Reddit user allegedly gets hands on Intel i9 12900K

[WolframaticAlpha]

Summary

Redditor u/seby9123 got his hands on a retail version of Intel's upcoming Alder Lake 12900K, claiming to have bought it for 610 dollars(pre tax). 

 

Here is the package in it's full glory:

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Quotes

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Seby9123 hasn't actually tried the processor out because they don't yet have a motherboard on which to install it. Once they acquire one, they plan to benchmark it against a Core i9-10900K and a 5950X, with both DDR4 and DDR5 RAM. Previous benchmarks have already shown Intel's upcoming Core i9 putting up a fight against the 5950X.

 

My thoughts

Seems highly interesting, if real. It is on reddit, so it's veracity is obviously unknown. If the price(610 dollars) is correct, then Intel might be competitive for once(before Zen 3+). The gold wafer replica seems cool, and will probably be on ebay for 25 dollars on launch day 

 

Sources

Intel Core i9-12900K spotted with unique retail packaging | TechSpot

The images on imgur

the reddit thread:

 

 

[Master Disaster]

So they dude is a product manager who works at a large computer parts retailer and used his position to get hands on early inventory (or he knows someone that is). This really isn't rare, heck I worked at a tiny mom & pop computer shop for 10 years and I was able to get parts (and occasionally games) weeks before they went on general sale, I had an OEM boxed copy of Vista Ultimate 2 weeks before it was on sale.

 

The dumb thing is bragging about it on the internet, someone will recognise him, track down his IRL details and he'll end up getting in deep dodo. Retailers who preorder stuff for a street date and generally under a contract to not sell them until that date and yes, its kind of an unwritten rule that some employees get early access for testing and reviewing but those employees usually don't take to reddit to brag about it.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

Ngl the packaging is pretty cool

 

Supposedly the 12900k beats a 5950x so it would be decently competitive, esp when gaming

 

But for some reason it still consumes a crap ton of power even though its 10nm so rip power bills

[Master Disaster]

1 minute ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Ngl the packaging is pretty cool

 

Supposedly the 12900k beats a 5950x so it would be decently competitive, esp when gaming

 

But for some reason it still consumes a crap ton of power even though its 10nm so rip power bills

Pro tip: Never believe anything you hear about a product until its in the hands of independent reviewers. Manufacturers have a habit of cherrypicking the good numbers and totally omitting the rest.

[DoctorNick]

10 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Ngl the packaging is pretty cool

 

Supposedly the 12900k beats a 5950x so it would be decently competitive, esp when gaming

 

But for some reason it still consumes a crap ton of power even though its 10nm so rip power bills

Yeah 330W could be real with a 5.2ghz overclock and if numbers is correct Intel only beats AMD in single core performance on stock and if wattage is over 220W then why would you even care, as long as multithread is still good. Games might run faster, esp older games like CSGO etc.

Rumor souce: https://wccftech.com/intel-core-i9-12900k-alder-lake-cpu-consumes-whooping-330-watts-power-overclocked-to-5-2-ghz/

[Master Disaster]

12 minutes ago, DoctorNick said:

Yeah 330W could be real with a 5.2ghz overclock and if numbers is correct Intel only beats AMD in single core performance on stock and if wattage is over 220W then why would you even care, as long as multithread is still good. Games might run faster, esp older games like CSGO etc.

Rumor souce: https://wccftech.com/intel-core-i9-12900k-alder-lake-cpu-consumes-whooping-330-watts-power-overclocked-to-5-2-ghz/

This made my laugh when I first saw it, correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the point of hybrid designs to be more efficient and use less power?

[Rauten]

1 minute ago, Master Disaster said:

This made my laugh when I first saw it, correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the point of hybrid designs to be more efficient and use less power?

I think the point was to have, how to put it... scalable power?

As in, if what you're doing is rather undemanding, just load up a couple efficiency cores and make do sipping a few watts of power. But if you need to hit the CPU -HARD-, then it can go full room heater mode and do serious heavy lifting.

[SeriousDad69]

4 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

This made my laugh when I first saw it, correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the point of hybrid designs to be more efficient and use less power?

