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Leaked documents confirm that Alder Lake Core i5-12400F and Core i3-12100F won't have Gracemont efficiency cores

Leaked marketing documents confirm that the Alder Lake Core i3-12100F and Core i5-12400F will ship sans any Gracemont efficiency cores, packing only Golden Cove (Image source: Intel)
Leaked marketing documents confirm that the Alder Lake Core i3-12100F and Core i5-12400F will ship sans any Gracemont efficiency cores, packing only Golden Cove (Image source: Intel)
Leaked documents received and verified by Videocardz confirm that the Alder Lake Core i5-12400F and Core i3-12100F will be the first 12th-gen Intel CPUs to ship without any Gracemont efficiency cores.

Leaked marketing documentation accessed by Videocardz confirms long-held rumours that entry-level Alder Lake CPUs like the Core i5-12400F and Core i3-12100F will ship without Gracemont cores, relying entirely on their Golden Cove high efficiency cores.

The packaging depicted in the Alder Lake marketing material also confirmed two further points: these entry-level 12th-gen parts will indeed feature a 65W TDP, and Intel will be shipping them with the new Laminar RM1 stock cooler. 

Previous leaks indicated that Alder Lake parts from the i5-12400F on down would not incorporate Gracemont cores. This could have a tangible impact on both gaming and multithreaded performance, as well as power efficiency.

The Gracemont cores in higher-end Alder Lake CPUs like the i7-12700K have an IPC roughly on par with Skylake - this means that they do, indeed, play a tangible role in terms of multithreaded performance. Gracemont's significantly lower power draw also allows these Alder Lake CPUs to use less power when handling less intensive workloads.

Sans the Gracemont cores, the i5-12400F is a standard six-core chip, while the i3-12100F is a four core/eight-thread budget offering. This doesn't necessarily make these a bad option for budget builders, though. Leaked benchmarks indicate that the Core i5-12400F comprehensively bests AMD's Ryzen 5 5600X, and even beats the Rocket Lake Core i7-11700K in gaming tests. 

Check out the Alder Lake Core i5-12600K here on Amazon.

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2021 12 > Leaked documents confirm that Alder Lake Core i5-12400F and Core i3-12100F won't have Gracemont efficiency cores
Arjun Krishna Lal, 2021-12-14 (Update: 2021-12-14)