When it comes to CPUs, Intel and AMD dominate the market. While AMD has a decent market share, the overall population seems to go for Intel machines. The company is fully prepped to maintain this lead as Intel has finally revealed the launch date for the world’s first and fastest 5.5 GHz CPU, the Alder Lake Core 19-12900KS.
The Core i9-12900KS has been designed as a ‘Special Edition’ CPU, offering a step above the i9-12900K. This chip proves that Intel is still the leader when it comes to core speed, and there are two reasons the company has decided to launch this chip right now.
The first, and most obvious reason, is the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D which is looking to show the benefits of 3D V-Caches in gaming versus frequency. The second reason is the 5 GHz+ Ryzen 7000 ‘Zen 4’ lineup coming later this year.
Intel is looking at not only offering the best chip to enthusiasts but also to show how they are already set to achieve 5.5 GHz frequencies on a 16-core part versus the Zen 4 and how frequency is still a significant aspect to consider for gaming.
Both the 3D V-Cache and the higher frequency come at a cost. One chip is non-overclockable and has reduced clocks while featuring a high price. The other is an enthusiast-priced chip for the LGA mainstream platform that runs hot and requires a lot of power. Intel is planning on building 4 PCs to show the benefits of the 12th Gen Alder Lake CPUs, along with the Core i9-12900KS, during the ‘Intel Talking Tech’ stream on Twitch.
The Core i9-12900KS will retail for $150 USD higher MSRP than the i9-12900K and feature a 19W higher maximum turbo power limit than the standard. It will come with a much higher all and single-core boost clock of up to 5.5 GHz but will also need lots of cooling to keep it under spec. Overclockers will be looking at this one for the heavily binned nature to break some world records and end up as the fastest clock CPU. However, the 12900K will remain the better option for price and performance.
The Intel Core i9-12900KS will be the flagship chip in the 12th Gen Alder lake Desktop CPU lineup. It will feature 8 Golden Cove cores and 8 Gracemont cores for a total of 16 cores (8+8) and 24 threads (16+4).
The P-cores (Golden Cove) will function at a maximum boost frequency of up to 5.5 GHz with 1-2 active cores and 5.2 GHz with all-cores active, while the E-cores (Gracemont) will function at 3.90 GHz across 1-4 cores and up to 3.7 GHz when all cores are loaded. The CPU will feature 30 MB of L3 cache.
The most notable change is that to accommodate the higher frequency, Intel has increased the base TDP by 25W over the Core i9-12900K. The 12900KS will feature a base TDP of 150W, and the max turbo power rating has also been bumped by 19W to 260W (vs. 241W). Intel still has to launch the chip officially, but that could happen in the next couple of days & motherboard manufacturers are also releasing their respective support BIOS with updated microcode for the chip.
About Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, in Silicon Valley. It is the world’s largest semiconductor chip manufacturer on the basis of revenue, and is the developer of the x86 series of microprocessors – the processors found in most personal computers (PCs).
Incorporated in Delaware, Intel ranked No. 46 in the 2018 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.
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