Your new Intel PC will have the same cores as an AMD one, and with DDR5!

We must remember that Intel’s Alder Lake-S will be a transitional platform but that it will also be a turning point for PC architectures; It is not only that this platform will be the first to use DDR5 RAM or potentially the interface PCI-Express 5.0Rather, it will be the first hybrid desktop platform with “big” and “small” cores that will greatly improve efficiency.

This is the Intel Core i7-12700K Alder Lake-S for desktop PC

The Intel Core i7-12700K Desktop CPU features 12 cores and 20 threads process (and not the 24 threads with which it seems that the software has detected the CPU), because remember that it is a heterogeneous CPU and the “small” cores do not have hyperthreading. We also found 25 MB of L3 cache, and as you can see the CPU does not have a “proper” name in these screenshots, but given its specifications it seems quite clear that it is the Core i7-12700K that will top the list of the first Alder Lake processors- S for desktop PCs that Intel will launch.

The sample presents 12 physical nuclei, of which 8 will be Golden cove high performance and the other 4 will be Goldmont low comsumption; Let’s remember that the Golden Cove cores, the “big ones”, have hyperthreading and therefore have 16 processing threads, to which we must add another 4 of the Goldmont cores that lack Hyperthreading, so as we have mentioned before the total sum is 12 cores and 20 process threads.

As for clock speeds, and since it seems that the database reflects an engineering sample, we are facing a base frequency of only 1.2 GHz with a 3.4 GHz boost frequency, although how you will understand the speeds end of operation of this processor will be much higher once the commercial model is on the street (speeds of around 5 GHz).

Probably i7 12700K
– 12C 20T (misreported as 24T)
– 8 * 1.25MB + 4 * 384KB = 11.5MB L2
> L2 cache is reported as 9 core, I think that it is right due to 4 small core = 1 cluster. Benchmark could recognize cluster unit.
– 8 * 2.75MB (cut from full of 3MB) + 4 * 768KB = 25MB L3 https://t.co/fO84Bz2qM3

– 포시 포시 (@ harukaze5719) August 9, 2021

Refering to cache, the first thing to say is that the current software is not up to date to fully recognize hybrid CPUs (that’s why it reports 24 threads, for example), so the software shows it for 9 cores for some reason, which means that the software is reading it correctly for all 8 Golden Cove cores but then all 4 Goldmont cores put them in the same drawer. Thus, 1.25 MB per core is displayed when this is not the case.

The “large” cores carry a 1.25 MB cache while the “small” cores carry 2 MB of shared cache per 4-core cluster, so the cache count corresponds to previous rumors that placed the Core i7- 12700K Alder Lake-S in 25MB L3 cache total.

These are the preliminary characteristics of the main CPUs of the generation, but remember that there is no data confirmed by Intel at the moment and therefore these specifications are not final.