The Core i5 is the CPU that most gamers care about. Although it is less expensive than a Core i7 or Core i9, it retains the fundamental features that make those chips ideal for gaming. That holds true for the first Core i5 of the Alder Lake generation, the Core i5 12600K, though this may overstate its capabilities.
This is because the Core i5 12600K is something completely different and even more impressive: the equivalent of the best chip from the previous generation in a package that costs nearly half as much.
Yes, Intel was able to combine the performance of its Core i9 processor with that of its Core i5 processor in less than a year and a generation. The Core i5 12600K is shockingly good. Because it doesn’t go as far as Alder Lake can go with a single die, it uses less power than the Core i9 12900K (opens in new tab), making it a more complete processor for mid- to high-end builds.
It becomes clear that the Core i5 12600K is the real star of the 12th Gen show as you delve deeper into its performance. or at the very least until the remaining Alder Lake desktop chips appear early next year.
However, neither the Core i5 12400 nor any other lower-priced Alder Lake chip can guarantee what the future holds for us. Today, the best gaming CPU for your money is the Core i5 12600K.
Six Performance Cores (P-Cores) and four Efficient Cores (E-Cores) make up the Intel Core i5 12600K CPU’s 6+4 design. The Alder Lake architecture’s new hybrid approach is the reason for this complementary design. You can learn more about it in our Intel Core i9 12900K review (opens in new tab), but I’ll also go over the fundamentals here.
The majority of 12th Gen processors are essentially powered by two distinct Core architectures: Gracemont and Golden Cove
The Golden Cove architecture aims to be similar to the typical CPU core that gamers are familiar with. It is designed to deliver high clock speeds and excel at single-threaded performance. The P-Cores are these.
Alder Lake takes inspiration for its Gracemont architecture from Intel’s Atom series of low-power chips. You can fit more of these on a chip without taking up too much space because they are designed to be efficient. The E-Cores are these.
That greatly exaggerates the complexity of both architectures, but it helps to explain the somewhat obscure specifications of the Core i5 12600K. As previously stated, this chip has six P-Cores and four E-Cores, which is actually a slight increase in overall core count when compared to the Core i5 11600K(opens in new tab). Additionally, it has technically more physical cores than a Core i9 11900K(opens in new tab), making it an 11th Gen Core i9 rival when we get to the benchmarks.
Let’s go over the remaining specifications of the Core i5 12600K first before getting into those juicy specifics.
The new UHD Graphics 770 integrated graphics onboard and 20MB of Intel Smart Cache (L3) are shared by the P-Core and E-Core.
At its default frequencies, the Core i5 12600K’s P-Cores are just below 5GHz, so you’ll need to tweak it yourself to reach that limit. With Intel’s promise of overclocking headroom (opens in new tab), that shouldn’t be a problem. Its E-Cores will also accelerate to 3.6 GHz. However, at 3.7GHz, this model’s P-Core base clock is actually higher than that of the Core i9 12900K.
The Core i5 12600K’s Processor Base Power (PBP) is the same as that of the previous Alder Lake desktop CPU lineup. PBP refers to what used to roughly be the TDP of Intel’s processors, and a new Turbo Boost Power (TBP) mark the maximum draw of these chips during certain workloads. If you are wondering why it is PBP rather than TDP, the reason is that Intel has eliminated TDP entirely for the 12th Generation. This TBP is 150W for the Core i5 12600K. On Intel’s own website, the Core i5 12600K is recommended to cost between $289 and $299, but that is typically not the price you will see on the shelves without a discount. Instead, the Core i5 12600K is available for $319.99 on Newegg, which is more likely to remain the processor’s purchase price for some time.
The fact that Intel recommends using Windows 11 with these processors to get the most out of them is something that is unrelated to the specifications of this chip but is definitely something that deserves to be mentioned. That is due to Intel’s Thread Director, which enables the operating system to schedule posts with greater insight into the current situation. However, it does mean that you will probably use an operating system that we are currently hesitant to recommend with this chip (opens in new tab).
Additionally, you will require a brand-new motherboard to plug the Core i5 12600K into because it is a brand-new 12th Gen chip with a brand-new 12th Gen socket (LGA 1700). That means a Z690 motherboard today, which may necessitate spending more money than you would otherwise for a build that is more budget-friendly or in the middle of the range. However, we anticipate cheaper chipsets next year, so I believe the market will come to you if you are willing to wait.
In the meantime, rather than purchasing the most recent and greatest DDR5 RAM and a DDR5-compatible board, you could save money by purchasing a motherboard that is compatible with DDR4 and saving money on your memory kit. But it happens quickly.
