Exotic Chinese Firecracker – Intel Core i5-12490F Review with Gaming and Non-K Overclocking

1 - Overview and Specifications 2 - Non-K OC on Asus Maximus Z690 Apex 3 - Gaming-Performance and Efficiency vs. 12900KS 4 - Summary and Conclusion

There have been several Black Editions or Extreme Editions at Intel in the past, but Grey Editions? This marks the strict exclusivity for the Chinese market, at least in the case of the i5-12490F CPU. The grey sheep in Intel’s Alder Lake product family is thus a real rarity in the western market, and that alone is reason enough for me to do today’s review. Besides gaming performance and efficiency, there is also a small excursion to non-K overclocking with Intel Alder Lake CPUs. So you can be curious!

Overview and specifications

But what is the exotic Intel CPU in the grey box all about? Basically, the i5-12490F is just an i5-12400F with 200 MHz more boost clock, 2 MB more L3 cache and thus 4.6 GHz and 20 MB. According to the “F” suffix, there is also no integrated graphics unit. However, an official spec sheet or an entry on Intel Ark cannot be found for the China-exclusive CPU. Interestingly, the next i5 up in the product stack, the 12500, has the same clock with 4.6 GHz in Boost, but again 2 MB less cache. Only from the 12600K, with a free multiplier, onward the western market also gets 20 MB cache. Thus, the 12490F is a particularly interesting oddity whose extra cache should help especially in gaming.

From the outside, the little outsider looks rather unsuspicious. Only the missing Intel blue and the Mandarin characters on the box reveal that this is no ordinary CPU. In the lower right corner, however, we find the SKU number i5-12490F and the socket LGA1700, as with other Intel CPUs.

The CPU can already be seen in its transparent carrier frame through a cutout in the cardboard on the back. The weight of the box already reveals that there is no boxed cooler included here, but only the CPU and the usual paperwork including stickers.

12490F_CPU Top

12490F_CPU Back

The CPU itself is also rather unimpressive with the usual externals for an LGA1700 occupant. From the batch number you can see that the CPU was also packaged in China, in the 49th week of 2021. Accordingly, the Intel “Swirl” is still the old one and the QR code under the batch number is also not yet present, as is the case with 2022 CPUs. The IHS and the SMD components around it are also standard for Alder Lake.

From the underside, it can already be seen that our i5-12490F is a model with the C0 stepping and thus virtually a trimmed, large 8+8 die. This might be one reason why the SKU exists in the first place, as a way to reuse partially defective i7 and i9 chips without e-cores, but with 20 MB of functioning cache. For comparison, I have also photographed the i3-12100F with H0 stepping here, recognizable by the smaller number of SMD components, since the silicon chip on the front is also physically smaller.