Core i9-12900HK overview: Intel ‘Alder Lake’ laptops crush the competition

Intel can also simply serene be fans of Netflix’s Cobra Kai since it’s taken the mantra of “strike great, strike first” to heart with its 12th-gen “Alder Lake H” laptop laptop CPUs. And yes, there’s no mercy both, since the 12th-gen Core i9-12900HK leaves the ground lined with the bodies of every its divulge predecessor and AMD’s rival Ryzen 9.

If this is a small bit too 1980s throwback for you, then maybe the easy math of “14 is higher than 8” is more considerable. As in, 14-cores in a Core i9-12900HK is exclusively nearly continuously going to be bigger than the 8-cores in an 11th gen Core i9-11980HK or the 8-cores in a Ryzen 9 5900HX, even with Intel’s unusual chips the utilization of a combination of excessive-performance and excessive-effectivity cores.

To look correct how a lot 14 is higher than 8, you’ll need to read on. But the underside line? The Core i9-12900HK sets a peculiar standard for excessive-performance laptops, whether or now not you’re gaming or getting work performed. After debuting in knock-out vogue on desktops, Intel’s Alder Lake simply crushes the competition—and its predecessor—in notebooks.

Intel’s Core i9-12900HK is the unusual excessive-performance laptop laptop champion, and it’s now not even halt.

How we tested

For this overview, no thin and mild-weight laptops had been allowed, and we totally fascinated by the platforms that are most productive paired with Intel and AMD’s strongest CPUs. In other phrases, mountainous fat 17.3-stride gaming laptops paired with mountainous fat energy bricks.

• Asus ROG Strix SCAR G17 with an 8-core AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop laptop GPU with 130 watt TGP, 32GB of DDR4/3200 and a 2TB PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD. The laptop laptop’s screen is a 1080p panel with a 360Hz refresh fee.
• MSI GE76 Raider with an 11th-gen Intel 8-core Core i9-11980HK and GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop laptop GPU with 165 watt TGP, 32GB of DDR4/3200 and a 1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD. The laptop laptop’s screen is a 1080p panel with a 360Hz refresh fee.
• MSI GE76 Raider with a 12th-gen Intel 14-core Core i9-12900HK and GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop laptop GPU with 175 watt TGP, 32GB of DDR5/4800 and two 2TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSDs. The laptop laptop’s screen is a 1080p panel with a 360Hz refresh fee.

The most up-to-date version of Residence windows 11 became in scheme on all three laptops along with nearly the identical GPU drivers. For the 11th-gen Intel and Ryzen 5000 laptops, we previous faculty Nvidia’s Game Ready 511.23 drivers, while the most fresh drivers we can also rating right of entry to that supported the faster GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop laptop became the 511.14 driver. For OS sorting out, we opted to proceed with the default of Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling enabled, however we opted to bolt away Virtual Essentially based Safety off on all three laptops. Nvidia’s performance-boosting PCIe Resizable BAR technology became enabled on all these laptops, too.

AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900HX isn’t the company’s quickest Ryzen 9 chip, however it’s relatively halt and acts as a factual stand in. The quickest is the Ryzen 9 5980HX, which has the identical core count and TDP+ alternate options, however clocks in at 200MHz better than the Ryzen 9 5900HX’s boost clock of 4.6GHz.

GeForce RTX 3080 Ti vs GeForce RTX 3080

Though we rating three GeForce GPUs in these laptops, they’re clearly different. Each and each the Asus and 11th-gen GE76 exhaust GeForce RTX 3080 Laptop laptop GPUs with the identical reminiscence bus, the identical quantity of reminiscence, and the identical quantity of CUDA cores, Tensor cores, and ray tracing cores.

The main distinction between those GPUs is the most wattage. The Ryzen laptop laptop can draw 130 watts with Dynamic Enhance 2.0 enabled, while the 11th-gen Raider pulls down 165 watts with DB2.0 full of life. That’s about 27 percent better probably wattage between the 2. In clock speeds, the upper wattage RTX 3080 can hit 1,710MHz with the RAM clocked at 1,750MHz. The 130 watt RTX 3080 within the Asus can boost to 1,645MHz and, with its RAM clocked a small bit faster at 1,788MHz, it in actuality has a small bit more reminiscence bandwidth than the hotter one within the 11th-gen frame.

