Intel 12th Gen processors unveiled, takes inspiration from mobile SoCs

At the CES 2022, Intel has taken the wraps off its new 12th Gen processors for both mobile and desktop systems. And unlike the previous years where there were normal performance gains, Intel has tweaked the architecture to gain more performance while being power efficient. And note the headline grabbing fact – the Core i9H series processor statistically beats the Apple M1 Max chip.

The highlights of the 12th Gen Intel Core processors include:

-A single scalable SoC architecture built on the Intel 7 process.

-An all-new Core design

-Universal support for the latest DDR5 memory, PCIe Gen 5 storage, Thunderbolt 4, and Wi-Fi 6E support.

Intel 12th Gen Core mobile processors

This is where the single biggest change has been made when compared to the outgoing 11th Gen processors. It starts with a U-series chips for thin and light laptops, featuring 9W and 15W processors.

Then there's a P series for more performance in Thin and Light form factor with 28W power rating. The performance variant of the 12th Gen processor is H-series lineup with up to 45W power ratings.

Intel has adopted a new architecture for the 12th Gen mobile processors. There's a new P-core for the high performance tasks and an E-core for the power efficiency core. The architecture is similar to the Snapdragon and MediaTek mobile chipsets.

For example, the 12th Gen Core i9-12900HK processor has 14 cores with 20T threads, six P-cores, and 8 E-cores, 24MB L3 cache, Max frequency of 5GHz and 45W power base.

On the other hand, the 12th Gen Core i5-12600H has 8 cores with 12T threads, 4 P-cores, and 4 E-cores. It also gets 12MB cache memory and max frequency of up to 4.4GHz and power base of 45W.

Intel hasn't revealed all details of the U-series and P-series processors. However, Intel is proud to present the fact that its Core i9-12900HK processor outperforms the Apple M1 Max and AMD Ryzen 5900HX processors.

Intel says this top-tier Core i9 processor offers up to 28 percent faster gaming. Compared to the 11th Gen variant of the same, there have been substantial gains in performance in certain games such as League of Legends, Hitman 3, F1 2021 and others. Intel states an average gain of 8 percent in frame rates.