Intel Core i9-12900HK vs Intel Core i7-12850HX vs Intel Core i9-12900HX

Intel Core i9-12900HK

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The Intel Core i9-12900HK is a high-end mobile CPU for laptops based on the Alder Lake architecture. It was announced in early 2022 and offers 6 performance cores (P-cores, Golden Cove architecture) and 8 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The P-cores support Hyper-Threading leading to 20 supported threads when combined with the E-cores. The clock rate ranges from 2.5 to 5 GHz on the performance cluster and 1.8 to 3.8 GHz on the efficiency cluster. The performance of the E-cores should be similar to old Skylake cores (compare with the Core i7-6920HQ). All cores can use up to 24 MB L3 cache. As a K-variant, the CPU offers an open multiplicator and therefore the possibility to overclock the CPU cores. Compared to the similar i9-12900H, the 12900HK only offers the "Essentials" features of vPro.

Performance

The average 12900HK in our database is in the same as the Core i9-13900H, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. It's also almost as fast as the Ryzen 7 7745HX and the Core i5-13500HX. This is a super-fast processor, as of mid 2023; it will have no issues running any app or any game for at least two more years.

Thanks to its decent cooling solution and a long-term CPU power limit of 134 W, the Alienware x17 R2 P48E is among the fastest laptops built around the 12900HK that we know of. It can be more than 40% faster in CPU-bound workloads than the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database, as of August 2023.

Features

The integrated memory controller supports various memory types up to DDR5-4800, DDR4-3200, LPDDR5-5200, and LPDDR4x-4267. The Thread Director (in hardware) can support the operating system to decide which thread to use on the performance or efficient cores for the best performance. For AI tasks, the CPU also integrates GNA 3.0 and DL Boost (via AVX2). Quick Sync in version 8 is the same as in the Rocket Lake CPUs and supports MPEG-2, AVC, VC-1 decode, JPEG, VP8 decode, VP9, HEVC, and AV1 decode in hardware. The CPU only supports PCIe 4.0 (x8 for a GPU and two x4 for SSDs).

The integrated graphics card is based on the Xe-architecture and offers 96 EUs (Execution Units) operating at up to 1.45 GHz.

Power consumption

This Core i9 series chip has a "minimum assured" power consumption of 35 W, with 45 W being its Base power consumption. The maximum Intel-recommended Turbo power consumption sits at 115 W.

The i9-12900HK is manufactured on Intel's 4th generation 10 nm process marketed as Intel 7 for lower-than-average, as of mid-2023, energy efficiency.

Intel Core i7-12850HX

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The Intel Core i7-12850HX is a high-end mobile CPU for laptops based on the Alder Lake architecture. It was announced in mid 2022 and offers 8 performance cores (P-cores, Golden Cove architecture) and 8 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The P-cores support Hyper-Threading leading to 24 supported threads when combined with the E-cores. The clock rate ranges from 2.1 to 4.8 GHz on the performance cluster and 1.5 to 3.4 GHz on the efficiency cluster. The performance of the E-cores should be similar to old Skylake cores (compare with the Core i7-6920HQ). All cores can use up to 25 MB L3 cache. The i7-12850HX is a successor to the mobile Xeon CPUs and offers vPro management features and ECC memory support. CPU overclocking however is limited compared to the consumer i7-12800HX.

Features

The integrated memory controller supports various memory types up to DDR5-4800 and DDR4-3200. The Thread Director (in hardware) can support the operating system to decide which thread to use on the performance or efficient cores for the best performance. For AI tasks, the CPU also integrates GNA 3.0 and DL Boost (via AVX2). Quick Sync in version 8 is the same as in the Rocket Lake CPUs and supports MPEG-2, AVC, VC-1 decode, JPEG, VP8 decode, VP9, HEVC, and AV1 decode in hardware. The CPU supports 48 PCIe lanes consisting of 16 Gen5 (x16 or 2x8), 20 Gen4 and 12 Gen3.

The integrated graphics adapter is based on the Xe-architecture and offers 32 EUs (Execution Units) operating at up to 1.45 GHz.

Performance

The average 12850HX in our database is in the same league as the Ryzen 7 7840HS, Ryzen 9 7940HS, Core i7-12700H, Core i9-12900H, as far as multi-thread benchmark scores are concerned. This is a very fast chip, as of early 2023.

Your mileage may vary depending on how competent the cooling solution of your laptop is, and how high the CPU power limits are.

Power consumption

The chip's "minimum assured" power consumption sits at 45 W. Its Turbo power consumption is not supposed to go over 157 W; its Base power consumption is supposed to be around 55 W. Most laptop makers will probably go for a value higher than 55 W to get better performance.

The i7-12850HX is built with Intel's 4th generation 10 nm process marketed as Intel 7 for average, as of early 2023, energy efficiency.

Intel Core i9-12900HX

► remove from comparison

The Intel Core i9-12900HX is a high-end mobile CPU for laptops based on the Alder Lake architecture. It was announced in mid 2022 and offers 8 performance cores (P-cores, Golden Cove architecture) and 8 efficient cores (E-cores, Gracemont architecture). The P-cores support Hyper-Threading leading to 24 supported threads when combined with the E-cores. The clock rate ranges from 2.3 to 5 GHz on the performance cluster and 1.7 to 3.6 GHz on the efficiency cluster. The performance of the E-cores should be similar to old Skylake cores (compare with the Core i7-6920HQ). All cores can use up to 30 MB L3 cache. As a HX-variant, the CPU offers an open multiplicator and therefore the possibility to overclock the CPU cores. Compared to the similar i9-12950HX, the 12900HX does not offer vPro or ECC memory support.