Each and each those GPUs don’t preserve a candle to the more moderen GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop laptop GPU, even supposing, which Nvidia acknowledged is aimed towards 1440p gaming at 120 FPS+.

The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop laptop GPU the truth is bumps up core counts 21 percent across the board. It has 7,424 CUDA cores vs. the non-TI’s 6,144 as smartly as 232 Tensor cores vs the shocking GPU’s 192. You furthermore mght rating a bonus in ray tracing cores, which suits from the normal 3080’s 48 up to 58 within the RTX 3080 Ti. Clock speeds, however, in actuality topple a small bit, with the most boost clock hitting 1,590MHz for the RTX 3080 Ti versus the shocking 3080’s 1,710 boost clock. The GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop laptop GPU also usaRAM to 2,000MHz, which gives it a nice 512GBps of reminiscence bandwidth versus the 448GBps of the GPU within the 11th-gen GE76 pocket e-book, and 458GBps for the GPU in Asus’s Ryzen laptop laptop.

3D rendering performance

We’ll kick this off the save we usually enact: Maxon’s Cinebench R23. Right here’s a widespread 3D modelling benchmark in keeping with the company’s rendering engine, sold in its Cinema4D utility. It’s sold as a stand-on my own app and also integrated into Adobe After Results.

Like most 3D modelling, Cinebench simply loves CPU cores and threads. The default benchmark runs about 10 minutes and is supposed as refined stress test. CPU’s that rely upon short boost clocks are seemingly to shed performance bigger than ones that would possibly maybe maybe proceed cooler or are saved cooler.

The ends up in a multi-threaded test shouldn’t shock anybody as we glance the 14-core Core i9-12900HK outpace the 8-core Ryzen 9 5900HX by nearly 17 percent. Absorbing by how shockingly snappy the Ryzen 9 5900HX felt final year, that says a lot. The 8-core 11th-gen Core i9-11980HK is burned even more, with the 12th-gen chip outpacing it by 27 percent in Cinebench R23. Take into account folk, Intel’s Alder Lake H mixes performance cores with effectivity cores. On this case, its six performance cores and eight effectivity cores provides up to what we predict to be leadership performance in all things multi-threaded.

The area doesn’t in actuality proceed on multi-threaded performance, even supposing. Sure, we all wish it did so we can also provide an explanation for having a 16-core or 32-core CPU, however you’re more seemingly to proceed applications that most productive exhaust a single CPU core.

To rating a in actuality feel for how the Core i9-12900HK handles that job, we proceed Cinebench R23 the utilization of a single-threaded load. Its performance against Ryzen 9 is even more spectacular as we glance the performance hole originate up to almost 27 percent for the 12th-gen Core i9. Intel’s previous 11th-gen chip became no spin in single-threaded performance, even supposing, because it also outperforms Ryzen 9. Peaceable, the most fresh performance cores within the Core i9-12900HK outpace the 11th-gen Core i9 by a in actuality authentic 17 percent.

Up subsequent is Chaos Community’s V-Ray 5 benchmark, which is necessary for receiving an Academy Award. More importantly, V-Ray contributes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and has viewed provider in Dr. Strange and Deadpool (yeah, we know that’s Fox, however it’s piece of the MCU now folk.)

The benchmark enables you to measure CPU performance as smartly because the GPU’s CUDA and RTX performance. On the CPU aspect, we glance the unusual Alder Lake H laptop laptop flee past the Ryzen 9 to the tune of 23 percent. Against its winded 11th gen sibling, it cruises to a 30 percent attend.

On the GPU front, the 175 Watt TGP GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop laptop chip outpaces the 165 watt TGP GeForce RTX 3089 Laptop laptop by a respectible 9 percent in CUDA performance and 7.6 percent in RTX performance.

Up subsequent is the originate-source Blender 3.0 rendering and modelling utility. It’s smartly-liked within the indie movie front on yarn of its tag, however it’s also relatively factual. We measure the CPU performance by the utilization of the Barbershop Interior benchmark scene and the Cycles renderer. On desktops, the 16-core Ryzen 9 5950X in actuality outpaces the 16-core Core i9-12900K due to it packing 16 excessive performance cores versus the Alder Lake’s eight performance cores and eight effectivity cores. On the laptop laptop even supposing, it’s now not moderately an glorious fight, as we one more time look the fee of the six performance cores and eight effectivity cores giving the unusual Intel Core i9 a 9.8 percent bump over the Ryzen 9. It’s even increased against the 8-core 11th-gen chip, with an glorious thing about 23 percent for the more moderen Intel CPU.

