Most of Alder Lake's game compatibility issues have been resolved by Intel and Microsoft, but Assassin's Creed: Valhalla still doesn't work properly

Thanks to IPC improvements and Intel finally moving on from the 14nm process node, Alder Lake parts like the i9-12900K and i7-12700K offered a major boost to gaming and all-around performance over Rocket Lake. However, Alder Lake's hybrid core design created issues with DRM software. This meant that over 50 games weren't compatible with 12th-gen Intel processors at launch. 

Thankfully, Microsoft and Intel have been working to address these issues over the past month. At present, only three games remain incompatible: Madden 22, Fernbus Simulator, and Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. The former two might not be of concern to many PC gamers. Valhalla, however, is a different story. As the second-most profitable title Ubisoft has ever produced, Valhalla has hundreds of thousands of players on PC, still waiting for a fix. 

It's important to note here that the DRM compatibility issues doesn't completely preclude Alder Lake owners from playing Valhalla. Disabling efficiency cores from the BIOS will allow the game to boot up, though performance won't be optimal. It will be interesting to see if compatibility issues persist in upcoming titles - this could have a tangible impact on Alder Lake's gaming chops and price-performance ratio. 

Check out the Alder Lake i9-12900K here on Amazon.