Intel Core i5 12600K and Core i9 12900K With ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero Review

[tinytomlogan]

The 12th Generation Intel CPUs are here, promising massive improvements over the disappointing 11th Gen. Let's find out how good they, and the ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero are.


Intel Core i5 12600K and Core i9 12900K With ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero Review

 

[robbiec]

Have to say i'm a bit non plussed with the overall platform cost / efficiency compared to my current X570 & Ryzen R9 5950X.
Have a few questions Tom if I may,
- ref Win 11 & W10? Have you or will you be trying the new platform on Win 10?
- Looking at the power draw figures, am I right in thinking that Intel is still about 20% off AMD on 7nm taking thread count, platform (what is DDR5 in power, X690 in power) cost?
- What are boot times for 12th Gen and X690?

Thanks for the review.

 

[robert3892]

Did you use the Windows 11 version with the fix for the Ryzen processors?

 

[Dicehunter]

Oh well guess I have to throw my 5800X in the bin now /s

What res is the "Average FPS" section of the review ? Guessing 1080P ?

 

[Warchild]

Oh well guess I have to throw my 5800X in the bin now.

I dont feel so bad now. Gaming wise i see little boost for me, but the temps are a definate pleaser.

Makes me wish I held out longer and got this Glacial instead of the Z590 when I see how good it looks, but Alder lake looks to be a success for sure.

 

[Dicehunter]

I dont feel so bad now. Gaming wise i see little boost for me, but the temps are a definate pleaser.

Makes me wish I held out longer and got this Glacial instead of the Z590 when I see how good it looks, but Alder lake looks to be a success for sure.

Yeah gaming wise there won't be much in it at 1440P, I'm guessing the "Average FPS" section is at 1080P as it does not say, I never play at 1080P anymore so gaming wise 12th gen would not be an upgrade for me, Gonna wait for AMD's stacked cache 5800X see how that goes.

 

[KingNosser]

Well after watching 12600k with ddr4 would be the sensible money, the performance is decent, but personally I'll wait for Zen4 late next year, but fully expect Zen3VC to be pretty much on par with these.

I'll wait myself just doesn't feel a massive step just yet more a step towards and by the time the stuff i really want is out then ddr5 prices and specs may have settled somewhat.

So a years wait and if the prices on that are sheer madness i'll always be able to get something decent sometimes new isn't the best deal to be had.

 

[AlienALX]

Quite pleasantly surprised by this. Sadly as I mentioned before, the lack of GPUs to go with them is the issue.

If you want to see how it performs in an updated Win 10 then watch GN's review. They have only used Win 10 thus far. It's slightly ahead of Ryzen in gaming, which is good, and much cheaper if you use DDR4, though I haven't see the DDR4 results yet. Meaning that lead could be down to (as pointed out in the review there) to the RAM.

I still wouldn't go near this yet. I still regret going to the 1920x, because they only literally sorted out all of its bugs about two months after I bought that, and I was very late in the game. The aggro wasn't really worth it.

The best part is I can see AMD having to drop their prices, which will make a 5000 series quite tempting as a replacement for my 3600. The 3950x is going nowhere.

 

[robbiec]

I'll probably offload my R9 5950x and get the stacked cache jobbie with 192MB -

Hearing that Enterprise variants of Gen 12 won't be in the chanel till Mar / Apr 22. Interesting that Dell have made the XPS chassis 27ltr instead of last gens 19ltr. Presumably to allow better airflow for the AIO.

 

[Dark NighT]

It is nice to see competition back in the cpu market!! This might push the 5000 series prices down which i might upgrade to one of those from this 3700x in the future.

 

[g0ggles1994]

As expected. Performs well while drawing a ton of power and generating a lot of heat.

 

[Warchild]

As expected. Performs well while drawing a ton of power and generating a lot of heat.

I would say the heat isnt that bad at all?

Peaking in the 70s while pushed hard is much better than the 95C that was reached on the 10th and 11th gen.
That said, i feel this review is still missing info unless I misread/missed it. The temps are peaking at 100C... but from what? Prime95/OCCT/<insert benchsoftware>

Over at Guru3D they ran prime95 on loop and it only hit the 70s, (77max i believe). What was tested here that resulted in the cpu peaking so high?

My assumption was the smaller node while allowing us to cram more transistors in, also helped keep temps down. More efficient power etc etc so.. 100C to me is a massive disappointment. I don't want a case that is on the verge of warming my neighbourhood. I guess the return of the large core count is part of the cause.

 

[g0ggles1994]

I would say the heat isnt that bad at all?

Peaking in the 70s while pushed hard is much better than the 95C that was reached on the 10th and 11th gen.

I know it isn't as bad as last gen. I'm just saying that it performs exactly as I expected it. The figures are coming down, but they've still got some way to go.

 

[looz]

I know it isn't as bad as last gen. I'm just saying that it performs exactly as I expected it. The figures are coming down, but they've still got some way to go.

What benefit would a cooler chip be? It's not throttling and is well within spec.

 

[Dark NighT]

What benefit would a cooler chip be? It's not throttling and is well within spec.

Less heat output in the summer, quieter operation of coolers, things that do weigh heavily to people.

 

[AlienALX]

Yeah I'm not buying the heat argument. My 3600 reaches those temps (well, about 68) under a top end 240 AIO. I doubt going full water will change that much either.

Intel have hit a partial home run here, there's no denying it. Their biggest problem is AMD have already hit a full home run and are about to hit another. Intel are behind, and this is just a temporary stop gap because AMD will be readying their next tech now.

That said this is a very good release and I am happy. For a few reasons really.

1. I may get a 12600k myself to replace my 3600. If, and it's a heavy if, the board prices settle. Problem so far is that a Asrock base end ITX board that takes DDR4 is £240. Twice as much as AMD ones, making the platform unviable for me.

2. It will force AMD to drop prices, and 5000 series SH prices will plummet, leaving me to scoop up a couple of deals. I could go 5800x for this rig to replace my 3600, or, get a 5950x for my big rig and put the 3950x in this one. TBH gaming for me is fine, both rigs hit 150 FPS in PUBG ultra (with foliage on low) any way. It's just the more heavy core load stuff that I would like to improve with the 3600.

But yeah, hopefully I can bag a cheap 5900/50 and use the 3950x in here (points to "small" PC).

 

[looz]

Less heat output in the summer, quieter operation of coolers, things that do weigh heavily to people.

I get the heat argument, but it's not an especially power hungry CPU. And the E-cores make it draw less power during lighter workloads - so the actual power draw between 12600k and 5600X depends on the use case. 5600X only has a significant margin when running full tilt - and that often isn't the case when gaming.

It's also well within the range of running near silently under a Noctua.

 

[etaXdoa]

Will wait for AM5

I couldn't recommend buying AlderLake unless you really really need to buy now. It will be such a better value proposition when AMD release Navi3 and AM5/DDD5 platforms, Nvidia lovelace, and Intel have new Gpu's out and no doubt a refreshed cpu that requires a new motherboard/chipset purchase. price competition will be fierce.

The last 12 months have sucked, another 6 months of sitting through the shortages would well be worth it... Cheaper cpu, motherboard, DDR5.. .. savings better spent on AMD/Nvidia/Intels new GPUs, an upgrade which will likely provide a bigger boost than anything AlderLake today. It will take to Q3 for Windows 11 and big-little issues to be properly sorted, and to be honest multithreading in games is still pretty hokey overall, it'll take even longer yet for games to make full use of big little as Intel intends.

Why pay early adapter tax now, I think come this time next year there will be a lot of early adopters wishing they'd held onto their money. 2022 will be transformative in the CPU/GPU/SSD space