We can also proceed to proceed more multi-threaded modelling benchmarks, which would possibly maybe maybe well look the 11th gen and Ryzen 9 rating nearer—or additional away—however we think most would agree it’s going to be great for 8-cores to beat 14-cores so let’s correct transfer on. The Core i9-12900HK doesn’t need to reward off anymore here.

AI performance

Our subsequent test makes exhaust of Nero’s free Get benchmark that appears to be like at each AI performance as smartly as H.264 encode and decode performance. The AI is constructed around Intel’s OpenVINO platform, so it’s a dwelling topic attend. That affords the Core i9-12900HK a broad 39 percent attend against the Ryzen 9. Intel’s 11th-gen Core i9 fairs far better, most productive falling within the support of the unusual chip by 7 percent. Why so halt? As we acknowledged, it’s a dwelling topic attend for more moderen Intel CPUs in AI performance constructed around OpenVINO. AMD fans can also simply boo the outcomes however Intel’s broad funding in AI acceleration is starting to pay off. The corpulent H.264 encode and decode clutch, however, isn’t about OpenVINO performance, however seemingly the core-count attend for the 12th-gen Alder Lake H CPU. That ends up in a broad 43 percent attend over the Ryzen 9 and 39 percent over the 11th-gen Core i9.

Reveal material introduction performance

3D modelling and AI is fundamental, however seemingly a miniature sliver when put next with what most of us enact in teach material introduction: picture and video bettering. In that topic, Adobe is the ruler of all it’ll look, and in actuality the one utility suite no platform can exist with out. Sure, it’s the final of the Killer Apps so tighten up your belt—we’re going to be in Adobe land for a while.

Our first test makes exhaust of Puget Gadget’s PugetBench to search at Adobe Photoshop performance. Puget Gadget’s test became first and main constructed so the company can also gauge what is in actuality snappy before telling its customers what to preserve. The corporate graciously released it to the sector and scripts Photoshop thru a complete lot of responsibilities, spitting out ratings for Frequent Employ, Filter Performance, and GPU Performance.

Intel’s 12th-gen performance cores had been acknowledged to provide fundamental improvements in effectivity over previous designs and we glance that pay off straight here, the save the Core i9-12900HK has a 24 percent attend over Ryzen 9. That breaks all of the scheme down to 20 percent in GPU, 13.4 percent in smartly-liked exhaust, and a colossal 31.5 percent within the filter ranking.

Sooner than you initiate to speak, we know that there’s a disparity in GPU performance between the laptops and looking out to decide on a CPU when the GPUs are different is problematic even when it is Photoshop in scheme of teach, gaming. To address that we also ran PugetBench for Photoshop with the discrete GPUs disabled for all three laptops. Which suggests every CPU’s interior graphics chip takes over the full responsibilities required by Photoshop.

The doesn’t switch all that a lot even supposing, with the Core i9-12900HK acing the Ryzen 9 by 22 percent total, 23.9 percent for the GPU ranking, 14.9 percent for smartly-liked performance ranking, and 27.3 percent for the filter ranking. Shedding its GeForce RTX 3080 is in actuality worse for the 11th-gen Intel system, which loses to the 12th-gen CPU by 22 percent. In GPU disparities, PugetBench gives the nod to the Iris Xe by a broad 39 percent, with the smartly-liked ranking also rising to 20.5 percent and and filter ranking also gapped by 24 percent.

Photoshop tends to rating the full glory however the unsung hero for working photographers is Adobe Lightroom Traditional, which enables you to snappy job the hundreds of images after a shoot. PugetBench has a test for Lightroom that breaks it down into Energetic Performance, the prevent would also very smartly be transferring between modules and extending images, and a Passive Get that speaks to how long it takes to export images in bulk.

We also performed this test with the GeForce GPU on and off, however Lightroom Traditional is less reliant on GPU performance so the outcomes are nearly the identical. Which suggests we’ll bolt with correct the GPU full of life ratings.

