Leak shows overclocking Intel's Core i9-12900K Alder Lake CPU to 5.2 GHz turns it into...

[nanoguy]

In brief: Intel says AMD’s performance lead is over with Alder Lake, but what remains to be seen is whether or not this will come at the cost of higher power consumption, which in turn would demand better cooling. If the latest leaks out of China are anything to go by, the upcoming 12th generation flagship CPU will be a cutting-edge space heater even with a mild overclock on its P-cores.

Intel could reveal its Alder Lake-S processors for enthusiasts as soon as next week, but the ongoing stream of leaks is slowly driving the hype train off the cliff. The upcoming Core i9-12900K CPU has been spotted in a series of benchmarks where it shows its teeth to AMD’s Ryzen 9 5950X CPU, but one interesting detail has been missing all along — power consumption.

By now it’s no secret that Intel wants to regain the performance crown in the desktop CPU space after losing it to AMD because of the latter company’s objectively superior Ryzen 5000 series CPUs. Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger recently said that while AMD has managed to gain more mindshare among consumers and enterprises over the last few years, this would soon be over with the arrival of Alder Lake and Sapphire Rapids.

According to a leak from a Bilibili user who claims to have a qualification sample of Intel’s upcoming Core i9-12900K CPU in their possession, the company has chosen to create yet another power-hungry processor in its pursuit of higher performance.

The Core i9-11900K (Rocket Lake) can already draw as much as 307 watts during full load, but the leaker claims the Core i9-12900K can reach 330 watts during full load when running at 5.2 GHz across all eight P-cores while keeping E-cores idle.

It should be noted this is an overclock that is only stable at a voltage of 1.385. The leaker also posted a screenshot of a CPU-Z benchmark that indicates such an overclock would extend the lead in single-core performance that a stock Core i9-12900K is supposed to have over AMD’s Ryzen 9 5950X CPU to around 31 percent.

We don’t know if the test platform included DDR5 or DDR4 RAM, but the P-cores are expected to have a maximum boost clock of 5 GHz, so it’s possible the stock Core i9-12900K will only be as power hungry as its Rocket Lake predecessor, which only has eight P-cores, during heavy workloads.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/91848-leak-shows-overclocking-intel-core-i9-12900k-alder.html

 

[Dimitriid]

I know it might something unpopular to say with some (And irrationally popular with some other of you) but it makes sense than this BIG-little architecture move is just a desperate attempt at stay competitive with AMD before they're completely left in the dust so it makes sense that while these chips might be competitive in raw performance most PC users probably would be better off sticking to 5-10% less performance and 50% less power draw or worst with just Ryzen 3, let alone Ryzen 3+ or Ryzen 4 in the near future.

 

[fps4ever]

Well I guess if your willing to throw away the power envelope and heat output high road you've touted for years then you are going to win some.

 

[Geralt]

Crazy power/heat! No thanks, bad engineering on the Intel's part. My next upgrade will be Ryzen.

 

[elementalSG]

I remember the days of the Pentium 4 when Intel bet everything on being able to crank up the Ghz even with the ridiculously long CPU pipeline, causing extreme heat and power consumption which ultimately sank the P4 architecture. P4 was then replaced with the Core architecture as a result of not being able to crank the Ghz up to where Intel thought they could get to. Looks like they are back to betting the farm on cranking up the Ghz again at all power costs!

 

[Kosmoz]

Anyone remembers just a few days ago Pat Gelsinger said about great efficiency or something like that about Alder Lake (besides performance).

YES, this is "amazing" efficiency at heating an entire home. GJ Intel with Alder Lake, you did it!

 

[wiyosaya]

Well I guess if your willing to throw away the power envelope and heat output high road you've touted for years then you are going to win some.

sIntel simply showing us that all they are made of is hot air?

 

[VitalyT]

If the point of this is to show who can draw the maximum power, then Intel takes the crown.

 

[Nintenboy01]

How far Intel has fallen, their complacency and hubris during AMD's bad years and the rise of ARM has cost them dearly. I still remember the half-hearted attempt to put Atom in smartphones and tablets in the mid-2010s, and Apple having to prod them to develop better integrated graphics

 

[Nintenboy01]

I remember the days of the Pentium 4 when Intel bet everything on being able to crank up the Ghz even with the ridiculously long CPU pipeline, causing extreme heat and power consumption which ultimately sank the P4 architecture. P4 was then replaced with the Core architecture as a result of not being able to crank the Ghz up to where Intel thought they could get to. Looks like they are back to betting the farm on cranking up the Ghz again at all power costs!

sadly Nvidia seems to be going down that road as well. Hopefully the new Apple chips really serve as a wake-up call to everyone else.

 

[BadThad]

Not surprised on bit. Based on my experience with my Feb build using a 10900K. Yes, it will overclock and, yes, it will run at 85° at full load @ 5GHz using the best air cooler money can buy. After hours and hours, I gave up overclocking this CPU. It runs FAR too hot for my tastes. I wouldn't expect anything different for the new CPU even though it's "different".

 

[Neatfeatguy]

I remember a big power sucker when I was running a heavy OC on my Phenom II x 4 940. I was pushing 1.4875V through it to hit 3.6GHz. I had to run 1.525V if I pushed her to 3.71GHz, but I decided the extra heat and voltage wasn't worth it so I kept it at 3.6GHz. Paired with two GTX 570s in SLI I was drawing 650W while gaming.