I wouldn't take overclocked power numbers as meaning anything at all. Overclocking has been a meme for a few years now, like 30-50% more power usage for ~10% more performance. The last flagship CPU actually worth overclocking was probably the i9 9900K.

[Blademaster91]

39 minutes ago, DoctorNick said:

Yeah 330W could be real with a 5.2ghz overclock and if numbers is correct Intel only beats AMD in single core performance on stock and if wattage is over 220W then why would you even care, as long as multithread is still good. Games might run faster, esp older games like CSGO etc.

Rumor souce: https://wccftech.com/intel-core-i9-12900k-alder-lake-cpu-consumes-whooping-330-watts-power-overclocked-to-5-2-ghz/

If the leaks are real then I don't see the point of the performance and E cores if overclocking causes the CPU to be a space heater. I mean sure if you're a pro CSGO player then you wouldn't care, but modern GPU's already use 300W+ and you'll at least maybe need a 360mm AIO to keep the CPU cool.

[Seby9123]

1 hour ago, Master Disaster said:

So they dude is a product manager who works at a large computer parts retailer and used his position to get hands on early inventory (or he knows someone that is). This really isn't rare, heck I worked at a tiny mom & pop computer shop for 10 years and I was able to get parts (and occasionally games) weeks before they went on general sale, I had an OEM boxed copy of Vista Ultimate 2 weeks before it was on sale.

 

The dumb thing is bragging about it on the internet, someone will recognise him, track down his IRL details and he'll end up getting in deep dodo. Retailers who preorder stuff for a street date and generally under a contract to not sell them until that date and yes, its kind of an unwritten rule that some employees get early access for testing and reviewing but those employees usually don't take to reddit to brag about it.

lol nah, just an enthusiast who keeps an eye out

[RockSolid1106]

4 minutes ago, Seby9123 said:

lol nah, just an enthusiast who keeps an eye out

wait a minute, we have this dude on the forum?!

[jaslion]

55 minutes ago, DoctorNick said:

Yeah 330W could be real with a 5.2ghz overclock and if numbers is correct Intel only beats AMD in single core performance on stock and if wattage is over 220W then why would you even care, as long as multithread is still good. Games might run faster, esp older games like CSGO etc.

Rumor souce: https://wccftech.com/intel-core-i9-12900k-alder-lake-cpu-consumes-whooping-330-watts-power-overclocked-to-5-2-ghz/

Seems only logical that they would only beat them in single core performance because well they lack a good amount of full power cores.

 

I just don't like the big little design for even multi core use cases. Like a render is happening and currently all cores are busy but now one by one they are finishing and one of the little ones has just started their last part taking over double as long. Hopefully they have something to prevent that from happening

 

I also want to see their performance in windows 10 not 11 as that os is greatly skewed against amd and even intel's own normal cpu's perform a bit worse.

[thekingofmonks]

33 minutes ago, Rauten said:

I think the point was to have, how to put it... scalable power?

As in, if what you're doing is rather undemanding, just load up a couple efficiency cores and make do sipping a few watts of power. But if you need to hit the CPU -HARD-, then it can go full room heater mode and do serious heavy lifting.

That said- do you think it would be possible for such CPUs to dedicate P cores to levels only and E cores to the GUI/HUD within the same software?

[Seby9123]

Sup

[Rauten]

2 minutes ago, thekingofmonks said:

That said- do you think it would be possible for such CPUs to dedicate P cores to levels only and E cores to the GUI/HUD within the same software?

Uuhhh I'm just an enthusiast, not an engineer or anything, this is getting way above my level.

 

However, considering all the talk about how they're working with Microsoft to help prepare the task scheduler, I assume  (note the very heavy emphasis) it's tied to processes. 
So if the GUI/HUD is in the same process as whatever task you're doing, it will all have to go into the same core(s); if they are in separate processes, then they should go to P and E cores respectively.

[porina]

14 minutes ago, thekingofmonks said:

That said- do you think it would be possible for such CPUs to dedicate P cores to levels only and E cores to the GUI/HUD within the same software?

Could it be done, probably. Would it be done? Unlikely.

