Intel teases a highly bundled 12900K
Intel took to Twitter to tease a more clocked i9 12900K. If there is a precedent, the chip in question should be given the Core i9 12900KS mark. With a clock boost up to 5.5GHz, such a chip would certainly indicate that Intel’s 10nm process (sorry, Intel 7) is now working great, and those years of 10nm memes are well and truly a thing of the past.
The 12th generation IntelCore desktop processors top the lists of the best processors and are widely available to gamers and enthusiasts alike. And we haven’t finished yet. Next stop: up to 5.5 GHz. pic.twitter.com/mEUreGSixFJanuary 3, 2022
Intel’s tweet includes a screenshot that shows one of the processor cores clocked at 5.5 GHz with the rest of the P cores clocked at 5.2 GHz. The E cores appear to be clocked at 4.0 GHz. This compares to the standard 12900K, which is capable of upgrading to 5.2 GHz on one or two cores and up to 5.0 on all cores, with its E cores coming in at 3.9 GHz.
It is important to note that the screenshot only shows the current CPU clocks. Although the 7-zip benchmark used is active and is loading the processor, a pinch of salt is still needed, at least until we see how the chip performs on a longer-term full benchmark run, and not only a snapshot of it.
Although the 12900K is a powerful chip, it isn’t known for its jaw-dropping energy efficiency when put on a full load. It has a PL2 rated power of 241W, so we can expect the 12900KS to exceed that. If it is a highly clustered array the difference might not be very large, but if Intel is just forcing the ungrouped arrays sharply to reach higher clocks then this PL2 reading might be. bring it closer to 300 W. We’ll have to test this for ourselves if we can get one into our warm little hands.
Power aside, a 12900KS would be a mega gaming processor and if you are building a high end gaming rig with something like a 3090 Ti Kingpin then the 12900KS will likely be the processor you would use to power your platform. -shaped, probably with a custom water loop to keep everything humming. Overclocked of course!
This is not the first time that we have teased the 12900KS. The developers of the AIDA64 software suite included a specific mention of the chip in the Beta changelog on December 22.
We can expect Intel to showcase the 12900KS and plenty of other tasty tech at its CES press event.