The Intel Core i9-12900KS Review: The Best of Intel's Alder Lake, and the Hottest
by Gavin Bonshor on July 29, 2022 8:00 AM ESTCPU Benchmark Performance: Power, Office, and Science
Our previous set of ‘office’ benchmarks have often been a mix of science and synthetics, so this time we wanted to keep our office section purely on real-world performance.
For the remainder of the testing in this review of the Core i7-12700K and i5-12600K, we are using DDR5 memory at the following settings:
- DDR5-4800(B) CL40
Power
Compared directly to the Core i9-12900K, the Core i9-12900KS does draw more power in our Peak Power test, albeit not immensely more. Because Intel has assigned the chip the same 241W PL1 limit as the original 12900K, in TDP-constrained scenarios both chips are held to a similar limit. Still, with a figure of 276.44 W, this is considerably more than other processors including all of AMD's premium 5000-series offerings, and Intel's 12th Gen Core i5 and i7 processors.
Office
In our Agisoft Photoscan 1.3 benchmark, the Core i9-12900KS is around 1.5% better than the regular i9-12900K, and considerably quicker than the rest on test.
Science
In our science-based benchmarks, the Core i9-12900KS and the Core i9-12900K trade blows which is to be expected with two similar processors, albeit the extra core clock speeds on the i9-12900KS do not show as much benefit as the price difference would suggest.
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Carls Car - Saturday, July 30, 2022 - link
It's not the CPU that's bent. It's the ILM that is the issue.charlesg - Friday, July 29, 2022 - link
Meh. I like my 1.5 year old 5950X thank you.Alistair - Friday, July 29, 2022 - link
The 12900KS has already been discontinued at our store, as nobody bought one. Terrible chip.Don't forget that Ryzen 7000 series is releasing in a few weeks only, and will beat it soundly, with half the power consumption.
But even if you were buying today I'd get the 5800X3D which is now on sale. $390 at our store. Much more popular.
Alistair - Saturday, July 30, 2022 - link
Emulation with the 12900KS is a dream though... that's the one high spot for me, as Ryzen is still not a great emulation chipI hope Ryzen 7000 fixes this in the Dolphin benchmark.
Oxford Guy - Saturday, July 30, 2022 - link
Is emulation worth the heat, power use, and cost?Alistair - Saturday, July 30, 2022 - link
Emulation is single core heavy, there isn't a heat or power use issue.Tunnah - Saturday, July 30, 2022 - link
I have a 3700X that runs switch emu at 60fps, so I don't see why more single core performance is any more necessary. You're not unlocking something previously undoable, you're just paying a shedload of money for a few more FPS.Silver5urfer - Saturday, July 30, 2022 - link
RPCS3, Xenia, PCSX2Ryzen cannot run games vs 10th+ gen processors in performance. You do not need to dump a ton of cash. A 10700K can perform much better in either of these and that is available for peanuts now. Z590 is also super cheap.
Tom Sunday - Wednesday, August 3, 2022 - link
I heard that if anyone upgrades to a regular 13900K that this chip will be faster then the current 12th Gen KS model?PeachNCream - Friday, July 29, 2022 - link
Burn the planet! 241W TDP not high enough for my video gaming habit to destroy our world in the name of keeping me amused and allow me to brag to my superficial circle of so-called friends on Discord and disinterested coworkers about how many more FPSes I get in Fortnite!