REVIEW: i7-12700K puts Intel back on top

Launched in late 2021, the processor Intel Core i7-12700K was one of Intel's bets to return to compete in the segment high-end after some dubious launches, and make no mistake: the bet was a straight shot. THE 12th Generation Alder Lake arrived with both feet in the door with great efficiency, performance and, above all, revitalizes a brand that was once hegemonic in the processor market.

Intel kindly provided a unit of the Core i7-12700K to the showmetech, and after a few weeks of testing, we present our full product review.

Intel came back, and came back well

Intel has almost always been synonymous with leadership in the processor world. I remember well the years 2013 and 2014, even January 2017, when I built my first PC Gamer. There were no doubts at that time. If you wanted a strong, long-lasting machine, you had to buy Intel.

Time passed and things didn't age so well. That's because a nice girl named Lisa Su took over the head of AMD to announce in 2017 the AMD Ryzen processors with Zen architecture. Then things changed. For the first time in a long time, Intel had a strong competitor. This intensified the market, but also made the blue side (Intel) create some swagger, and consequently leveraged the launch of some disasters, such as 11th generation processors.

Well then. It was time to turn things around, and luckily the Alder Lake processors seem to be fulfilling this role masterfully. During the tests we will see the quality of the Intel Core i7-12700K, but this is only possible thanks to its hybrid architecture.

Hybrid architecture saved the day

In Intel's new venture, the company resorted to the hybrid architecture model, the famous System on a Chip, better known for SoC. Technology is nothing more than a chip, and it contains components such as the processor, the video card, memories, etc. However, the SoC is nothing new. If you're using a smartphone right now, your cell phone contains this kind of technology. But on the computers, the Blue Team decided it was time to change strategy.

The idea is to have two types of cores working together: colors high performance mixed with colors performance to run background tasks on a single chip. The high-performance cores, called P-Colors (performance-colors) correspond to the architecture golden cove; already the architecture gracemont refers to the efficiency cores, the e cores (Efficient-colors). The processors will be manufactured in a 10 nm lithography Enhanced SuperFin, known as Intel 7. This is another important leap, as it has been a long time since the company changed its manufacturing process and helps improve performance.

How does it work in practice?

Of course, in the theoretical part it's quite understandable to understand what Intel has been trying to do, and in practice it's just as simple. Just think that we have a heavy game running in the foreground, like Fortnite. The performance P cores will be working to run this game specifically, while the efficiency E cores will be in the background, guiding activities in the game. background,, like a Discord of life that you use to communicate with your friends.

On a day-to-day basis, we don't realize this. It's not like I took an i7-11700K out and put in the i7-12700K and magically there was a revolution in my PC. Not. The way to use it is exactly the same. The difference is what happens “behind the scenes” on your computer.

New processors and the arrival of DDR5

In addition to revitalizing the brand, Intel decided to bet even higher, dictate some rules and send a beautiful ultimatum to AMD. For the first time, the DDR5 memories would be compatible with home processors — and maybe processors in general, as this is another industry release. In fact, there are important changes, not only in terms of RAM, but also in sockets, chipsets, PCIe ports. Anyway, lots of news.

Currently DDR5 only works in compatibility with Alder Lake processors, and guarantees frequencies of 4800 Mhz, controllers integrated in the modules, better communication with the CPU, etc. Intel also sent us a 32GB RAM kit from Kingston, and I didn't feel any big differences in everyday use or gaming. In fact, to see the concrete changes between using the i7-12700K with DDR5 and using DDR4, we would need a motherboard that supports DDR4 construction.

It may seem confusing, but DDR is not a backward compatible technology, that is, there is no way to connect a DDR4 stick to a DDR5 input or vice versa. To test how two different types of memory behave on the same processor it is necessary to have another motherboard, and unfortunately we haven't got one yet. Therefore, I will not go into the merits of the memories here, as we lack tests to verify the changes.

