Intel has formally introduced particulars on its much-anticipated Twelfth-gen Alder Lake processors, together with pricing and efficiency particulars for 3 new chips.

The excellent news: While Intel’s Eleventh-gen processors weren’t notably modern or thrilling or…differently-shaped, the Twelfth-gen processors are very totally different. They’re constructed with the Intel 7 course of and are the primary processors to make the most of Intel’s new-ish hybrid structure—and sure, the totally different structure means you’ll want a brand new Z690 motherboard to improve.

Intel’s newest hybrid structure mixes totally different cores on the identical chip: Big, high-powered efficiency cores (P-cores) and small, low-powered environment friendly cores (E-cores). This sort of hybrid structure isn’t completely new—we noticed its predecessor in Intel’s Lakefield processors—however it’s coupled with a hardware-based optimization device known as Intel Thread Director, which streamlines efficiency by directing duties to the proper cores: P-cores deal with the highly effective, single-threaded duties, whereas E-cores care for background processes and multi-tasking. Intel Thread Director was constructed alongside, and is formally supported by, Windows 11, so that you’ll must improve mainly every little thing if you wish to maximize effectivity and efficiency.

And, after all, the brand new processors and corresponding motherboards are the primary merchandise to help DDR5 (as much as 4800) reminiscence, in order that’s one other factor to improve.

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“The World’s Best Gaming Processor”

Intel is making some severely daring claims about Alder Lake, calling its Core i9-12900K CPU “the world’s best gaming processor.” These chips will have to be as spectacular as promised if Intel desires to bounce again from its underwhelming Eleventh-gen CPUs.

Intel dropped its Eleventh-gen i9s to eight cores and 16 threads, down from the 10-core, 20-thread Tenth-gen i9s, claiming the sacrifice was essential to “maximize real-world performance.” But the Twelfth-gen i9s are again as much as 16 cores and 24 threads with the brand new hybrid structure. Of course, this can be a mixture of P- and E-cores: The Twelfth-gen i9 processors have a fair stability of 8 P-cores and eight E-cores, which interprets to a 19% efficiency enhance (in accordance with Intel).

Let’s Talk Prices

The new processors are pricier than the earlier era, which isn’t too stunning however remains to be a bit of disappointing: The $589 i9-12900K is a $50 bounce from the $539 Eleventh-gen i9-11900K. At the second, Intel has solely introduced pricing for a handful of its desktop processors. Processors with a Ok within the identify are unlocked, whereas processors with an F within the identify don’t embody Intel’s UHD 770 onboard graphics. Here are all the main points:

Twelfth-gen Core i9

i9-12900K: as much as 3.2GHz P-core / 2.4 E-core / 5.2GHz increase ($589)

i9-12900KF: as much as 3.2GHz P-core / 2.4GHz E-core / 5.2GHz increase ($564)

Twelfth-gen Core i7

The mid-range Twelfth-gen i7 processors have 12 cores (8 P-cores and 4 E-cores) and 20 threads.

i7-12700K : as much as 3.6GHz P-core / 2.7GHz E-core / 5.0GHz increase ($409)

i7-12700KF: as much as 3.6GHz P-core / 2.7GHz E-core / 5.0GHz increase ($384)

Twelfth-gen Core i5

The Twelfth-gen i5 processors have 10 cores (6 P-cores and 4 E-cores) and 16 threads.

i5-12600K: as much as 3.7GHz P-core / 2.8GHz E-core / 4.9GHz increase ($289)

i5-12600KF: as much as 3.7GHz P-core / 2.8GHz E-core / 4.9GHz increase ($264)

All three chips can be found to preorder now and begin transport Nov. 4.