It’s a comparatively actual clutch for the Core i9-12900HK one more time, with it outpacing Ryzen 9 by 32.2 percent total and 9.4 percent in full of life performance. It in actuality opens up a can of whup-ass within the passive ranking with a batch export. The batch exports tends to prefer more cores and Core i9-12900HK eats the Ryzen 9 5900HX up to the tune of 56.7 percent.

The older 11th-gen Core i9 also loses however now not moderately as badly, with the 12th gen Core i9 11.4 percent faster total, normally unimaginative even within the total of life ranking at 1.9 percent, and the passive ranking ahead by 19.5 percent.

We acknowledged Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom Traditional are fundamental and we mean it. One scenario with such corpulent suites is that performance relies upon a great deal on what you’re doing. For our second possibility, we exhaust UL Procyon’s Photo Enhancing benchmark. Like PugetBench, it scripts Photoshop and Lightroom Traditional with different responsibilities to give you with a performance ranking.

But unlike PugetBench, the GPU has a small bit more sway in transferring the numbers in Procyon, so we proceed it with the GeForce GPUs each on and off. With the GeForce 3080’s enabled, the Core i9-12900HK outpaces the Ryzen 9 by 16 percent total and is relatively a lot unimaginative even in Image Retouch actions. But it absolutely crushes the Ryzen 9 within the batch processing ranking. The 11th-gen Core i9 in actuality fares better, with the 12th-gen chip most productive beating it by 6 percent total, one more time unimaginative even in Image Retouch, and beating the older Intel CPU by 12 percent within the batch processing work.

With the discrete GPUs turned off it gets nearer, with the Core i9-12900HK beating the Ryzen 9 by 9 percent total, a small bit slower or normally unimaginative even with the AMD CPU within the image retouch piece, and beating team crimson by nearly 22 percent in batch processing. The 11th-gen laptop laptop one more time does worse with its discrete GPU turned off and loses by 15 percent total, 12 percent in picture retouch, and 18.6 percent within the batch processing. The upshot is the 12th-gen wins, however it’s a nearer contest than PugetBench.

Of all these applications, Premiere Professional normally gets the finest boost from a GPU, so we one more time proceed PugetBench for Premiere Professional with the discrete GPU on and off. Between the 12th-gen Core i9 and the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop laptop GPU, it’s a slaughter against the decrease core-count CPUs and a small bit less great GPUs. The Core i9-12900HK comes out 62 percent head total against the Ryzen 9. That breaks all of the scheme down to 26 percent for the video export, a broad 133 percent for the Dwell Playback ranking, 15.6 percent for the Results Get, and 10 percent for the GPU ranking.

The 11th-gen Core i9 fares better, shedding to the 12th-gen CPU by 34 percent total, 26 percent for the export, and “most productive” 46 percent for the Dwell Playback ranking. It’s also 17.5 percent slower within the Results Get and 15 percent slower within the GPU ranking.

Sure, you’re announcing this in actuality isn’t comely. Unfortunately, there’s no potential to equalize the GPUs between the laptops so we one more time correct swap them off, which forces Premiere Professional to rely upon the integrated graphics performance. Unfortunately for Ryzen 9 that doesn’t build it better, with the Core i9-12900HK now crushing it by 103 percent total. That works out to 58 percent for the Export Get, 270 percent for the Dwell Playback Get, 33 percent for the Results ranking, and 50 percent for the GPU ranking.

We all know from our sorting out that AMD’s integrated Radeon graphics is a tight GPU, however when it involves Adobe (as Apple can whisper you), optimization is every thing. It’s hurry that in Premiere, having an Intel CPU’s Iris Xe graphics is going to procure you better performance than AMD’s integrated Radeon graphics. Of direction, that suggests you desire a bigger Intel IGP. You don’t look a ranking for the 11th-gen Tiger Lake H laptop laptop because Premiere Professional simply hung up and failed to total the proceed.

Our for the Adobe suite comes from UL’s Procyon Video Benchmark, which, fancy PugetBench, responsibilities Premiere with exporting a complete lot of files while making exhaust of filters and other video adjustments. We’ll mix each the discrete on and off into the identical chart however with out reference to the potential you decrease it, the Core i9-12900HK wins.

With the discrete GPU on, the Core i9-12900HK comes in 28.6 percent faster than the Ryzen 9 and 12.4 percent faster than the 11th-gen Core i9. With the GeForced disabled, the 12th-gen Core i9’s Iris Xe helps it beat the Ryzen 9 by 42.2 percent. And, but another time, the 11th-gen laptop laptop fails to total the proceed in any admire.