 

Consider that workloads can be broadly split into two parts: critical path, and throughput. Things that have to be done to move on will be critical path. This should be prioritised to P cores. Other stuff is more a throughput exercise. You just want it done, you don't care how it gets done as long as it is done in time. That can go anywhere, P or E core. Dedicating stuff to E core doesn't make sense especially as for a long time most people wont have anything like that. General software will try to be as hardware agnostic as practical since you don't know what will be out there. 

[DoctorNick]

21 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Seems only logical that they would only beat them in single core performance because well they lack a good amount of full power cores.

 

I just don't like the big little design for even multi core use cases. Like a render is happening and currently all cores are busy but now one by one they are finishing and one of the little ones has just started their last part taking over double as long. Hopefully they have something to prevent that from happening

 

I also want to see their performance in windows 10 not 11 as that os is greatly skewed against amd and even intel's own normal cpu's perform a bit worse.

Yeah it'll be interesting to see how it comes out. Most likely they'll have the speed "crown" until Ryzen 6000. Might need to get more AMD stock. Yes Microsoft really screwed up Windows 11, but again that's the cycle. 

[jaslion]

8 minutes ago, DoctorNick said:

Yeah it'll be interesting to see how it comes out. Most likely they'll have the speed "crown" until Ryzen 6000. Might need to get more AMD stock. Yes Microsoft really screwed up Windows 11, but again that's the cycle. 

Honestly even from the leaked benchmarks it seems to be just doing ok? That and it's 100% running windows 11 which means that amd is missing 15-20% of it's performance vs a cpu that 11 was basically optimized for for a good while.

 

So in multi core the 5900x once it's performance is normal again is brushing up against the 12900k and single core wise it's a lot less further away.

 

I mean at this point when a last gen not even top of the line cpu can match a new top of the line cpu you are just not doing something right. Combine that with the knowledge that 11 is optimized for intels big little design I just don't think this cpu is really all that much better.

 

That and we are on desktop wth is up with wanting big little there when the power consumption of this thing is over 200w.

[Rauten]

7 minutes ago, jaslion said:

That and we are on desktop wth is up with wanting big little there when the power consumption of this thing is over 200w.

I honestly don't get these reactions to Alder Lake. 

If you are running a task that demands full power, you get full power. If you are running a task that requires 2W, you get 2W.

Is there a negative to this I'm missing? Honest question.

[WolframaticAlpha]

1 hour ago, Seby9123 said:

Sup

Whoa cool

 

 

EXTREMELY COOL 

ME LIKEY!!!

 

 

_{pls put more pics of the cpu pls} 

[WolframaticAlpha]

18 minutes ago, Rauten said:

I honestly don't get these reactions to Alder Lake. 

If you are running a task that demands full power, you get full power. If you are running a task that requires 2W, you get 2W.

Is there a negative to this I'm missing? Honest question.

pretty much. The justification against it being that if you are gaming then you are probably going to be putting the cores on all power and that big.LITTLE may introduce compatibility problems.

[Seby9123]

[porina]

27 minutes ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

pretty much. The justification against it being that if you are gaming then you are probably going to be putting the cores on all power and that big.LITTLE may introduce problems.

We shouldn't move ahead because there may be problems? Different people may choose to run games differently, but generally speaking in most situations we're not CPU limited.

 

I can't find where I saw it now, but Intel was reported to say words to the effect perf/watt parity 2024, leadership 2025. The leadership claim ties in with past statements they expect to be first to deploy whatever next gen fab tech in production. The parity claim might be more industry wide than product wide. Think Apple, not AMD. 

 

Edit: Found the source. Ian Cutress (Anandtech) reacting to Intel's financial results.

 

[WolframaticAlpha]

1 minute ago, porina said:

We shouldn't move ahead because there may be problems? Different people may choose to run games differently, but generally speaking in most situations we're not CPU limited.

 

I can't find where I saw it now, but Intel was reported to say words to the effect perf/watt parity 2024, leadership 2025. The leadership claim ties in with past statements they expect to be first to deploy whatever next gen fab tech in production. The parity claim might be more industry wide than product wide. Think Apple, not AMD. 

Perf/watt with this gen apple or 2024 apple?

[porina]

4 minutes ago, WolframaticAlpha said:

Perf/watt with this gen apple or 2024 apple?

2024 Apple. With the usual arguments on how it is measured, I think they have a good chance at passing AMD way before that.