O PCIe 5.0 also shows up with Alder Lake processors, but current cards still work on PCIe 4.0, so we just have to wait for future releases from NVIDIA, AMD and Intel itself, with the upcoming Arc line. The expectation is to speed up the exchange of information between processors and devices that make use of this connection, mainly video cards. We expect this connection to have a data transfer capacity of up to 128 GB/s, and up to 23 GT/s; It also has backward compatibility with previous versions.

The chipsets, socket and the cooler

To encompass all this, a chipset robust, and the family comes into action Z690: the top of the line for Intel Alder Lake processors. During the CES 2022, Intel announced other chipsets, this time for the input and intermediate segments, such as the H670, B660 and H610, which arrive on the market in the coming months. These motherboards, especially the premium ones, will be equipped with ports Thunderbolt 4 and network WiFi 6E.

And here we come to the “complicated” part. I'll show you the design of the i7-12700K in the next topics, and if you have a keen eye for detail, you might notice that the little piece of silicon is rectangular and no longer square. Well, it's the truth. And with that the new chipsets needed socket changes. We left the LGA 1200 and went straight to the LGA 1700.

That means your Alder Lake processor won't fit into the LGA 1200 socket. There's no point in even trying. And of course, if the socket has changed, the hole for coolers also changed. Now, you need or buy a cooler factory compatible with the LGA 1700, or buy an upgrade kit to use your old cooling system. If you want to know more about millimeter form, I wrote a full article on the topic a few days ago, with tips, cooler recommendations and in-depth explanations.

In our case, Intel shipped a motherboard ASUS Prime Z690 Wi-Fi and then the water cooler Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML240L, with an upgrade kit.

the chip

Now that we've explained the great innovations of Alder Lake desktop processors, we can finally focus our efforts on better understanding the Intel Core i7-12700K. Getting straight to the point, this CPU has 8 performance cores and efficiency cores, totaling a 12-core processor, which still has 20 threads, base clock of 3.6 Ghz and boost for up to 5Ghz. On paper we have an excellent component, and during the tests it manages to prove it very well.

The model is also equipped with an integrated graphics card, the Intel UHD Graphics 770. However, we didn't even bother to test its performance, as it makes no sense to buy a processor of this magnitude to play games on integrated graphics. Furthermore, because it has the “K” ending, the CPU is unlocked for overclock.

test bench

Before starting our tests in benchmarks synthetics and in games, the Intel Core i7-12700K was tested on a bench with ASUS Prime Z690 Wi-Fi motherboard, water cooler Cooler MasterLiquid ML240L, 32 GB of RAM memory (2×16) at 4800 Mhz, 1 TB Imation, 600W Corsair power supply and a NVIDIA RTX 3060 from EVGA.

Synthetic Benchmarks

Fire Strike Extreme

O 3DMARK is one of the main tools for carrying out synthetic tests and touching the ability of the i7-12700K. The first test was with the Fire Strike Extreme, designed for testing powerful GPUs and CPUs with benchmarking heavy tessellation, volumetric lighting, smoke simulations, dynamic particle lighting, physics for the CPU and post-processing; totaling 9856 points.

CPU Profile

Our second test is with the CPU Profile to benchmarking which performs various tests using the different numbers of cores and threads of the processor. In total, 6 tests are performed with all the threads, 16 threads, 8 threads, 4 and 2 threads and finally only 1 thread, using the same metric for all; culminating in different scores for each test, as noted below:

Cinebench

Tests of CINEBENCH serve to put the processor and graphics card under maximum load in the rendering of complex scenes and scenarios. The tests put the 6 processor cores and later only one main core to render a realistic scene with anti-aliasing, reflections, lighting, shadows and various other effects that make up about 2000 objects.

Blender

Finally, the Blender is an open source tool used for modeling, animation, texturing, compositing and video rendering. In this test we used the BMW demo to render.

Tests in games

Before we begin, we need to point out a few points. As the analysis of this text is to observe the behavior of the processor, the main idea is to make the video card as comfortable as possible to make high numbers of frames. That way, the CPU will do more work, especially when at lower resolutions. So, in many cases, we use medium or low quality, as the goal is to see how much the processor can handle.

