In brief: Intel is expected to reveal the non-K versions of Alder Lake (12th-gen Core) at CES on Tuesday, but Asus and Colorful have confirmed some of their specifications in advance. Some models are a bit disappointing, while others are compelling options for the non-overclockers out there.
It’s not uncommon for motherboard vendors to include unreleased processors in their lists of supported hardware, which is what’s happened here .
In the tables below, we have core counts, base clocks, and TDPs from Asus and Colorful, and the boost clocks from leaked marketing materials and prematurely published product pages . Not included in the tables are the leaked prices from Best Buy, but you can look at those here .
| i9-12900/F* | i9-12900T | i7-12700/F | i7-12700T | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| P-Cores | 8/16 | 8/16 | ||
| E-Cores | 8/8 | 4/4 | ||
| Boost Clock | 5.1 GHz | ? | 4.9 GHz | ? |
| Base Clock | 2.4 GHz | 1.4 GHz | 2.1 GHz | 1.4 GHz |
| TDP | 65 W | 35 W | 65 W | 35 W |
*There are both vanilla and "F" versions of this processor and they share their specs.
According to Asus, Alder Lake uses two steppings: C-0 and H-0. Both the i9 and i7 families use the C-0 stepping, which has eight performance and eight efficiency cores. The H-0 stepping has six performance cores and no efficiency cores.
| i5-12600 | i5-12600T | i5-12500 | i5-12500T | i5-12400/F | i5-12400T | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| P-Cores | 6/12 | 6/12 | 6/12 | |||
| Boost Clock | 4.8 GHz | ? | 4.6 GHz | ? | 4.4 GHz | ? |
| Base Clock | 3.3 GHz | 2.1 GHz | 3.0 GHz | 2.0 GHz | 2.5 GHz | 1.8 GHz |
| TDP | 65 W | 35 W | 65 W | 35 W | 65 W | 35 W |
Intel separates the two steppings at the junction between the 12600K, which uses the C-0 stepping, and the 12600 (non-K), which uses the H-0 stepping. Because of this, the 12600K has four efficiency cores that the non-K doesn’t have.
All of the non-K i5 and i3 processors use the H-0 stepping.
| i3-12300 | i3-12300T | i3-12100/F | i3-12100T | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| P-Cores | 4/8 | 4/8 | ||
| Boost Clock | ? | ? | 4.3 GHz | ? |
| Base Clock | 3.5GHz | 2.3 GHz | 3.3 GHz | 2.2 GHz |
| TDP | 60 W | 35 W | 60/58* W | 35 W |
*This is the only "F" processor to have a lower TDP than its vanilla counterpart.
It might’ve made sense for entry-level parts to use efficiency cores. But, because the H-0 stepping has none, they’re stuck with hungry performance cores.
Intel will announce these processors in a few days, and we’ll be benchmarking them and drawing conclusions soon. But in the present, they seem like a worthy addition to the Alder Lake generation, which is all that we can ask for.
Image credit: Niclas Illg
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