Lab – Intel Core i9-12900H: an ultra-fast but greedy mobile processor

Since the arrival of Ryzen from AMD, Intel has suffered stiff competition that goes so far as to call into question its superiority. If the 11th generation of processors says Tiger Lake has managed to catch up, Intel is working hard to recover its leadership and not let go. For this, the founder offers the 12th generation of so-called Alder Lake processors, which marks a break with a hybrid architecture combining high-performance cores and economical cores.

In order to evaluate the performance of the Alder Lake architecture on laptops, we purchased a gaming laptop: the Asus ROG Strix 17. This is the Taiwanese manufacturer’s spearhead chassis, embedding the latest innovations in the brand in order to make the most of the Intel Core i9-12900H processor it houses. We will also have the opportunity to offer you a complete test of this laptop in the coming days.

The Intel Core i9-12900H is the beefiest version of the H-series of Alder Lake processors — excluding the Core i9-12900HK, which offers the same specs but has an advanced overclocking feature. The 12900H features 6 high-performance cores (P-Cores), hyperthreaded and clocked at 2.5 GHz with a boost at 5 GHz. Added to this are 8 low-power cores (E-Cores) at 1.8 GHz with a boost at 3.8 GHz. So we end up with a processor with 14 physical cores and 20 logical cores (thread). The thermal envelope is 45 W with the possibility of occasionally reaching 115 W.

Mine is the crown!

Let’s not beat around the bush: Intel is back in the performance arena and it’s not going with the back of the spoon. Thus, on our performance index, the latter reaches 176, while the competition is relegated to around 140, whether it is Apple’s M1 Max or the Ryzen 9 5900HX. Comparing only to the previous generation, performance jumps by 25%. An interesting increase which joins what we had been able to observe on the 12th generation Core “desktop” processors.

In the overwhelming majority of our application tests, the Intel Core i9-12900H proves to be the quickest in performing its tasks. It must be said that with its 20 logical cores, highly hyperthreaded applications such as video encoding allow it to fully express itself.

On the benchmark side, the Golden Cove architecture of the P-Cores of the Core i9-12900H works wonders with a score on a logical core of 1883 points; a jump of 17% against the Willow Cove cores of the Core i9-11980HK. Obviously, with 20 logical cores, the score on all processor cores soars above 17,000 points. The 16 logical cores of the 11th Gen Ryzen 9 and Core i9 can no longer compete, nor can Apple’s M1 Max – although, with “only” 10 cores, this one has nothing to be ashamed of. In GeekBench, the differences are less substantial. It must be said that the benchmark is closer to common use than CineBench. However, the scores are largely in favor of the Core i9-12900H, with 14% more on one core and almost 54% more on all cores compared to the best processor of the previous generation!

Intel doesn’t care much about power consumption

Intrigued by the level of noise pollution of the Strix Scar 17, despite the arsenal deployed by Asus to cool the Core i9-12900H, we took a look at the power consumption of the Intel chip. The Core i9-11980HK on a single core rose to around 38W, then stabilized at 24W. 26 W. On a single core, the behavior is therefore relatively similar, except for this peak consumption authorized at the start of processing.

During encoding – a task requiring all the cores of the processor – consumption literally soars for the Core i9-12900H, which posts regular peaks at 120 W for an average consumption of 85 W. In comparison, the Core i9- 11980HK passes for an economical processor, with 91 W reached at the start of processing and a stabilization around 51 W.

Consequence: the processor very regularly reduces its frequency (throtling) in order to maintain a temperature below 81°C. The frequency thus yoyos between 4.9 GHz and 399 MHz for the P-Cores, resulting in an average of 3.6 GHz. The E-Cores oscillate for their part between 3.79 GHz and 399 MHz, for an average frequency of 2.79 GHz.

The jump in performance of the Alder Lakes cannot therefore be explained solely by the improvements in the architecture or by the increase in the number of cores. It also and largely comes from the energy envelope authorized by Intel so that the processor can express itself. Intel has clearly made a technical choice for this generation: to favor performance at the expense of consumption. A choice not without consequences on a laptop PC: the high consumption also leads to a significant heat release, which has a direct impact on the means to be used to properly cool rather thin machines (number of fans, LiquidMetal type thermal paste, etc. .). It remains to be seen what these chips will do against AMD’s Ryzen 6000. A generation of mobile processors which should offer better performance than those of the Ryzen 5000, but the bulk of the work, operated by AMD, relates precisely to power consumption. A duel that promises to be interesting to follow. In the meantime, we will offer you in the coming days a complete test of the Asus Strix Scar 17 laptop PC, the opportunity to see if the bulimia of the Core i9-12900H has an impact on the noise pollution and the autonomy of the machine.