Can Intel’s Fastest CPU Beat Apple’s M1 Pro?
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The Core i9-12900HK is Intel’s most recent and fastest CPU for laptops.
The test system for today is theMSI GE76 Raider.
Boost PL2 power is set to Intel’s default of 115W in both instances.
On to the results!
What perhaps surprised me the most was the margin between the 12900HK and12700H.
A larger performance delta between the 12900HK and 12700H was observed in the single-threaded test.
That’s pretty much as expected.
There’s no doubting that Alder Lake’s P-cores have the performance crown for single-thread this generation.
It’s only able to match theRyzen 9 6900HSas well, despite the 6900HS being a 35W CPU.
In Microsoft Excel we see the same as before, where the 12900HK and 12700H are neck and neck.
So when both are smashing 100W plus, there’s no difference.
In7-Zipcompression we couldn’t spot a difference between the 12900HK and 12700H.
Where the difference isn’t so negligible is in single-thread power as measured at the wall.
In comparison to the Core i7-12700H, the 12900HK performs basically the same across our benchmark suite.
You’ll also need a high-end GPU to take advantage of these differences, and be playing at 1080p.
What We Learned
There’s two ways you could look at the Core i9-12900HK.
Provided the rest of the configuration is the same, you could end up saving a few hundred dollars.
But of course, not every laptop will have a Core i7 option.
It very much is a fast laptop processor.
We’re talking small margins for the most part.
Where the 12900HK clearly has an edge is in overall performance.
Which brings us the topic of battery life.
The GE76 isn’t designed with long battery life in mind.
I certainly wouldn’t want to use a 3kg laptop on the go.
Hopefully that will be possible in the future, but it isn’t right now.
