Intel’s incoming Core i9-12900KS, the supercharged version of the current Alder Lake flagship, has been spotted in a leaked benchmark.
This was flagged up by hardware leaker HXL on Twitter (via VideoCardz), with the benchmark purportedly coming from someone with an engineering sample (most likely) of the 12900KS processor, who had listed the CPU for sale on the Taobao marketplace in China.
12900KS OCSource: https://t.co/6FBOdGyVCp pic.twitter.com/o7dNseQ9ShJanuary 30, 2022
The seller posted the Cinebench R23 result with the for sale listing, and obviously we have to be careful about whether this is genuine – particularly as VideoCardz points out that a second screenshot provided with this leak was proven to be a fake.
However, given the benefit of the doubt, the Core i9-12900KS managed to record a score of 29,519 in multi-core, showing an all-core boost of 5.4GHz, higher than the rated all-core boost clock of 5.2GHz (so this is an overclocked chip here, which is of course the whole point of Intel’s ‘K’ models – they are unlocked for ramping up the clock speeds).
Remember, this is a sample chip, too, so we may see slightly better performance with the release model (but huge heaps of salt around all of this).
Analysis: Taking on AMD’s 3D V-cache revamp
That Cinebench result beats out the likes of the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, although Intel’s chip in theory has been pushed out to attack Team Red’s new 3D V-cache model, not the existing Ryzen flagship. That said, we were expecting possibly multiple models of the 3D-toting CPUs from AMD, but the firm announced just one, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D (and even that is rumored to be ripe for stock shortages when it debuts).
AMD notably asserted that the 5800X3D will be able to outperform the 12900K, a big claim indeed, when it arrives in the spring – but Intel’s Core i9-12900KS is promised for the end of Q1, so will likely arrive before the Ryzen chip, getting in ahead to doubtless attempt to steal the thunder of Team Red’s new 3D model.
The 12900KS is essentially a pre-binned version of the 12900K, meaning Intel cherry picks the chips capable of being pushed to higher clocks, allowing it a faster maximum boost of 5.5GHz (and all-core boost of 5.2GHz as mentioned). It won’t be cheap, naturally, although the sample CPU being sold in China is pitched at a ridiculous level as you might imagine (29,999 Chinese Yuan which is around $4,700, £3,500 or AU$6,700).
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