the beginning of the magazine, where the articles are small8 MAXIMUMPC HOL 2021
quickstart
Alder Lake brings big changes to Intel’s desktop chipsIntel goes hybrid
and has a base clock of 3 .6GHz.
The halo i9- 12 900K has eight
of each core, a base clock of
3.2GHz, and a top boost of
5.2Ghz. Each performance
core gets 1 .25MB of L 2 cache,
while the four-core block of
E-cores shares a 2MB cache.
Over this sits either 20 , 2 5, or
30MB of L3cache. All have 20
PCIe lanes, 16 PCIe 5 .0 lanes
for graphics, and four PCIe 4.
lanes for speedy storage.
All this technical wizardry
costs $264, $384, and $ 564
respectively for the KF
versions, saving $ 25 over
the regular K versions. It’s a
small bump over the outgoing
11th-gen chips but compares
well to the equivalent Ryzens.
Although the top chip looks like
an expensive proposition, Intel
never seems to have trouble
selling its hottest chips.
Alder Lake officially uses
the Intel 7 process, which
means it equates to 7 nm, sort
of. Actually, it is a development
of Intel’s 1 0nm process, which
is physically similar to other
7nm process chips. Another
metric that has changed is
the Thermal Design Power
numbers, which were always
an approximation. Now we
have Processor Base Power(PBP), and the Maximum
Turbo Power (MTP) for when
you are running full bore.
All have a PBP of 125 W, and
MTP numbers of 150 W, 190 W,
and a startling 24 1W. We also
have DDR5 support, with
dual memory channels with
a maximum of 128 GB. DDR
support is retained. A new chip
also means a new board. Alder
Lake uses an LGA 1700 socket,
and we’ve just one chipset so
far, the Z690.
How fast is it? Intel claims
an IPC (Instructions Per
Cycle) boost of 1 .15 (or 1 .19 if
‘unadjusted'), which is a solid
performance bump. All eyes
will gravitate to the i9- 12 900,
and how good a gaming chip
it is (see our full review on
page 7 6). To accompany the
launch, Intel produced a set
of slides highlighting the
performance, and while they
were carefully picked to show
the chip to its advantage, they
made encouraging reading.Those E-cores also help push
multi-threading performance
considerably, in some cases
the 1 2th-gen chips are up to
40-50 percent faster than the
previous ones. These small
cores are still pokey CPUs in
their own right, each is more
powerful than a Skylake
CPU, and the i9-1 2900 has
a total of 24 threads to play
with (only the P-cores have
Hyperthreading).
When Intel releases a new
halo chip, you know somebody
will push it to the extreme. One
modder has attached liquid
nitrogen cooling and turned it
up to 6 .8GHz on the P-cores,
and 5 .3GHz on the E-cores.
Geekbench 4 and 5 were run,
and world records duly set,
after turning down the wick
to 6 .7GHz for stability. Fun,
pointless, but it had to be done.
One fly in the ointment is
DRM, which uses CPU checking.
These aren’t expecting a hybrid
architecture and can fail.
Any supported game can be
patched, however older games
might not work. We’ll have to
wait and see, but it would be
a pity to lose your favorite
games when upgrading.
Alder Lake needs to go
well for Intel as it has been
chasing AMD’s tail for a while.
Strong competition helps push
development, so over the next
year we’ll see a lot more Alder
Lake stuff, including more
motherboard chipsets, and
new ‘P’ and ‘M’ dies for the
laptop and mobile markets.
Let the games begin. – CLWEHAVE been waiting for what
seems like ages, but now Intel
has finally introduced its Node
7 process, and it has gone
hybrid: welcome Alder Lake,
the 12 th Generation of desktop
processors. Intel calls this the
“biggest ever leap in our x 86
architecture”. Alder Lake uses
a mix of high-performance
cores (P-cores) using the
Golden Cove architecture,
and high-efficiency cores
(E-cores) using the Gracemont
architecture. It’s a sound idea
that has served Apple’s M 1
chip well.
Meanwhile, AMD has stated
that it is sticking to its single-
core type designs, for now.
AMD also has patents covering
hybrid architecture, so the
option is on the table.
Initially, there are six
versions of Alder Lake, with
another 28 versions to follow.
To start though we get the
Core i5- 126 00, i7-1 27 00, and
i9-1 29 00. Each comes in two
versions: K and KF. Both are
unlocked, but the KF lacks the
integrated graphics core. The
i5- 12600 has six performance
and four efficiency cores, a
base clock of 3 .7GHz with a
boost to 4 .9Ghz. The i7-1 2700
adds two performance coresAlder Lake needs to go wellfor Intel. It has been chasingAMD’s tail for a whilenow.Intel’s 12 th-gen desktop chip
has had a complete overhaul
of the processor architecture.