I ended up moving to a i5-4670k, left it at stock, and my power draw dropped to 520W with the same GTX 570s in SLI, while gaming. Stock 4670k walked all over my OCed PII x4 940.

It used to be, go Intel for more performance and less power. Now it looks like Intel is struggling to keep performance up without a heavy power draw.....my, how the tables have turned.

 

[nodfor]

Anyone remembers just a few days ago Pat Gelsinger said about great efficiency or something like that about Alder Lake (besides performance).

YES, this is "amazing" efficiency at heating an entire home. GJ Intel with Alder Lake, you did it!

This a leak, not an official review, of a cpu running overclocked. If you want efficiency, don't overclock and run the cpu with a power limit.

 

[kiwigraeme]

Wait a year and buy zen4 or the new intel then - this must be a stop gap cpu

 

[Nintenboy01]

Wait a year and buy zen4 or the new intel then - this must be a stop gap cpu

technically Rocket Lake on 14nm was the stopgap so this is even more embarrassing. But at least the performance leads AMD this time supposedly

 

[Irata]

I remember a big power sucker when I was running a heavy OC on my Phenom II x 4 940. I was pushing 1.4875V through it to hit 3.6GHz. I had to run 1.525V if I pushed her to 3.71GHz, but I decided the extra heat and voltage wasn't worth it so I kept it at 3.6GHz. Paired with two GTX 570s in SLI I was drawing 650W while gaming.

I ended up moving to a i5-4670k, left it at stock, and my power draw dropped to 520W with the same GTX 570s in SLI, while gaming. Stock 4670k walked all over my OCed PII x4 940.

It used to be, go Intel for more performance and less power. Now it looks like Intel is struggling to keep performance up without a heavy power draw.....my, how the tables have turned.

Well, being two nodes ahead certainly did not hurt. It‘s 45nm vs 22nm finfet. It really shows that Intel lost their node advantage.

 

[Nintenboy01]

Well, being two nodes ahead certainly did not hurt. It‘s 45nm vs 22nm finfet. It really shows that Intel lost their node advantage.

TSMC was really motivated to innovate I guess, with all their big mobile customers

 

[hahahanoobs]

TSMC was really motivated to innovate I guess, with all their big mobile customers

Push push push is all TSMC does.

 

[hahahanoobs]

I remember the days of the Pentium 4 when Intel bet everything on being able to crank up the Ghz even with the ridiculously long CPU pipeline, causing extreme heat and power consumption which ultimately sank the P4 architecture. P4 was then replaced with the Core architecture as a result of not being able to crank the Ghz up to where Intel thought they could get to. Looks like they are back to betting the farm on cranking up the Ghz again at all power costs!

The long pipelines (up to 31?) made cache miss penalties harsh af.

 

[Vulcanproject]

If you're at max overclock and such a high voltage then it's hardly surprising. This is a tad sensationalist since everyone should really know that pushing hard at that top end for a stable OC increases power draw exponentially, for minimal performance gains.

What matters is normal operation and then maybe a light OC. Pushed for that extra 200MHz @ 1.385v across all cores I wouldn't be surprised if they dumped another 100 watts on the thing over and above loading all P cores at stock. Wait and see.

 

[Hardware Geek]

Can you overclock the efficiency cores? I realize that kind of defeats the purpose, but it still would be interesting to see how far those can be pushed.
I do miss the good old days when processors had all kinds of headroom and overclocking with jumpers.

 

[Rdmetz]

If you're at max overclock and such a high voltage then it's hardly surprising. This is a tad sensationalist since everyone should really know that pushing hard at that top end for a stable OC increases power draw exponentially, for minimal performance gains.

What matters is normal operation and then maybe a light OC. Pushed for that extra 200MHz @ 1.385v across all cores I wouldn't be surprised if they dumped another 100 watts on the thing over and above loading all P cores at stock. Wait and see.

Right like my 10900k will do a 5.3 all core easy and yes it's power hungry but still well with the capability of my custom loop cooling and dedicated a/c system for that room but I also was able to dial in a 5.1 all core that is significantly less power hungry and I don't notice any difference in any task outside of an actual cpu benchmark and even then nothing major.

I want the fastest performance I can get for gaming that's all I've ever cared about in a high end pc I don't need high end pc for anything else but I am also not going to push my hardware to breaking point for marginal differences.

I went 10900k because it was the best gaming chip at the time of its release and my need to upgrade I'll do the same when the next time comes around and whether it's Intel or amd I don't care.

I also don't care about which is most power effecient I want my performance but at the same time I won't sweat trying to milk 1% more out of it for insane extra stress on the hardware.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

As though anyone will be running 100% CPU load at 5.2GHz continuously, Yes this is bad but it will never occur in real life gaming or other apps. Also don't OC, seriously why bother. We need real world loads at stock clocks to see how good or bad the new architecture performs.

Any way, no matter how good Alder Lake is, I won't touch it, I'll wait for Raptor Lake vs Zen 4 late next year.

 

[Jack Deth]

So...

Intel now has their very own FX-9590.

Lol

 

[scavengerspc]

The Core i9-11900K can already draw as much as 307 watts during full load but the leaker claims the Core i9-12900K can reach 330 watts during full load

Thus answering the question of why there are no longer desktop replacement laptops coming with the desktop i9 CPUs. The 9900k in my laptop draws 215 watts full load at 5 GHz. And keeping that cool came with a price.