Productivity performance

We all wished we sat around bettering images of our outing to Borneo or cutting movies for the final commercial we shot in Dubai, however the actuality is 99 percent of the globe sits in front of Microsoft Administrative center programs. If life has dealt you that hand, you would as smartly enact it faster. For that, you’ll desire a 12th-gen Core i9 over a Ryzen 9. The Core i9-12900HK outpaces the Ryzen 9 by 11.6 percent and the 11th gen by 6.7 percent the utilization of UL Procyon’s Administrative center test.

Having a rating a look on the sub ratings, PowerPoint is unimpressive. Notice, however, is ready 9 percent faster with the Core i9-12900HK. Excel gives the additional cores of the 12th-gen chip a nice 19 percent boost over Ryzen 9 and 16.9 percent over the 11th gen. The final shock is Outlook, which appears to be like to permit you to delete unsolicited mail faster by about 19 percent over the Ryzen 9 and 10 percent over the 11th-gen Core i9.

Esports Excel performance

Within the event you’re a purposeful mum or dad, you’re seemingly encouraging your small one to be a authentic online sport player—no now not up to now not till after graduating from Harvard or Stanford with a law or medical diploma. The one factor a authentic-esport mum or dad can also simply serene below no situations steer their small one hurry of is Excel. Sure, Microsoft Excel is an esport now with the most fresh Monetary Modeling World Cup held in December. It became even streamed to YouTube and ESPN. We’re now not joking, it’s true and it became surprisingly enjoyable to watch.

When the tournament became over, we realized we’ve underestimated correct how great a instrument Excel is. That’s why we made up our minds to request with out a doubt one of the participants within the FMWC, Jason Moore, to gin up a true-world Excel benchmark that would possibly maybe maybe maybe also push this day’s laptops to their limit. Moore, who works as an analyst at a Fresh York hedge fund, provided us with a workbook he created in March of 2020 that tries to name native flares usaof COVID 19.

The workbook is a purposeful, true-world exhaust of Excel. It became previous faculty to name impacts the pandemic would rating on Las Vegas casinos, theme parks, cruise ships, and conferences. That purposeful intelligence can also support predict, smartly, orderly investments. Moore acknowledged the unusual version became linked to an AWS-hosted MySQL database that became refreshed nightly from dozens of websites just like OpenTable, NYC MTA, Google Mobility, and the fondness. It makes exhaust of functions just like AVERAGEIFS, SUMPRODUCT, RANK, INDEX-MATCH, “and even musty faculty ‘ctrl-shift’ arrays to hunt out weighted averages in keeping with a pair of parameters,” Moore suggested PCWorld.

The paunchy spreadsheet entails 17 million cells, with many great coded from AWS with roughly half as formulation. For the laptop laptop version, it’s scaled support to about 20 percent of the unusual. The paunchy version takes bigger than hour to proceed on a Ryzen 9 5950X so we’ll preserve it weird and wonderful to excessive-end desktop chips. Successfully written Excel workbooks can scale to 1,024 threads and we’ve viewed this particular workbook scale to 36 threads—maxing out the the very best core-count PC we had on hand.

So, this is ready as true as you are going to be in a scheme to rating for an intensive Excel job. It’s made by somebody who drives Excel for a living and is an true Excel esports player. How damned frosty is that?

For our sorting out, we previous faculty the most fresh version of Microsoft Excel 2112 (Accomplish 14729.20260) to proceed the workbook on. Since Excel stresses the core count when pushed to the limit with smartly coded workbooks, the mountainous winner became the Core i9-12900HK, which simply crushes the Ryzen 9 5900HX by 51 percent. Surprisingly, the 11th-gen Core i9 in actuality completes the test faster than the Ryzen 9 5900HX as smartly. We didn’t predict that as many of the thread-heavy responsibilities rating attach apart the Ryzen 9 on par or in total before the 11th gen Core i9 at cases. Clearly Excel is more healthy optimized for Intel’s CPUs. That doesn’t support the 11th-gen against the 12th-gen chip even supposing, which wins by an equally crushing 45 percent. That’s relatively snappy. (If truth be told, the Core i9-12900HK is in actuality a bit of faster than the $2,000, 18-core Core i9-7980XE we also ran this test on over on the desktop aspect.)

