Intel’s leaked i9-12900K benchmarks beat AMD’s current desktop Ryzen offerings

Benchmarks for Intel’s upcoming Alder Lake processors are starting to leak, showcasing the performance of the company’s incoming 12th Generation Core processors. 

Today, thanks to @TUM_APISAK, we have gotten a look at Intel’s Alder Lake i9-12900K processor in Geekbench 5, highlighting the performance of Intel’s planned 16-core 24-thread under Windows 11.

What, 16  cores and 24 threads? Yes, Alder Lake is a hybrid x86 processor that features eight Performance Cores (P-Cores) and eight smaller Efficient Cores (E-Cores). Intel’s P-Cores feature hyperthreading while Intel’s E-Cores lack hyperthreading, creating a unified processor with 16 cores and 24 threads. More information about Intel’s Alder Lake CPU architecture is available here. 

Another critical factor of these benchmarks is that Intel’s i9-12900K was tested under Windows 11, which is optimised to make use of Intel’s Thread Director and hybrid x86 CPU design. This factor allows Intel to maximise the performance of their i9-12900K processor, giving their CPU stronger performance levels than the same system using Windows 10. 

Performance – Beats AMD’s Ryzen 9 5950X!

Intel’s i9-12900K managed to achieve a single-threaded score of 1834 and a multi-threaded score of 17370 in Geekbench 5.4.1, which is a result that’s better and any of AMD’s current-generation Ryzen processors. 

In a Geekbench 5.4.1 result for AMD’s Ryzen 9 5950X, we found that AMD’s processor can achieve single-threaded scores of around 1722 and multi-threaded scores of around 16944. This gives Intel an advantage on both the single-threaded and multi-threaded front. That said, AMD’s Ryzen 5000 series processors will be around a year old when Alder Lake launches, and we know that AMD has enhanced Zen 3 processors on the horizon. AMD has an opportunity to take a leadership position when they launch their V-Cache enhanced Zen 3 processors, which means that Intel won’t be in the lead for long.  
   

  
Does Geekbench matter? 

While hardware enthusiasts like to discuss IPC gains and specific benchmarks, it is worth remembering that the benefits of any new processor design will vary on an application by application basis. Some architectural shifts will result in significant gains in performance, while others will deliver minor (and sometimes negative) impacts in others. Alder Lake’s performance lead in Geekbench 5 is not indicative of Alder Lake’s performance in other applications/workloads, which means that Intel is not guaranteed a performance victory over AMD’s Ryzen 5000 series with Alder Lake. 

How well does Alder Lake compare against AMD’s Ryzen 5000 series? To know that we will need to wait for reviews, as that is when Alder Lake will be analysed across a broad range of applications by a large number of reviewers. Only then will we know how Alder Lake compares to AMD’s Ryzen 5000 series. 

That being said, Alder Lake’s strong performance in Geekbench is a good sign for Intel. Should these performance levels be seen in other areas of the PC market, Intel might just have regained the performance crown from AMD with Alder Lake. That said, AMD has new products on the horizon that have the potential to quickly reclaim it. 

You can join the discussion on Intel’s strong performance with Alder Lake in Geekbench on the OC3D Forums.