The non-K Intel Alder Lake CPU specifications have been confirmed by Asus and Colorful
The non-K Intel Alder Lake CPU specifications have been confirmed by Asus and Colorful
The non-K versions of Intel's Alder Lake (12th-generation Core) processors are expected to be unveiled on Tuesday at the Consumer Electronics Show, but Asus and Colorful have already confirmed several of their specifications. Certain models fall short of expectations, while others are compelling alternatives for those who do not intend to overclock.
It is not uncommon for motherboard manufacturers to include processors that have not yet been released in their lists of supported hardware, as has occurred in this instance.
Asus and Colorful's core counts, base clocks, and TDPs are included in the tables below, as are boost clocks from leaked marketing materials and prematurely published product pages, as well as other information. The leaked Best Buy prices are not included in the tables, but you can see them here if you want.
It is claimed by Asus that the Alder Lake processor employs two stepping patterns: C-0 and H-0. The C-0 stepping is used by both the i9 and i7 processor families, and it has eight performance cores and eight efficiency cores in each case. During the H-0 stepping, six performance cores are used, but no efficiency cores are utilized.
It is at the junction between the 12600K (which employs a C-0 stepping) and the 12600 that Intel differentiates between the two steppings (which does not use the C-0 stepping). As a result, the 12600K includes four efficiency cores, which are not present in the non-K version of the processor.
The H-0 stepping is used on all i5 and i3 processors that are not K-core.
It's possible that using efficiency cores in entry-level components would have made sense. However, due to the lack of performance cores in the H-0 stepping, they are forced to use performance cores that are insatiably hungry.
Intel will announce these processors in the coming days, and we'll be benchmarking and analyzing them as soon as possible after that announcement. However, for the time being, they appear to be a worthy addition to the Alder Lake generation, which is all that can be asked of them.