Browsing performance

There’s one smartly-liked utility every person makes exhaust of and that’s an Net browser. So, we took a rating a look on the browser performance of every laptop laptop the utilization of Edge (which utilizes the Chromium 97 engine) and a complete lot of smartly-liked benchmarks. Browsing is largely a gentle-weight job, so we didn’t predict a lot however we in actuality seen some dazzling results.

WebXprt 3 is a benchmark that tries to gauge browser performance in a complete lot of responsibilities, just like picture bettering, picture recognition, “homework,” OCR, and encryption the utilization of HTML5 and Javascript. The winner is the Core i9-12900HK by a tight, however now not jaw-dropping 12.5 percent over the Ryzen 9, and 10 percent over the 11th-gen Core i9.

We also previous faculty JetStream 2, which is a WebAssembly and Javascript benchmark. You would possibly maybe maybe additionally read more about what those test here, however we the truth is exhaust it to test a browser’s velocity. The Core i9-12900HK turned in a dazzling 23 percent bump over the Ryzen 9 and 18.5 percent over the 11th-gen Core i9. In MotionMark 1.1, which appears to be like on the graphics performance of a browser, we one more time had been bowled over to search the Core i9-12900HK enact 32 percent faster than the Ryzen 9 5900HX, and 25 percent faster than the 11th gen CPU.

The finest shock, even supposing, came from Speedometer 2.0, which is designed to measure browser responsiveness. We seen the Core i9-12900HK with a ranking 84 percent faster than the Ryzen 9 5900HX and 75 percent faster than the Core i9-11980HK. Wow.

Encoding performance

Let’s transfer on to encoding performance. We previous faculty Handbrake 1.5.1 to transform the originate-source 4K video Tears of Metal the utilization of the evolved HEVC/H.265 codec. Though there’s a mountainous push to transfer to the royalty-free AV1 codec by companies who need to pay those royalties, HEVC is heading within the right route to displace the less atmosphere pleasant H.264 codec very soon on yarn of the increased quiz for 4K streamed teach material.

We in actuality transformed our video the utilization of two CPU profiles. After we transformed the file to 1080p, the Core i9-12900HK squeaked by the Ryzen 9 by 2 percent—normally a tie. The 12th-gen chip did beat its predecessor by 15 percent no now not up to. We then moved up to 4K the utilization of HEVC and the identical frame fee because the unusual source. There, the Core i9-12900HK beat the Ryzen by 7.8 percent in encoding time, and the 11th-gen CPU by 20 percent. These are first fee victories, however now not as crushing as we’ve viewed in different locations.

Since all of the laptops purpose dedicated hardware for encoding, we had Handbrake exhaust Intel’s Fleet Sync and AMD’s VCE for the conversions as smartly. That resulted in a mountainous clutch for the Core i9-12900HK with an encode taking 84.5 percent less time than it did on the Ryzen laptop laptop. And even supposing the 11th-gen laptop laptop also has Fleet Sync, the 12th-gen “Alder Lake H” CPU serene wins by 34 percent.

Our final test tasked Handbrake with the utilization of the Nvidia encoder within the GPUs to enact some heavy lifting. Surprisingly, the Fleet Sync performance became better than the NVENC—however we can also simply serene level out getting the encode settings to be exactly the identical is problematic.

We don’t continuously proceed Primate Lab’s GeekBench 5 since it’s progressively previous faculty as a cudgel by hardware partisans in scheme of having extreme discussions. Peaceable, it’s a priceless benchmark to rating legit results for. The winner? The Core i9-12900HK, to the tune of 54 percent over the Ryzen 9 and 50 percent over the 11th Core i9 within the multi-core test. Single-core performance is equally spectacular, with GeekBench giving the Core i9-12900HK a 20 percent attend over the Ryzen 9 and a 13 percent bump over the 11th-gen Core i9.

Gaming performance

Gaming performance comparisons in keeping with these laptops can’t be made, because it’s simply unfair with the Core i9-12900HK laptop laptop having a colossal attend over the different two due to its faster GeForce RTX 3080 Ti GPU.

