Photoshop and Lightroom - where the second most powerful Intel Alder Lake processor beats not only the 12-core AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, but even the much more expensive Ryzen 9 5950X.
Despite the fact that the Core i7-12700K is "only" an 8-core processor with an additional 4 small or Efficient cores, it manages to outperform even the 16-core AMD Ryzen 9 5950X by more than 5% in the popular Adobe Premiere Pro video processing software, not to mention the 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X and all Intel 11th generation products.
Intel Core i7-12700K processor power consumption at 3.60 GHz base frequency is 125W. On the other hand, when you perform particularly complex operations on this processor, such as rendering or video transcoding, the processor's P cores are able to increase their operating frequency up to 5.00 GHz. Under these conditions, the actual power consumption of the Core i7-12700K processor can reach up to 190W.
According to TechSpot, a computer equipped with a Core i7-12700K processor can consume almost 300W under heavy load, which is 15-20% more than a comparable AMD Ryzen 5000 series processor. This particular graphic does not take into account video card consumption, so with one of the top NVIDIA GeForce or AMD Radeon video cards it is very easy to exceed the 600W limit. This should be taken into account when choosing a power supply, so for a PC built on Core i7-12700K we recommend choosing at least a 750W or more power supply or PSU.
To keep the heat in check, we recommend that any PC with a 12th generation Core i7-12700K processor is equipped with a water cooler of at least 240mm or one of our Extreme LGA1700 air coolers. It is also important that the case you choose has a large enough volume and multiple intake and exhaust fans that can ensure the fastest and most efficient air exchange.
Small, fast memory that stores the copies of the data memories from the main memory that are most often used by the computer applications. It is like a temporary storage or data buffer between the CPU and RAM.
It shows with how big numbers it can operate within a single cycle. It is advisable to have this index at the level of 512 KB or at least 256 KB.
