Core i9-12900KF, Core i7-12700K and Core i5-12600 in a workstation test with amazing results and an old weakness | Part 2

1 - Introduction and test systems 2 - Autodesk AutoCAD 2021 3 - Autodesk Inventor 2021 Pro 4 - Solidworks 2021 5 - Different CAD Benchmarks - SPECvieperf 2020 6 - Rendering, financial, programming 7 - Science and math (1) 8 - Science and math (2) 9 - Power consumption and efficiency 10 - Summary and conclusion

Summary

Apart from various small dropouts of the thread director in a few niche applications, the new Alder Lake processors also cut a good to very good figure in the productive area across programs. For rendering I would still go for AMD, despite the pointlessly high PL1 values, if the CPU has to do the work. But nowadays, GPUs are used for most of these things, so the render scenario in practice almost becomes a benchmark event, because the reality is different.

If you take just the first three full programs tested as your sole guide, it would almost be something of an execution. However, that would also be a bit too much cherry-picking, as if one had only tested lightweights like Fortnite in gaming. However, anyone who uses suites like this will find Alder Lake hard to pass by, that’s for sure. Especially since the efficiency is then just top. You’d have these when rendering, too, if it weren’t for the impossibly high PL1. So if I were a customer, the first thing I’d do is restore the motherboard according to the whitepaper and cheekily dispense with the energetic extra dope. You don’t have to prove anything to yourself anymore, let alone to others. And if it takes 2 minutes longer, so what. Ok, but then you can also stay with AMD, if it was only about the sum of some dropouts.

But since downshifting works so nicely and easily, I’ll stick with the Editor’s Choice awarded yesterday, which admittedly was also awarded from my very subjective point of view. But that’s exactly why it’s called that. And not buying tip. The CPUs are available after launch, only to the RAM has happened exactly what had been foreseen: Sold out.

Overall, even when running older programs, the Ryzen CPUs still do a good job. Replacing Zen3 would therefore be very unworldly and anything but sustainable. And so exactly what I wrote yesterday about gaming applies: New buyers and upgraders from the very bottom and or very old can, assuming normal availability, gladly go for it. The rest will first eat a round of popcorn and watch how the protagonists of the blue or red silicon hype knock each other’s heads until the end of the year. Team red has at least one new stepping in the quiver, if things don’t work out with the 3D cache.

So what do I do now? First catch your breath. Xaver also ordered some silicon and today I sent another set of motherboards and some RAM. Then there’s OC, RAM shenanigans with DDR4 and DDR5, and from me, for sure, real power consumption analysis with the dreaded load peaks. I’m already loading up the lab, because I can’t do that down here in the warm office. So first of all it will be heated up again electrically. Anyone have any spare graphics cards?