Intel Core i9-12900K – Enough power to burn the planet!

Leo has not slept in several days getting Intel content ready for today and in our first video to be published today, we takes a look at the flagship Intel Core i9 12900k processor. It's been a long time coming - but Leo checks out performance, Windows 11, DDR5, and some automatic overclocking with Intel's latest Extreme Tuning Utility. More in-depth manual overclocking will be shown in upcoming videos.

00:00 Start
00:15 Introduction
01:09 Intel 12th Gen technical details
04:22 Test Setup for Core i9 12900k Review
05:50 DDR4 v DDR5 article
06:33 Windows 11 findings, so far
08:36 System build - finishing up
09:15 MSI Z690 Unify 1.0F BIOS
10:57 In Blender, what does the processor look like ?
11:50 Intel Extreme Tuning Utility 7.5.3.3. overclock
12:19 Automatic overclock set - hitting 100c+
13:05 Leo’s extensive test results
19:05 Gaming test results - is it King? (as Intel claim)
20:52 Performance per £
21:17 Performance per watt of power
21:38 CPU temperature comparisons
22:00 Power Consumption
22:25 Leo’s Closing Thoughts

Test System:
Processor: Intel Core i9-12900K (16 cores/24 threads)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H150i Elite LCD
Motherboard: MSI Z690 Unify BIOS 1.0F
Memory: 32GB Corsair Vengeance DDR5-5200
Graphics card: Palit RTX 3080 Gaming Pro 10GB
Power supply: Seasonic Prime Titanium 850W
SSD: 500GB Sabrent Rocket 4.0 M.2 NVMe
OS: Windows 11

Pros:
Storming gaming performance
Good productivity performance that is close to Ryzen 9 5950X
Intel has finally moved on from its 14nm process
Intel’s Performance Hybrid architecture is a major change of direction.
Support for PCI Express Gen 5

Cons:
Power draw is high and efficiency is unimpressive.
DDR5 is brand new and will take time to improve.
High cost for the new platform.
Windows 10 performance is unpredictable. Best to use Windows 11.
There is minimal potential for overclocking with conventional cooling.

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#intel12thgen #12900k #corei9

[musicman]

The best review I have seen, a lot of other reviews gloss over the heat and power consumption issues on the I9 which I think are going to be an issue down the road. From what I read you need a higher-end Z690 MB because of the power to run the I9 at max potential. I need to update my I7 4790K, probably will go with the 5900X or maybe the 12700k nad not overclock, my computer is used for day trading and music production.

[WeeManXL]

How much Watts does this 12900K CPU consume?

ALL of them!

[Buffinator]

The enthusiast community is usually quite forgiving about power consumption as long as you can confidently say 'our chip is the fastest'.
However if AMD erase this lead with their 3D cache refresh (or reduce it enough to become academic) that extra 100w sustained is going to look VERY silly all of a sudden.
I'm glad that both companies are now being exciting at the same time though!

[atharagha]

Echoing other's comments here - FInally a decent and balanced review! I'm impressed with the new chips for sure, but there seems to be a lot of noise coming out around how fast these chips are vs the power draw, thermals, TCO, and Windows 11's issues (the AMD on W11 issues still aren't totally resolved). That makes for a "great CPU but lets see how it plays out" perspective which is important to bear in mind. Replatforming for a lot of people is not something undetook lightly & the benefits realy do seem to come from a combination of architecture -and- platform here

Really well done :)

[pc-ninja]

Great video 5 stars! As a creative, I am not impressed at all big letdown 5950x seems a better deal and uses so much less power. I think I will wait for AMD new offering.

[NoLuvHoz]

Nice balanced review. Intel has done well. That heat and power consumption, though...but what's new? Appreciated the 1440p numbers mixed in with the 1080p.👍

[ameemarshad]

I am happy with my i9 10850K 10C20T great review Leo Sir :)

[TimeJammer]

The best review. Away from advertising and unnecessary praise. Realistic and honest. Thanks for your hard work. 👏

[MikeZak]

Cinebench R23, 12900k running 5.1Ghz on the P cores, 4.1Ghz on E cores at 1.26v temp hitting between 79c to 82c hits a score of 29133 so not sure what's up with your test results hitting in the 27000's

[pastafazool]

Would have preferred a custom loop for your tests I have 0 faith in aios due to the heat still being trapped in the pump sitting on top of the cpu but I understand the ease of access, great video regardless thank you sir.

I had an amazing experience using advanced + offset overclocking low temps + high overclock and low voltage ⚡️blew away the thread ripper scores In cinebench and didn't pass 74c even after running the cpu all day long, simply amazing.

[johnB-etux]

Speaking as an 11 year Intel cpu user - so 10% faster 20% hotter 50% more power usage and a year newer, if I was AMD I would be VERY not worried. Competition is good to see though.

[pc-ninja]

Also, remember 12900K only beats 5950X buy 2%

[IIRyainII]

How hot is acceptable with the i9 12900k

[musicman]

Leo what are the idle temps and temps when the I9 is not under heavy load ?

[Nuk]

This is probably the only channel seemingly not paid to sing praises to Alder Lake the barn-burner.

[bryantallen]

You can disable all of the E-cores but not all of the P-cores. At least one P-core has to be active. A cool thing, is that the UHD770 can be overclocked to 2.1GHz. That's a 500MHz overclock on the iGPU, giving it over 1TFlop of FP32.

[Lead_Foot]

Overclocking using xtu one click OC is just going to raise the max turbo freq and use the corresponding voltage required for that freq from the stock VID table so of course power draw is going to be insane.

The doubled chipset bandwidth is quite useful.

[WimukthiBandara]

Love this no bullshit review. I had the same mixed feelings about Alder Lake. Thank you!

[pc-ninja]

Could you do a overclock test 5950x vs -12900K (As we already know the -12900K will not overclock very well at all)?

[Penfolduk]

Slightly miffed at the Windows 11 use. An OS built from the bottom-up for Alder Lake/Intel. With AMD apparently only being given last minute access before launch to update it's drivers. I expect AMD figures would be better in a few months time, assuming Microsoft don't cripple them in the scheduler.