Because the manufacturing effectivity will increase, Intel manually selects the processors, which we are able to name the “gold chip”, which might attain the very best frequency with the bottom voltage, and makes particular, factory-overclocked fashions from them. The Core i9 12900KS is strictly such a processor.

Who’s 12900KS addressed to?

There’s an viewers, albeit area of interest, that fashions just like the i9 12900KS enchantment to. This viewers consists of customers who don’t wish to take care of overclocking or don’t wish to gamble on the overclocking efficiency of the processor they bought.

Intel Core i9 12900KS Processor
The i9-12900KS has a formidable single core working frequency of 5.5GHz.

Sure, for much less cash right this moment, you should buy a 12900K and get related efficiency to the 12900KS we’ll evaluation on this video, or you’ll be able to even overclock it to 12900KS. Nevertheless, if there’s something equally attainable, it might be that the processor you purchased is a brick and can’t even go 100Mhz above the promised speeds of Intel. Or even when it does, it might require an enormous voltage increase for it. On this case, your processor socket might flip into an exploded reactor core in Chernobyl(!)

12900KS Plugged into Socket
We used MSI MEG Z690 Unify Motherboard and Corsair Dominator 32GB 5200MHz DDR5 reminiscence in our take a look at system.

Right here, Intel gives us the i9-12900KS processor for prime efficiency lovers who don’t wish to pay excessive sums and take care of such particulars. How this plan is mirrored in take a look at outcomes, we’ll have a look at that on this video.

12900KS Options

To begin with, as you’ll be able to think about, there isn’t a change within the variety of cores or structure of the processor, what has modified is the core and increase frequencies of the cores. Now we have talked about the twelfth technology Alder Lake processor structure at size in our 12900K evaluation, so on this article we’ll solely contact on improvements.

Characteristic Intel i9-12900K Intel i9-12900KS
P. Variety of Cores/Threads 8/16 8/16
E.Variety of Cores/Tracks 8/8 8/8
P. Nucleus Elementary Frequency 3.2GHz 3.4GHz
E. Nucleus Elementary Frequency 5.1GHz 5.2GHz
Single Core Enhance Frequency 5.2GHz 5.5GHz
E. Nucleus Elementary Frequency 2.4GHz 2.5GHz
E. Core Enhance Frequency 3.9GHz 4GHz

As within the Ok mannequin, now we have 8 efficiency, 8 effectivity cores. The core working frequencies of the effectivity core have elevated from 2.40GHz in Ok to 2.5GHz in KS, and the increase frequency has elevated from 3.90GHz to 4GHz. There was a rise of 100 Mhz every.

If we have a look at the efficiency cores, we see a 200MHz enhance from the three.20GHz base working frequency to three.40GHz. All core increase frequencies have been elevated from 5.1GHz to five.2GHz, and the only core increase frequency has been elevated from 5.2GHz to five.5GHz, which is spectacular.

Since trendy video games now have a tendency to utilize a number of processor cores, though we often see increase frequencies at 5.2Ghz, now we have witnessed two cores enhance to five.5Ghz whereas doing our day by day work in our net browser and looking below Home windows.

How A lot Does the Core i9 12900KS Value?

If every part sounds nice, hearken to this: Intel asks you about gold chips which can be assured to work stably at these excessive frequencies. 15,000 TL ie from i9-12900K 4000 TL she needs extra. Not solely that, the processor runs noticeably hotter below load than the 12900K. How hotter? As an instance that our 3-fan 360 NZXT Kraken X prepared liquid cooler reached 90 levels after just a few seconds within the CPU-Z stress take a look at, and we realized that we wanted to modify to a barely extra imposing cooler: Cosair iCUE H170i Elite LCD.

Our most well-liked cooler is the 420mm Corsair iCUE H170i LCD

Nevertheless, this cooler with 3 140mm followers was in a position to tame this big in order that we even went across the borders. I ought to point out that this case is carefully associated to the TDP worth that you could restrict below BIOS. TDP of this processor additionally depends upon your motherboard producer. 150W and 241W you’ll be able to change between Our processor was working in 241W mode.

take a look at system

In our take a look at system, we used Corsair Dominator Platinum RGB 5200MHz with 32GB DDR5 reminiscence, MSI MEG Z690 Unify motherboard, MSI MPG A1000G 1000W energy provide and Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Version graphics card.

Common temperature values

Particularly in artificial load assessments utilizing the AVX instruction set when our Corsair cooler is at Excessive pump and fan settings, the processor 85-90 Though it hovers between levels Celsius, it’s round 40 levels within the desktop setting and in video games. 55-60 diploma vary was the values ​​we noticed most continuously. We performed PUGB at 1080p Extremely settings to shift the load from the graphics card to the processor a bit of extra, and you’ll see the temperature values ​​in our evaluation video.

artificial assessments

Take a look at AMD Ryzen 9 5950X Intel i9-12900K Intel i9-12900KS
Cinebench R23 1T 1600 1967 1981
Cinebench R23 nt 24538 27402 28150
Geekbench 5 1T 1672 1982 2005
Geekbench 5nT 15956 18314 18946
Blender BMW CPU 01:43 01:32 01:25
Blender FishyCat 00:25 00:14 00:14
handbrake 03:59 03:26 03:15

Artificial take a look at outcomes present us that the frequency will increase of the 12900KS replicate positively on the outcomes. So, how are the conditions within the video games, do these features flip into FPS will increase? Because the distinction between the 12900K and the KS is so small, we thought we might measure the distinction exactly by solely testing video games with an in-game benchmark.

12900KS Gaming Efficiency

The sport Decision and Graphics Adjustment AMD Ryzen 9 5950X Intel i9-12900K Intel i9-12900KS
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord 1440p Extremely min.85

Cowl. 105

Max. 125

min. 64

Cowl. 189

Max. 254

min 124

avg.188

Max. 271

Far Cry 6 1080 Extremely min.80

Cowl. 105

Max. 138

min. 102

Cowl. 126

Max. 158

min. 106

Cowl. 128

Max. 164

Crimson Useless Redemption 2 1440p Extremely min.39

Cowl. 95

Max. 115

min. 55

Cowl. 97

Max. 127

min. 67

Cowl. 97

Max. 128

Whereas the variations have been extra noticeable in our 1080p take a look at, the decision drops to 1440p. In case you are somebody who performs video games in 4K, it’s attainable to say that the distinction will lower much more.

Conclusion

Consequently, does the 12900K give us increased FPS and shorter render instances, albeit barely. However as a way to try this, it wants a expensive cooling resolution and consumes a bit of extra energy. Whether or not the efficiency enhance you’ll get is well worth the 4000 lira value distinction relies upon fully on how a lot you want the additional efficiency and the way prepared you’re to open your purse.

Is it value upgrading from 12900K to KS?

Personally, if I have been a 12900K person taking part in video games with a 4K monitor, I would not hassle with the 12900KS in any respect and would save my cash for the following technology graphics playing cards which can be on the horizon as a result of because the decision will increase, it’s the graphics card that brings the true FPS achieve.

In a scenario the place price is secondary and the precedence is to assemble a brand new skilled system with the very best rendering and video enhancing efficiency, the 12900KS is a processor I’d suggest, simply be sure you use it with a very good cooler.