Our first Alder Lake-H performance numbers are in, and enthusiasts seem to be in for a treat. We pit the Core i9-12900HK in the MSI GE76 Raider against Tiger Lake-H, AMD Cezanne Zen 3, and Apple M1 Max SoCs to see what kind of improvements one can expect with Intel's latest mobile offering. From what we see so far, Intel has finally been able to thwart both AMD and Apple in their tracks but at some expense of power.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i9-12900HK-performance-and-power-efficiency-comparison-Significant-gains-with-potential-to-put-even-upcoming-AMD-offerings-at-a-disadvantage.595060.0.html
Already calling BS much like I had about the rumor Samsung was dropping AMD.
Power efficiency needs to be tested at the same wattage. Alder lake will be the most efficient chip out there at 45-60W power ranges.
Quote from: A on January 25, 2022, 17:39:27
Power efficiency needs to be tested at the same wattage. Alder lake will be the most efficient chip out there at 45-60W power ranges.
Fair point. We are contemplating on this, but one thing needs to be pointed out. These are data from device reviews wherein the idea is not to just restrict the assessment to the CPU alone but to the device as a whole. Also, there is the possibility of an inherent bias for selecting a certain wattage as one value could automatically put a system at an advantage or a disadvantage depending on how it can handle the load.
6980HX is the top of the line Rembrandt SKU, not 6900HX, I could get why last gen everyone was testing the 5900HX as 5980HX was almost nonexistent in laptop designs, but this year that does not seem to be the case.
That being said, all of these smorgasbord results in the charts are extremely confusing, if not downright misleading given they don't give any info on power setting (and no info on power measurements). It's like everyone reviewing Intel stuff has decided to give them a pass on their PL1=PL2 (and various other) scumminess. That might fly on desktop (if you at leat warn the potential DIY buyers to get a beefy AIO) but it under no circumstance be ignored on laptop.
Quote from: A on January 25, 2022, 17:39:27
Power efficiency needs to be tested at the same wattage. Alder lake will be the most efficient chip out there at 45-60W power ranges.
Really? The exact opposite was true with Tiger Lake-H. I don't see how it will be vastly different this time, especially with the PL1=PL2=115W and temporary TDPup to 130W ADL mobile has.
Unlike Cezanne, both TGL and ADL scale up performance nearly linearly with more voltage and watts, so performance will also drop drastically at lower TDP which means they barely have a sweet spot of performance to power to begin with.
Considering the whole big-little approach, the fact that this behaviour seems to repeat itself over from the previous gens makes the whole thing look sad.
Apple (node advantage is a big help in this), and to a slightly lesser degree, AMD, continue to be the much more efficient alternatives.
Quote from: Rob Stan on January 25, 2022, 18:50:04
That being said, all of these smorgasbord results in the charts are extremely confusing, if not downright misleading given they don't give any info on power setting (and no info on power measurements).
Take a look at the linked review for detailed power measurements.
Quote from: Rob Stan on January 25, 2022, 19:01:41
Unlike Cezanne, both TGL and ADL scale up performance nearly linearly with more voltage and watts, so performance will also drop drastically at lower TDP which means they barely have a sweet spot of performance to power to begin with.
Clearly, that's not true. Not only it makes no sense from physics standpoint, data in the article clearly shows otherwise. Just contrast HK with K with almost half the efficiency. It's pretty much guaranteed that efficiency will drop as frequency goes up beyond 3 GHz. I doubt they have managed to push the sweet spot that high. Traditionally, it would be more like 2 GHz. The further you go, the worse it gets.
I would like to see power- or performance-normalized numbers. If I need efficiency, if I need battery life, I can sacrifice performance. So, this is relevant information, at least to me.
The relatively low frequency is part of the reason why is M1 so efficient.
The performance per watt measurement is not done correctly.
Why show such metric in cinebench r15 where it's not running natively on Apple Silicon?
The measurement should be in cinebench r23 with all chips running natively.
You dropped the ball on this one. You can't proclaim 'efficiency crown' for Alder Lake and such when you don't benchmark for it. Anandtech did and found "this top-of-the-line" completely non-thermally restrained desktop replacement processor performed at 3494 points in Cinebench R20 at 30 W. Your own database shows an *average* score of 3303 for a Ryzen 5800U. That's a 5.8% difference between these processors with 3 of the Ryzen 5800u scores in 13" notebook chassis. I read here daily for the honest truth and not sensationalism of other sites. Stay objective.
Quote from: ArsLoginName on January 26, 2022, 02:14:21
You dropped the ball on this one. You can't proclaim 'efficiency crown' for Alder Lake and such when you don't benchmark for it. Anandtech did and found "this top-of-the-line" completely non-thermally restrained desktop replacement processor performed at 3494 points in Cinebench R20 at 30 W. Your own database shows an *average* score of 3303 for a Ryzen 5800U. That's a 5.8% difference between these processors with 3 of the Ryzen 5800u scores in 13" notebook chassis. I read here daily for the honest truth and not sensationalism of other sites. Stay objective.
