Intel Core i7 12700KF Review, Core i7 Goes After Ryzen 9!

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Video Index:
00:00 - Welcome back to Hardware Unboxed
02:37 - Test System Specs
03:53 - Cinebench R23
04:51 - 7-Zip File Manager
05:18 - Corona 1.3 Benchmark
05:41 - Adobe Premiere Pro 2021
06:18 - Adobe Photoshop 2022
06:32 - Adobe After Effects 2022
06:53 - Factorio
07:55 - Chromium Code Compile
07:28 - Blender Open Data
08:12 - Blender Open Data, Power
08:46 - F1 2021 [DX12]
09:12 - Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege [Vulkan]
09:25 - Borderlands 3 [DX12]
09:40 - Watch Dogs: Legion
09:58 - Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy
10:16 - Shadow of the Tomb Raider
10:35 - Hitman 3
10:54 - Age of Empires IV
11:19 - Horizon Zero Dawn
11:37 - Cyberpunk 2077
11:53 - Cyberpunk 2077, Power
12:23 - 10 Game Average
13:11 - Temps
13:44 - Final Thoughts

Intel Core i7 12700KF Review

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[arthasmenethil]

Excellent! Whatever which side you are, pray AMD and Intel go toe to toe forever! Otherwise, as soon as one of them breaks ahead and becomes a monopoly, we, the customers, got ~1% performance increase each CPU gen with huge overprice!

[kronusaerospace]

0:37 Glad you got that right, many reviewers incorrectly state that the KF versions have the IGP "removed" as a cost saving measure, this is false. Intel isn't allocating fab space for an exclusive KF version. The KF versions are the same die, they're just chips where-in the IGP has defects that make it non-functional, so they disable it and sell the processer as a slightly discounted -F version.

In general silicon manufacturers avoid designing as many unique dies as possible. Intel's i9, i7, and i5 K skus have always been made from the same die, just with different components enabled or disabled to fit the spec, usually because of defects.

[katnax]

Hey, is there a possibility that you could include some audio rendering benchmarks for audio producers? On a popular DAW like Pro Tools, Reaper or Cubase or Ableton

[beigemaster]

Great review thanks. I just hope this will drive the price of the 5900X down so I can buy one to upgrade from my 2700X on my B450 board- really not interested in having to buy a new board and cooler!

[underscoreMino]

Nice to finally see Intel and AMD so close to each other.
That said, I'll be sticking to my 10700f (that I got dirt cheap on sale) for a long time, cause I game at 3440x1440 and am (almost) always limited by my 3070Ti.

[CakeMelons]

Lol, that shot at reddit at the end gave me a chuckle. Well, another great review, thank you, interesting stuff.

[-BUGZ-]

Got the 12700K a lil while ago and it’s a monster upgrade over my 9700K i was stuck on. No more bottlenecks!!

[Karagoth]

Steve: Lets get into the gaming benchmarks
Factorio: Hey! I'm a game to some people!

[phdsouza]

Digital Foundry pointed that Age of Empires 4 uses INCREDIBLES ONE SINGLE CORE. Its results show what a Pentium 4 would be in 2021 in gaming! :)

[DerekDavis]

Amazing review! Brutal honesty about pointless overpriced DDR5 memory, and clearly shows that 5800x is the equal of 12700KF for gaming. No bias on this channel. Bravo.

[warcrabcyber]

The 12700kf is impressive, it gives better value for money than the 5900x. AMD will need to drop the price of the 5900x. I am glad Intel is competing once again. Amd prices has been extremely high as of late.

[MarkHyde]

Sitting through another comprehensive review of a CPU that answers Ryzen quite comprehensively. Like others I hope this leads to an AMD price reduction.

[prxZen]

I don't think AMD themselves are gonna do an _official_ price cut soon, not of Zen 3, demand vs supply is just too high - and they do have the substantial benefit of that 2-3 gens upgrade path. They might do some price/stack shifting when releasing the V-cache lineup fairly soon though.

[halistinejenkins]

just bought this chip brand new for $200. It clocks all cores to 5.2ghz running p95 small ffts and all cores stay under 80 degrees. awesome chip...

[KubanKevin]

On the second day, father Steve said “let there be benchmarks” and there were benchmarks and they were good.

[_root]

This is the CPU to buy if you're after a high end one, really good from Intel!

[jannegrey]

And let's be honest - there is no need to switch from good CPU to Alder Lake. Especially since the architecture needs maturing. I think it is a great architecture, but being early adopter is... not the best idea - I should know, I was always early adopter for over 20 years ;)

[spicydeath]

I'd say the fact you have to "upgrade" to windows 11 in order to run the new Intel chips is a strike against them. The fact I can slap a newer CPU in my Ryzen motherboard after an easy bios update and keep running my current os is huge.

[diaman_d]

You took the effort to go buy a 12700KF, that is very much appreciated. And the review confirms my thoughts/expectations that the i7-12700 is hitting a real sweet spot. where it is mostly comparable to the i9 but for a better price setting. Intel knew this and did not send anyone an i7 to review, they just want everyone to go for the expensive i9 or the more democratic i5 which isn't having the boost 3.0. The i7-12700K with DDR4 (lowest latency possible) would be the best choice in my opinion.

[granda]

Well, I'm just glad that we don't need to worry about a CPU monopoly anytime soon.