Why intel’s 12th gen chips are game-changing

In the last couple of years, intel hasn’t maintained the lead in innovating industry-leading chips that we have known them for since the 1980s. The lack of innovation could be one of the reasons Apple decided to start making its chips instead of using intel’s. However, with their new 12^th gen desktop chips, things are about to change! 

Intel finally announced the long-awaited 12^th gen processors on 5^th November. However, this was not like any other announcement intel has done in previous years. This time they had to respond to Apple’s M1 and AMD Ryzen 9 chips that have been making headlines for the last 12 months. The good news is they managed to pull this off because, after the announcement, everyone was convinced that intel was back in the game. 

Features of the 12^th gen chips

Intel announced three major lineups, including the Core i9, Core i7, and Core i5. All these lineups of desktop chips were manufactured using intel’s new 7nm process. The previous generation of chips was made using the 10nm process that was still behind AMD’s flagship chips built on the 7nm process.  Let’s look at the key feature for each of these new chips. 

Intel Core i9 Features

Core count: 16 cores (8 efficiency cores and 8 performance cores) 

Base clock speed: 2.4ghz for the efficiency cores and 3.2 for the performance cores

Maximum clock speed: Up to 5.2ghz for the performance cores and 3.9 for efficiency core

Total threads: 24 threads

L3 cache: 30MB

Maximum RAM: Up to 128GB DDR4 or DDR5 RAM

Intel Core i7 features

Core count: 12cores (4 efficiency cores and 8 performance cores) 

Base clock speed: 2.7ghz for the efficiency cores and 3.6ghz for the performance cores

Maximum clock speed: Up to 5ghz for the performance cores and 3.8ghz for efficiency core

Total threads: 20 threads

L3 cache: 25MB intel smart cache

Maximum RAM: Up to 128GB DDR4 or DDR5 RAM

Intel Core i5 features

Core count: 10 cores (4 efficiency cores and 6 performance cores) 

Base clock speed: 2.8ghz for the efficiency cores and 3.7ghz for the performance cores

Maximum clock speed: Up to 4.8ghz for performance cores and 3.6ghz for efficiency cores

Total threads: 20threads

L3 cache: 20MB intel smart cache

Maximum RAM: Up to 128GB DDR4 or DDR5 RAM

So, why are these chips game-changing? 

1. They are over 50% faster than the previous generation 

The early benchmarks made show that the 12^th gen chips are 50% faster than 11^th gen chips. This is mainly due to the new 7nm process and a slight increment in the maximum clock speeds these chips can achieve.  

2. They outperform AMD in most benchmarks

These chips also outperform AMD Ryzen 9 desktop chips in most of the CPU benchmarks. For the past couple of years, AMD’s chips have always been ahead of intel in most popular benchmarks. These 12^th gen chips have changed this. 

3. They are more power-efficient

Due to the addition of efficiency cores, these 12^th gen chips use less power to achieve the same performance compared to 11^th gen chips.