There are serene a pair of things that would possibly maybe maybe maybe also additionally be gleaned about the CPU and the GPU, even supposing. First up is UL’s smartly-liked 3DMark Time Bear in mind test. It has a constructed-in test that examines CPU performance the utilization of true-world physics engines. In that test, we glance the Core i9-12900HK with a 26 percent attend over the Ryzen 9 and a 27 percent attend over the 11th-gen laptop laptop.

For our true gaming exams, we stuck with 1080p resolution since, smartly, all three laptops purpose 1080p monitors with 360Hz refresh charges. Once more, it’s in actuality sophisticated to strive to isolate differences, however we are in a position to positively teach the Core i9-12900HK, when paired with the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop laptop GPU, can outrun a few of the quickest laptops made with previous technology points. That’s clearly no shock. We think, frankly, that if we wanted to search the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop laptop GPU in actuality stretch its legs, we’d need to proceed it on a 1440p resolution screen or better.

To envision out to rating a bead on correct how a lot the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop laptop pays dividends, we also ran 3DMark’s DirectX Ray tracing benchmark, which is designed to gauge “pure ray tracing” performance the utilization of Microsoft’s DXR API. With a 20 percent amplify in RT cores for the RTX 3080 Ti, we seen a comparatively first fee 22.3 percent amplify over the GeForce RTX 3080 within the 11th-gen laptop laptop and a 16 percent lead over the configuration within the Ryzen 9 laptop laptop. That’s very authentic.

We also ran Time Bear in mind with the graphics integrated on every CPU, and the Iris Xe graphics within the Core i9-12900HK provide a comparatively first fee 36.6 percent attend over the Ryzen 9. Great if now not most that performance bump can also simply reach from the DDR5 within the 12th-gen laptop laptop. As integrated graphics (IGP) relies on the system’s RAM, the more bandwidth you are going to be in a scheme to rating in a laptop laptop with an IGP, the better the performance. The Core i9-12900HK laptop laptop also crushes the older 11th-gen CPU due to its more restricted GPU execution items. When Intel rolled out the 11th-gen laptop laptop chips, the company acknowledged it didn’t build sense to make exhaust of the dwelling for the IGP since these CPUs would possibly maybe maybe well be paired with a GPU anyway. Why that’s different with 12th-gen, we’re now not particular, however it’s clearly a lot more performance.

Our final 3DMark result is for those who shock correct how a lot of a distinction it made by cutting the Core i9-12900HK’s GPU interface all of the scheme down to 8 PCIe 4.0 lanes, in scheme of the 16 lanes found within the 11th-gen Core i9. The reply is a lot. If truth be told, the Core i9-12900HK gives normally the identical PCIe bandwidth as an older 10th-gen laptop laptop with 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0. But since this particular GPU makes exhaust of the faster PCIe 4.0, the bandwidth between the 2 is equivalent. Clearly, the Core i9-12900HK’s 8 lanes doesn’t provide the crazy amounts of bandwidth a paunchy 16 lanes of PCIe 4.0 gives you, however most (if now not all) video games simply don’t need it.

So why build this switch? Intel is seemingly saving energy and the utilization of those lanes in different locations within the system. It’s also maybe taking a look to the long term when PCIe 5.0 GPUs arrive, which would give 8 lanes of PCIe the identical bandwidth because the 11th-gen chip got with a paunchy 16 PCIe 4.0 lanes. Of direction, Intel can also additionally teach it’s now not so restricted. In show for you restricted, rating a look on the Ryzen 9 5900HX, with its eight lanes of PCIe 3.0.

Vitality effectivity

It’s relatively sophisticated to gauge energy effectivity of a laptop laptop’s CPU with out brooding about that all of the laptop laptop contributes to how a lot energy it makes exhaust of. Peaceable, we did need to rating a look of how a lot energy the Core i9-12900HK laptop laptop makes exhaust of below a heavy load, so we charged the laptop laptop’s batteries to 100 percent, turned off all of the LEDs, and scheme the three laptop laptop monitors to the identical brightness. With the batteries paunchy, the energy the laptops expend ideally would give us a thought of how a lot energy the CPUs, RAM, and associated hardware are drawing from their energy bricks.