In the world of PCs we say that the important thing is to always leave the video card at 99% of its usage capacity, because the component will be delivering all its performance. In processors it is the opposite: the lower your % of usage, the better the performance. So if our card is being fully utilized, the bottleneck of the system turns into the CPU, and we get to know how far that part can go.

Call of Duty: War zone

Starting our battery of tests with Warzone, the Activision title runs well around 100 frames when in maximum quality in Full HD resolution. You frames swing up to 140 frames indoors. The i7-12700K is only at 24% usage, effortlessly, while the RTX 3060 does its best at that resolution. Enabling DLSS in Quality mode we gain greater stability in the system, and raising the rate to around 130 frames average.

Already in Quad HD the estimates are good. With DLSS in Performance mode, the processor handles between 96 to 100 frames without any problems. By decreasing some options it is possible to play competitively in a dynamic way.

Forza Horizon 5

Forza Horizon 5 is one of the most beautiful games available for the PC, and running in Full HD with everything maxed out, including Ray Tracing on High, the i7-12700K does its homework running between 90 to 100 frames, and reaching a maximum of 22% load.

At 1440p the scenario is still very interesting, with gameplay from 65 to 72 frames without big oscillations and a processor left in the system.

Fortnite

One of today's biggest phenomena was also no match for the i7-12700K. The processor took Fortnite at a good 100 frames, using less than 20% of its full capacity with everything in Epic quality. When turning on the DLSS in Balanced mode, we can observe a nice rise to an average of 140 frames no problems. Definitely a good setup for the for players.

In Quad HD the Epic game runs at the same 100 frames as before, but using Balanced for the DLSS feature. Still, it's a pretty impressive number.

God of War

Finally, we come to God of War. The recent PlayStation release is well optimized on PCs, and the God of War clashed with our processor, which took on Sparta's fury at ultra close to 60 with DLSS or FidelityFX Super Resolution in Performance mode. Without the feature there are eventual drops to 50 frames.

Unfortunately, we were not able to perform the gameplay in Quad HD, as the game did not allow us to use the Upscaling image on my monitor.

Worth it?

After writing more than two thousand words about Intel's innovations and how far the Intel Core i7-12700K is able to go in practice, that infamous question arises: worth it? As always, starting with the price, this processor can be found at around R$ 3.000 in stores like Kabum, while the KF version, which does not have an integrated card, costs BRL 2.789 at Pichau. There are also purchase options at Americanas, for BRL 3.899, Amazon for R $ 3.499 ou Magazine Luiza, starting at R$3.767.

Worth it, in this particular case, is an even more subjective question. If you're looking to buy a beefy processor for any task, whether it's games or applications like modeling and rendering, then you're thinking about messing with overclock, then the i7-12700K might be a good choice for you. However, if you still want a great processor, but don't think about overclock, maybe it's good to wait for the launch of the i7-12700, without the K, which should reach the Brazilian market at a more attractive price soon.

In competition we have the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, which costs about 500 to 600 reais less than the newcomer from Intel, but which is stuck with older technologies, such as DDR4 only. And that's the problem, the DDR5 RAM. It is being practically impossible to buy DDR5 modules for now, and when found, they easily cost more than R$ 1.300. The total investment is very high.

That said, my final verdict is that yes, Intel returnu triumphantly with Alder Lake processors, and the i7-12700K is proof of that. As great as it is, I would still wait for a good promotion to invest in this component, and I would try to acquire a motherboard with DDR4 memory support for now.

Technical sheet

Brand	Intel
Córdoba	i7-12700K
Number of CPU cores	12 (8 + 4)
Number of threads	20
Lithography	Intel 7
base clock	3.6 GHz
clock (boost)	up to 5.0Ghz
TDP	125W
unlocked?	Yes
Socket	LGA 1700
L2 cache	12 MB
Cooler Box	No
integrated graphic	Intel UHD 770
graphic frequency	300 MHz
memory compatibility	DDR4 / DDR5
Price	R$2.999

See also other features

So, what did you think of our i7-12700K review? Enjoy and also discover our review of the Ryzen 7 5700G, a processor with high-performance integrated graphics.