It’s still a good batch of leaks on Alder Lake that arrived today. In particular on the i5-12600K which is announced as the future king of gaming machines. After the leaks on CPU-Z and others, the information we have now seems to confirm that the performance of this future i5 will become a real reference. The tests that are now exposed allow us to compare the 12600K to Ryzen 7 and Core i9 processors of the previous generation. To put the data in memory: the Core i5-12600K will embark 6 Golden Cove cores and 4 Gracemont cores for a total of 10 cores (6+4) and 16 threads (12+4). The P (Golden Cove) cores will run at a maximum frequency of up to 4.9 GHz with 1-2 cores active and 4.5 GHz with all cores active while the E (Gracemont) cores will run at 3.6 GHz on 1-4 cores and up to 3.4 GHz when all cores are loaded. The processor will feature 20MB of L3 cache and the TDP values are kept at 125W (PL1) and 228W (PL2). It is also known that some bios settings will allow to go beyond that.
The tests that were gathered by Wccftech show that the Core i5-12600K gets a score of 773 points in single-core and 7220 points under the multicore test. The result is clear as the Core i5 Alder Lake thus gets a 50% lead over the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and is even ahead of the Ryzen 7 5800X with 8 cores and 16 threads. Compared to the benchmarks glimpsed from the Core i5-12400, the i5-12600K offers a 45% increase in multithreaded performance, which means that those E-cores are being used properly and the higher clock speeds really push performance even further.
The i5-12600K pricing question
Many leaks suggest that the Core i5-12600K will be priced at the same level as previous Intel i5 chips. Looking at the pricing history of Intel Core i5 processors from the 7th generation to the 11th generation Rocket Lake, Wccftech has observed that these I5s have remained in the $260 to $270 USD price range. Intel is unlikely to change this Core i5 pricing model with its 12th-generation processors. We could therefore see this Core i5-12600K positioned at around $260 US. A particularly aggressive price considering its performance. However, we will have to watch how it arrives in Europe and at what price. In short, it seems that Intel will give AMD a hard time in the coming months.