We then simultaneously measured the energy every drew from the wall while working the CPU-most productive Cinebench R23 test. Below an all-core load you are going to be in a scheme to look the 12th-gen Core i9 spike up to 140 watts, however it soon drops with energy consumption in actuality below that of the Ryzen 9 and 11th-gen Core i9. What’s also moderately bright about the outcomes are the energy sags as Cinebench resets every scene after it’s rendered. Cinebench R23 runs for 10 minutes and continues past that if the CPU is serene rendering a scene. We are in a position to look the purple line dropping first, that suggests the Core i9-12900HK accomplished the test first. We can also additionally count the sags and look that the 12th-gen Core i9 rendered 12 scenes in less time than the Ryzen 9, which accomplished 10 renders. The 11th-gen Core i9 itself most productive renders nine.

By Cinebench R23, the utilization of all cores is a comparatively hefty load, so we also wanted to peak at energy consumed while working a in actuality mild load. That’s why we recorded the laptops while working Speedometer 2.0 in Edge. It’s a in actuality mild job and you most definitely would possibly maybe maybe even be in a scheme to look Intel’s 12th-gen and 11th-gen CPUs pushing correct below 60 watts, while the Ryzen 9 is below 50 watts. This test also gives you a hint as to how insanely snappy the Core i9-12900HK is on this particular browser test. It completes Speedometer 2.0’s 10 loops in only over a third of the time it takes the Ryzen 9 and 11th gen to enact. Once more: Wow.

But yes, you should know about battery life, so we’ll indulge you by working our standard battery rundown test, which sets the screen brightness to 250 to 260 nits and locations the laptop laptop itself in airplane mode while looping a 4K video. We scheme the laptops to their balanced settings and switched off all LEDs. We enact need to claim the 12th-gen laptop laptop has two SSDs, however in theory, the second SSD can also simply serene exhaust small or no energy except it’s actively being accessed. We also pulled a mind lock by leaving a USB SSD plugged into the 11th gen laptop laptop all over its rundown. Besides an exterior M.2 NVMe SSD, the ability also aspects RGB lighting fixtures, that would possibly maybe maybe maybe materially affect its proceed time. We’re rerunning the test and can also simply change our results as soon as rating them.

Total, the Core i9-12900HK doesn’t enact too badly with nearly 6 hours of offline video playback. No doubt, the Ryzen 9 does better at over six hours. And that’s with a battery that’s about 10 percent smaller than the 12th-gen system.

We’ll conduct more in-depth battery and performance while on battery exams within the months to reach support, however it appears to be like fancy the Core i9-12900HK just isn’t any now not up to competitive. Any laptop laptop you fan the flames of with a 175-watt GPU with a 45+ watt CPU will elevate relatively mediocre battery life at most productive, with out reference to what.

We’ll halt our results with Cinebench R20, which we proceed the utilization of a single-thread the full potential up to the most threads on hand in a processor. The thought that is to rating a smartly-liked in actuality feel for what hold of performance you’ll rating on evenly-threaded responsibilities as smartly as heavy-threaded ones. First, we’ll rating a look on the Core i9-12900HK versus the 11th-gen Core i9. Right here is the save we glance a double-digit amplify in performance, with a in actuality first fee 15 percent to 19 percent amplify in evenly threaded responsibilities. And, mind you, the 11th-gen Core i9 is itself a very snappy CPU, especially on lighter responsibilities. The Core i9-12900HK’s 14-cores—even when eight of them are effectivity cores—initiate to climb for the stars on the heavier chores. That’s 35 percent faster.

Next, we glance how the Core i9-12900HK performs against the Ryzen 9. The Ryzen 9 struggled with lighter responsibilities, so we glance the 12th-gen originate up an spectacular 22 percent to 27 lead in that dwelling. There’s a performance sag within the Core i9-12900HK as soon because it’s beyond its six on hand performance cores, however its increased different of effectivity cores serene address to preserve it ahead, and it within the waste ends up performing 22 percent faster in heavily threaded responsibilities.

Base line

It’s great to think that CPUs as snappy and fearless as AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900HX and Intel’s 11th Core i9-11980HK rating their lunches eaten nearly across the board by the 12th-gen Core i9-12900HK, however that’s what you correct witnessed. Obvious, those older CPUs are serene relevant and remain moderately great of their hold upright, however when put next with the 12th-gen “Alder Lake H” flagship—which does nearly every thing better—they’d be great to recommend. It’s relatively hurry: Intel’s Core i9-12900HK is the unusual excessive-performance laptop laptop champion, and it’s now not even halt.