Intel Core i3-1220P vs Intel Core i5-8400

Intel Core i3-1220P

The Intel Core i3-1220P is a lower mid-range Alder Lake family SoC designed for use in ultra-light, ultra-thin laptops of the more affordable flavour. It was announced in early 2022 and it has 2 performance cores as opposed to the 6 cores of the top-of-the-line i7-1280P (P-cores, Golden Cove architecture) mated to 8 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The i3's P-cores are Hyper-Threading-enabled for a total of 12 threads when combined with its E-cores. The clock speeds range from 1.5 GHz to 4.4 GHz for the performance cluster and 1.1 GHz to 3.3 GHz for the efficient cluster. The shortcomings of this processor as compared with the faster Core i5-1240P are many, including the significantly slower iGPU, lower CPU core count, lower clock speeds, complete lack of the vPro features.

Architecture

The i3 is a continuation of Intel's efforts to use the ARM-developed big.LITTLE technology for its own benefit. A single "little" Alder Lake core is supposed to be as fast as a Skylake core (as found in the venerable Core i7-6700HQ among other options) which is six years old at this point. All of Core i3-1220P's CPU cores enjoy access to 12 MB of L3 cache. The integrated memory controller supports various memory types up to LPDDR5-5200, DDR5-4800, LPDDR4x-4267 or DDR4-3200; Intel suggests using no more than 64 GB of RAM, for reference. Just like the other 12th Gen Intel Core processors, this Core i3 comes with the Thread Director which is a new functionality designed to help Windows 11 decide which cores to use for what workload for best performance and efficiency possible. Hardware acceleration of AI algorithms is supported via GNA 3.0 and DL Boost (via AVX2). PCI-Express 5.0 support has not found its way into Alder Lake P processors, so users will have to be content with PCI-Express 4.0 for the time being. Four PCI-Express 4 lanes allow for a read/write rate of up to 7.9 GB/s, provided a suitably fast NVMe SSD is used.

Please note that this is not a user-replaceable CPU. It gets soldered permanently on to the motherboard (FCBGA1744 socket interface).

Performance

While we have not tested a single system built around the 1220P as of October 2023, we have tested a laptop featuring the i5-1240U, a chip with nearly the same specs (2 P-cores mated to 8 E-cores, all running at the same clock speeds as what the 1220P has). Based on that, we expect the 1220P to be just slightly ahead of the Core i5-11400H, the Core i7-1265U and also the Ryzen 5 5600U, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. Your mileage may vary depending on how high the CPU power limits are and how competent the cooling solution of your system is.

Graphics

The built-in graphics adapter in the form of the 64 EU UHD Graphics running at up to 1.1 GHz is a slightly downgraded 80 EU Iris Xe. The latter can be found in many Alder Lake-P and Tiger Lake-UP3 processors, like a Core i5-1250P or a Core i5-1145G7, respectively. Despite the lower EU cluster count, this is still a fairly capable iGPU, loaded with modern features such as the AV1 video decoding capability and SUHD 4320p monitor support. The UHD Graphics will happily drive up to 4 monitors simultaneously, provided the laptop has the outputs required. Its gaming performance is unlikely to please the crowds, though, as it will be good for resolutions no higher than 1600x900 and Low settings only in most titles trleased in 2021 and 2022. Your mileage may vary depending on how high the Power Limits are and how capable the cooling solution of a laptop is. Fast RAM is a prerequisite for decent performance as well (the UHD Graphics has to make do with no dedicated video memory).

Power consumption

The i3's base power consumption (also known as the default TDP or Power Limit 1) is 28 W; its "minimum assured" power consumption sits at 20 W. In the meantime, the maximum Turbo power consumption (also known as the PL2) is not supposed to exceed 64 W.

This 12th generation Intel chip is built with Intel's fourth-gen 10 nm process marketed as Intel 7 for decent, as of late 2022, energy efficiency. Expect the i3 to be significantly less power-hungry (and a lot easier to cool) than all other Alder Lake-P chips because of its lower core count.

Intel Core i5-8400

The Intel Core i5-8400 is a mid-range 6-core CPU. The processor belongs to the Coffee Lake generation and was presented in September 2017. It does not support Hyper-Threading, which means it can run six threads simultaneously. The base clock rate is 2.8 GHz and the CPU can speed up to 4.0 GHz under high load. Despite belonging to the new generation of CPUs, the Core i5-8400 is manufactured in an improved 14nm process.

Performance

The processor offers a strong performance increase compared to the Core i5-7400 due to its two additional cores. Single-core performance has not improved significantly compared to its Kaby Lake predecessor. As a mid-range model, the Core i5-8400 should be suitable for demanding games and programs.

Graphics

The integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 iGPU is supposed to offer higher performance as its clock rate has been increased by 50 MHz. The build is identical to that of the Intel HD Graphics 630. We do expect a performance improvement, but as a low-end solution it will probably only display current games smoothly at reduced details - if at all.

Power Consumption

Intel specifies the TDP with 65 watts. Therefore, well-dimensioned cooling systems should easily manage to deal with the created heat. We expect increased efficiency due to the higher performance.