Generally, reports about new or interesting processors that have turned up on UserBenchmark are restricted to chip specifications, individual benchmark runs, or comparisons with CPUs that come from the same company. The website has been tainted with the accusation of having too much bias toward Intel, and it doesn’t help itself much when it either outright condemns AMD’s business practices or apparently (and conveniently) elevates Team Blue’s chips in its average bench chart.
A few days ago, we reported about some Alder Lake-HX parts that had been tested on the site, with the undeniably impressive Intel Core i7-12650HX surprisingly being the best performer considering it was up against the i9-12900HX and i9-12950HX. While both the i7-12650HX and i9-12950HX were able to lift themselves above any and all AMD contenders, the Intel Core i9-12900HX had to be satisfied with being stuck behind the Ryzen 9 5900X, Ryzen 9 5950X, and Ryzen 7 5800X3D. At that time, the Alder Lake chip’s result was based on two samples.
However, a new check in UserBenchmark’s average bench chart shows that the i9-12900HX has moved to a much better place, now located in 12th position on an average bench score of 106%. Not only does this put the Intel processor higher than its fellow Alder Lake-HX parts, but it also conveniently situates the i9-12900HX in a place that is above the aforementioned trio from AMD. This miraculous leap seems to have been accomplished by removing the underperforming benchmark run, leaving the average bench based on a single sample.
It's murky business at the very least; it could be argued that an outlier has been removed or that the chip sample in question was throttled or stuck with inhibiting drivers. But multiple tests of the same chip would soon straighten out the outliers and leave the Intel Core i9-12900HX with an honest(ish) average bench. Anyone can see that the Alder Lake-HX processors are actually high-specification, high-performant, power-hungry parts that should deliver the goods without any need for artificial or convenient benchmark promotion.