brand new technology such as this
coming to market, perhaps especially
so because of the ongoing global
shortages affecting all manner of chips.
On the plus side, you can buy a DDR4
compatible motherboard and skip over
the burgeoning DDR5 market
altogether. Though do bear in mind that
you are stuck with one or the other. So
make your pick and be prepared to live
with it for the rest of your chip’s life. Or
until you buy a new motherboard.PERFORMANCE LEAP
The Intel Core i5 12600K is one helluva
gaming chip. It skips through our
benchmarking suite with relative ease,
and only just falls behind the top-tier
Core i9 12900K in a few games. When
considering the competition, it crushes
AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600X, though it’s at its
most impressive when it’s storming
ahead of the Core i9 11900K.
It’s enough to beat the Ryzen 5
5600X, which is a chip we’re very fond
of here, but it’s another thing altogether
for this chip to run circles around theCore i9 11900K. In terms of CPU
package power, the Core i5 12600K is a
far less power-hungry processor than
the Core i9 11900K, too, despite being
faster in almost every way. It’s still not
quite a match for AMD’s Ryzen 5
5600X in terms of power efficiency,
which is testament to the overall
efficiency of AMD’s Ryzen 5000-series.
That’s the same story with the high-end
Core i9 12900K, too – Intel just can’t
seem to nail down the efficiency that
AMD is able to deliver.
Aside from gaming, the Core i5
12600K can dispatch a video editing job
without breaking much of a sweat. The
multithreaded performance from its
many cores, some of which are E-cores,
is wholly impressive – proof that those
E-cores aren’t weak sauce when it
comes to demanding compute tasks.
Generally, though, the Core i5
12600K is a fantastic gaming chip
through and through, and it’s a prime
example of what Intel can deliver when
it’s not chasing AMD’s coat tails. It’s
roughly priced the same as AMD’schip, perhaps a touch pricier in
practice, but it offers an entirely
different class of performance with
reasonable power demands.NEXT-GEN
AMD has its work cut out following the
release of the Core i5 12600K, and
that’s great news for PC builders.
Intel’s mid-range hasn’t felt quite so at
a loss as its high-end chips have these
past generations, with chips such as
the Core i5 11600K being one of our
favourites in recent years, but the Core
i5 12600K really takes those agreeable
Core i5 qualities and turns them up to- Or rather, 12.
Also, in as much as the Intel Core i5
12600K isn’t only a mighty chip on its
own, it’s also the keys to a whole
next-gen platform. DDR5 and PCIe 5.0
SSDs are all extravagant luxuries for
now, but the Core i5 12600K’s clever
balance of price and performance
makes the entire 12th Gen platform a
little more digestible if you’re not
prepared to spend thousands of dollars.
ABOVE: The right
chip can make a
world of difference.HARDWARE
Review
THE INTEL CORE I5
12600K IS ONE HELLUVA
GAMING CHIP