Didn't get you. Where have I proclaimed any efficiency crown? I only stated it's good in performance and needs more work in terms of efficiency.
Quote from: well on January 26, 2022, 01:02:05
The performance per watt measurement is not done correctly.
Why show such metric in cinebench r15 where it's not running natively on Apple Silicon?
The measurement should be in cinebench r23 with all chips running natively.
Historically, we have used power consumption from the wall data while doing a Cinebench R15 run on an external monitor. So, it is not possible to change for just one SoC right away. I agree this is a limitation of the test. Having said that a CB15 multi render is not a huge deal for the M1 Max with 10 CPU cores even if you account for the Rosetta overhead. You can see that by comparing the deltas between the M1 Max and the 12900HK between CB15 Multi and CB23 Multi runs. They are not way off.
Excellent summary analysis in this article. The best of the three I've read today. Keep up the good work!
Quote from: Jakemaster on January 26, 2022, 04:56:06
Excellent summary analysis in this article. The best of the three I've read today. Keep up the good work!
Thank you Jakemaster! Glad you found it useful :)
I find comparison between 12900HK and 5900X quite interesting. It's to be expected that 8-core Zen3 processors can't keep up with a 6+8 Alder Lake in loads that scale well. A 12-core 5900X is a better match and it's not outrageously off even in terms of TDP. 5900X was tested here in a Eurocom chassis. Not only can the 12900HK outperform 5900X, it manages better efficiency as well. Not by that much (+10 %), but it's still interesting and quite positive. I think 12900HK would make for a very interesting desktop processor. On the other hand, 12900K is not that much more expensive than 5900X where I live (about €60) and you can restrict its boost if you want a more efficient/ cooler/ quieter machine. And if you want to go all out, you can squeeze roughly 5950X performance out of it at the expense of efficiency.
Quote from: _MT_ on January 26, 2022, 10:48:49
think 12900HK would make for a very interesting desktop processor.
That's a very good observation. Desktop variants of these could be really interesting for those not wanting a 12900K.
Misleading because:
1 - Title : "Significant gains with potential to put even upcoming AMD offerings at a disadvantage" As shown by the *current* thermally constrained 5800U vs thermally unconstrained 12900hk (16 threads vs 20 threads at 30W) , AMD's offerings only lag by <6% from your and Anadtech's scores. So unless there is no gain whatsoever between Rembrandt and Cezanne, Intel's newest and best is just ahead of AMD's last gen. So to say "put upcoming offerings at a disadvantage" is rather disingenuous and misleading.
2 - As others point out, efficiency isn't about 'power' only. It is about Joules which is the integration of power multiplied by time. But regardless, your "CB score/power" efficiency benchmark even shows this 12900hk lags behind Cezanne. But let's examine this further by using Geekbench 5.3 scores as an example. 12900hk scores 1918 pts in single core at let's say 25 W. An iPhone 13 scores 1755 pts in single core at let's say 10 W. Does that mean we all should just put A15 Bionics in our computers and call it a day since they are roughly 2.5x as efficient?
3 - the old 11980hk ge76 raider scored 5189 pts in CB R20 with a PL1 of 91.75 W while the newer 12900hk scores 6849 points with a PL1 of 110 W with 16 vs 20 threads. That's a 32% performance gap but Intel claims the new 'Intel 7' node is 10-15% more efficient than the "10 nm ESF" of the 11th gen processors and the 12900hk is rated to consume 20% more power (110 W PL1 /91.75 W PL1 rating). So those two factors alone lead to a 20%+ performance advantage for the newer generation.
Hope this helps clarify things. Again this site has a reputation for letting scores and values of laptops speak for themselves. The only subjective scores are keyboard and trackpad.
Quote from: Vaidyanathan on January 26, 2022, 12:10:49
Quote from: _MT_ on January 26, 2022, 10:48:49
think 12900HK would make for a very interesting desktop processor.
That's a very good observation. Desktop variants of these could be really interesting for those not wanting a 12900K.
I still don't understand the point of trying to make an "efficient" core paired with a "performance" core. All this does is add complexity to an already complex system. Zero reason to even bother with "efficiency cores" given Zen 3 is already equally efficient.
Not to mention once Zen 3+ comes to the market en masse, Intel's lead in performance will largely be made irrelevant, given power draw is too high for day to day operations. Unless you can somehow dynamically shut off or make the performance cores go to sleep, I just don't see how it's capable of matching AMD's offerings. Battery life matters a lot for mobile devices, and even gaming laptops these days can casually manage 7-8 hours of time and not really lose out on too much perceived performance.