Intel has not announced the 12th Generation Intel Alder Lake-HX processors. However, ITHome, a Chinese news site, has published leaked details for Intel’s anticipated performance chips and hardware sleuth momomo_us speculated about the baseline clock speeds.
The same Alder Lake recipe will be used in this line up too. The Golden Cove and Gracemont cores will connect to provide a hybrid design for Alder Lake-HX. The Alder Lake mobile family tops out at 14 CPU cores and 20 threads, and Alder Lake-HX offers up to 16 cores and 24 threads.
The Alder Lake-HX series is said to provide desktop-class performance for mobile devices. However, more cores will have a higher power requirement. The Alder Lake-HX, with its new chips, reportedly has a 45W PBP (processor base power), which is 10 watts greater than the Alder Lake-H. The MTP (maximum turbo power) of the Alder Lake-HX is unknown. The highest-end Alder Lake-H chips have a maximum output of 115 watts.
AMD’s recently launched 6nm Ryzen 6000 (Rembrandt) processors, which include Zen 3+ cores and RDNA 2 graphics, will compete with Alder Lake-HX. Intel’s Gracemont efficiency cores boost the core count of Alder Lake-HX, making it seem more powerful on paper. Ryzen 6000 has up to eight full-fledged Zen 3+ cores. The Alder Lake-HX appears to have twice as many cores as the Ryzen 6000, but we’ll have to wait for a complete evaluation before determining who’s faster. Inexperienced users may be fooled by the high core count of the Alder Lake-HX, which could give the impression that the Alder Lake-HX chip to be twice as fast.
Intel Alder Lake-HX Specifications
| Processor | Cores / Threads | Base / Boost Clocks (GHz) |
|---|---|---|
| Core i9-12950HX (vPro)* | 16 / 24 | 2.3 / 5.0 |
| Core i9-12900HX* | 16 / 24 | 2.3 / 5.0 |
| Core i7-12850HX (vPro)* | 16 / 24 | 2.1 / 4.8 |
| Core i7-12800HX* | 16 / 24 | 2.0 / 4.8 |
| Core i9-12900H | 14 / 20 | 2.5 / 5.0 |
| Core i7-12800H | 14 / 20 | 2.4 / 4.8 |
| Core i5-12600H | 12 / 16 | 2.7 / 4.5 |
| Core i5-12600HX (vPro)* | 12 / 16 | 2.5 / 4.6 |
| Ryzen 9 6980HX | 8 / 16 | 3.3 / 5.0 |
*Specifications are unconfirmed.
The Alder Lake-HX series’ flagship CPU is the Core i9-12900HX. It has 16 cores and 24 threads with a base and boost clock speed of up to 2.3GHz and 5GHz respectively. The Core i9-12950HX is the vPro version and will feature similar clock speeds. So, how does the Core i9-12900HX stack up against the Ryzen 9 6980HX, AMD’s current king of the hill?
Despite the fact that the Core i9-12900HX features 16 total cores, only eight of them are performance Golden Cove cores. Both chips have the same 5GHz boost clock, but the Ryzen 9 6980HX has a base clock that is 1GHz higher.
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It’s clear that Intel had to sacrifice a few things like the base clock speeds to bump up the PBP for Alder Lake-HX. For example, the Core i9-12900HX has two more cores than the Core i9-12900H, both processors have the same 5GHz boost clock but Core i9-12900H has a 200MHz faster base clock.
The Core i7-12800HX also saw a similar cutback. The Core i7-12800H has two more cores than the Core i7-12800HX, but the former’s base clock is 200MHz higher. The Core i5-12600HX is the odd man among the bunch, has 12-cores and 16-threads and a lower 200MHz lower base clock but a 100MHz higher boost clock than its non-X sibling.
Alder Lake-HX has yet to be released by Intel. However, Asus has planned a “Pinnacle of Performance” virtual event for May 9th, suggesting a debut of Alder Lake-HX from Intel.