Features

The integrated memory controller supports various memory types up to DDR5-4800 and DDR4-3200. The Thread Director (in hardware) can support the operating system to decide which thread to use on the performance or efficient cores for the best performance. For AI tasks, the CPU also integrates GNA 3.0 and DL Boost (via AVX2). Quick Sync in version 8 is the same as in the Rocket Lake CPUs and supports MPEG-2, AVC, VC-1 decode, JPEG, VP8 decode, VP9, HEVC, and AV1 decode in hardware. The CPU supports 48 PCIe lanes consisting of 16 Gen5 (x16 or 2x8), 20 Gen4 and 12 Gen3.

The integrated graphics adapter is based on the Xe architecture and offers 32 EUs (Execution Units) operating at up to 1.55 GHz.

Performance

The average 12900HX in our database is, perhaps a little disappointingly, in the same league as the i7-12800HX and the i7-13700HX while outshining the Ryzen 7 7745HX by a significant margin.

The Legion 7 16IAX7 is among the fastest laptops built around the 12900HX that we know of. It is able to sustain CPU power consumption of around 90 W for long periods of time for up to 20% better multi-thread performance than the slowest system featuring the same chip in our database (as of August 2023).

Power consumption

The chip's "minimum assured" power consumption sits at 45 W. Its Turbo power consumption is not supposed to go over 157 W and its Base power consumption is supposed to be around 55 W. Most laptop makers will go for a value higher than 55 W to get better performance.

This Core i9 series processor is built with Intel's 4th generation 10 nm manufacturing process marketed as Intel 7 for average, as of early 2023, energy efficiency.

Model	Intel Core i9-12900HK	Intel Core i7-12850HX	Intel Core i9-12900HX
Codename	Alder Lake-H	Alder Lake-HX	Alder Lake-HX
Series	Intel Alder Lake-P	Intel Alder Lake-S	Intel Alder Lake-S
Series: Alder Lake-S Alder Lake-HX	Intel Core i9-12900HK « 1.8 - 5 GHz 14 / 20  24 MB L3 Intel Core i9-12900H 1.8 - 5 GHz 14 / 20  24 MB L3 Intel Core i7-12800H 1.8 - 4.8 GHz 14 / 20  24 MB L3 Intel Core i7-12650H 1.7 - 4.7 GHz 10 / 16  24 MB L3 Intel Core i5-12600H 2 - 4.5 GHz 12 / 16  18 MB L3 Intel Core i5-12500H 1.8 - 4.5 GHz 12 / 16  18 MB L3 Intel Core i5-12450H 1.5 - 4.4 GHz 8 / 12  12 MB L3	Intel Core i9-12950HX 1.7 - 5 GHz 16 / 24  30 MB L3 Intel Core i9-12900HX 1.7 - 5 GHz 16 / 24  30 MB L3 Intel Core i7-12850HX « 1.5 - 4.8 GHz 16 / 24  25 MB L3 Intel Core i7-12800HX 1.5 - 4.8 GHz 16 / 24  25 MB L3 Intel Core i7-12650HX 1.5 - 4.7 GHz 14 / 20  24 MB L3 Intel Core i5-12600HX 1.8 - 4.6 GHz 12 / 16  18 MB L3 Intel Core i5-12450HX 1.8 - 4.4 GHz 8 / 12  12 MB L3	Intel Core i9-12950HX 1.7 - 5 GHz 16 / 24  30 MB L3 Intel Core i9-12900HX « 1.7 - 5 GHz 16 / 24  30 MB L3 Intel Core i7-12850HX 1.5 - 4.8 GHz 16 / 24  25 MB L3 Intel Core i7-12800HX 1.5 - 4.8 GHz 16 / 24  25 MB L3 Intel Core i7-12650HX 1.5 - 4.7 GHz 14 / 20  24 MB L3 Intel Core i5-12600HX 1.8 - 4.6 GHz 12 / 16  18 MB L3 Intel Core i5-12450HX 1.8 - 4.4 GHz 8 / 12  12 MB L3
Clock	1800 - 5000 MHz	1500 - 4800 MHz	1700 - 5000 MHz
L1 Cache	1.2 MB	1.4 MB	1.4 MB
L2 Cache	11.5 MB	14 MB	14 MB
L3 Cache	24 MB	25 MB	30 MB
Cores / Threads	14 / 20	16 / 24	16 / 24
TDP	45 Watt	55 Watt	55 Watt
Technology	10 nm	10 nm	10 nm
max. Temp.	100 °C	100 °C	100 °C
Socket	BGA1744	BGA1964	BGA1964
Features	DDR4-3200/LPDDR4x-4266/DDR5-4800/LPDDR5-5200 RAM, PCIe 4, Thr. Director, DL Boost, GNA, vPro Ess., MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AES, AVX, AVX2, FMA3, SHA	DDR4-3200/DDR5-4800 RAM, PCIe 5, Thr. Director, DL Boost, GNA, vPro Enterp., MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX, AVX2, BMI2, ABM, FMA, ADX, SMEP, SMAP, EIST, TM1, TM2, HT, Turbo, SST, AES-NI, RDRAND, RDSEED, SHA	DDR4-3200/DDR5-4800 RAM, PCIe 5, Thr. Dir., DL Boost, GNA, MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX, AVX2, BMI2, ABM, FMA, ADX, SMEP, SMAP, EIST, TM1, TM2, HT, Turbo, SST, AES-NI, RDRAND, RDSEED, SHA
iGPU	Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 96EUs ( - 1450 MHz)	Intel UHD Graphics 770 ( - 1450 MHz)	Intel UHD Graphics 770 ( - 1550 MHz)
Architecture	x86	x86	x86
Announced
Manufacturer	ark.intel.com	ark.intel.com	ark.intel.com

Benchmarks