Overview

Over this past week, the specs of Intel’s Alder Lake CPU lineup (12th generation) have leaked. Note that these are just leaks at this time. We will still analyze the specs provided in this article, and provide insight as to how Intel is positioning these CPUs over previous generations. 

Leak Origin

The leaks come from Zhihu, a Chinese forum. It is stated that the announcement will most likely be in the second half of 2021 from Intel. These CPUs are stated to be more power efficient than their predecessors. Intel may be positioning these as more power efficient and a better choice for consumers. They may also be positioning it in a way that will allow for more powerful processors in the future. Said processors would most likely utilize the same power draw as previous gen CPUs. Nevertheless, this is good news for consumers. Lower power draw will allow for higher draw GPUs and other additions.

Breakdown

There will be three CPUs released under the Alder Lake generation, at least at first. They will feature a hybrid architecture, using Golden Cove high-performance cores as well as Gracemont power-saving cores. It is also expected that these microprocessors will be fabricated using the 10nm Enhanced SuperFin process, developed by Intel. These microprocessors will also utilize the LGA 1700 socket.

i5-12600K – 4.9GHz  Performance Boost, 3.6GHz Efficiency Boost, 6 performance cores with 12 threads, 4 efficiency cores with 4 threads, 20MB L3 Cache.

i7-12700K – 5.0GHz Performance Boost, 3.8GHz Efficiency Boost, 8 performance cores with 16 threads, 4 efficiency cores with 4 threads, 25MB L3 Cache

i9-12900K – 5.3GHz Performance Boost, 3.9GHz Efficiency Boost, 8 performance cores with 16 threads, 8 efficiency cores with 8 threads, 30MB L3 Cache

It is interesting that Intel is targeting higher clock speeds on their Efficiency cores, highlighting that their hybrid approach is different from what Apple is doing for instance. Apple, for comparison, has a max of 2GHz clock speed on their high-efficiency cores on their M1 chip.

Final Thoughts

I am very much looking forward to the announcement of these CPUs. Intel is taking an interesting approach with the Alder Lake CPU, with placing more emphasis on their Efficiency cores than competitors are. The blog will be update as any news is released, such as the announcement day and time of this new generation of CPUs by Intel.