Intel Powers The Next Generation of Laptops With 12th Gen Alder Lake CPUs: 12900HK Flagship, Up To 14 Cores, Up To 40% Faster & Beats Both AMD & Apple

Jan 4, 2022 at 01:07pm EST

Intel has finally unleashed their brand new 12th Gen Alder Lake mobility lineup which goes gun blazing against AMD's and Apple's chip lineup.

Intel Powers Next-Gen Laptops With Its 12th Gen Alder Lake Lineup: Beats AMD & Apple Chips, Core i9-12900HK Flagship With Up To 14 Cores at 5 GHz

The Intel 12th Gen Alder Lake mobility lineup will be segmented into the P-series for high-end and U-series for entry-level mobility platforms. The main change to the lineup is the addition of hybrid cores which comprise Golden Cove (P-Cores) and Gracemont (E-Cores) on a 10nm ESF (Enhanced Super Fin) process node. There are a total of 28 new SKUs that Intel is introducing today, 14 P and 14 U series. So let's start with the P-series lineup.

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Some of the key features of the lineup include:

Intel Alder Lake-P Series SKUs

The Intel Alder Lake-P series will be replacing the entire Tiger Lake-H45, H35, and UP3 portfolio of chips. It will max out at 14 cores in the top SKU which will comprise 6 Golden Cove cores & 8 Grace Mont cores. The parts replacing the Tiger Lake-UP3 series will feature 2 Golden Cove cores and 8 Gracemont cores. The chips will pack both GT2 and GT3 Xe configurations with up to 96 Execution units.

Based on the Intel 7 process, new 12th Gen H-series processors offer:

Other features of the platform will include support for Thunderbolt 4, PCIe Gen 5.0 lanes & Killer WiFi 6E. When it comes to memory support, the Intel Alder Lake-P chips will get both LPDDR5 and DDR5 configurations. It is likely that Intel will release Alder Lake-P first with LPDDR5 variants while the higher-end Tiger Lake-H successors will come outfitted with DDR5 memory.

As for features, the Intel Alder Lake H series processors feature the Core i9-12900HK as the flagship CPU, offering up to 14 cores, 24 MB of L3 cache, and a clock frequency of 5 GHz. The lineup is also going to be up to 40% faster than the previous generation, offering a big boost to content creators and gamers alike. In a Core i9-12900HK performance slide, the CPU can be seen beating both the Apple M1 Max and Ryzen 9 5900HX by offering much higher performance at the same wattage. It really shows that Alder Lake is going to give AMD and Apple a beating in the overall efficiency game and further extend the performance with a max turbo power of up to 115W.

As for overall performance, the Intel Core i9-12900HK is up to 28% faster in gaming and up to 44% faster in content creation versus the Core i9-11980HK and also easily beats the Ryzen 9 5900HX & Apple's M1 Max / Pro chips. There are tons of options to select from too as these chips will power enthusiast-grade laptop designs. The more mainstream options will be configured with Intel's Alder Lake-P28 lineup which has the Core i7-1280P as the flagship, featuring 14 cores, 20 threads, a 4.8 GHz boost clock, 18 MB of cache, and a max turbo rating of up to 64W.

Intel Alder Lake-P Laptop CPU Lineup Specs:

CPU NameCores / ThreadsBase ClockBoost ClockCacheGPU ConfigTDPMax Turbo Power
Intel Core i9-12950HX8+8 / 242.3 GHz5.0 GHz30 MB32 EU @ 1550 MHz55W157W
Intel Core i9-12900HX8+8 / 242.3 GHz5.0 GHz30 MB32 EU @ 1550 MHz55W157W
Intel Core i9-12900HK6+8 / 202.5 GHz5.0 GHz24 MB96 EU @ 1450 MHz45W115W
Intel Core i9-12900H6+8 / 202.5 GHz5.0 GHz24 MB96 EU @ 1450 MHz45W115W
Intel Core i7-12850HX8+4 / 202.1 GHz4.8 GHz25 MB32 EU @ 1450 MHz55W157W
Intel Core i7-12800HX8+4 / 202.0 GHz4.8 GHz25 MB32 EU @ 1450 MHz55W157W
Intel Core i7-12800H6+8 / 202.4 GHz4.8 GHz24 MB96 EU @ 1400 MHz45W115W
Intel Core i7-12700H6+8 / 202.3 GHz4.7 GHz24 MB96 EU @ 1400 MHz45W115W
Intel Core i7-12650HX6+8 / 202.0 GHz4.7 GHz25 MB32 EU @ 1450 MHz55W157W
Intel Core i7-12650H6+4 / 162.3 GHz4.7 GHz24 MB64 EU @ 1400 MHz45W115W
Intel Core i5-12600HX6+4 / 162.5 GHz4.6 GHz20 MB32 EU @ 1350 MHz55W157W
Intel Core i5-12600H4+8 / 162.7 GHz4.5 GHz18 MB80 EU @ 1400 MHz45W95W
Intel Core i5-12500H4+8 / 162.5 GHz4.5 GHz18 MB80 EU @ 1300 MHz45W95W
Intel Core i5-12450HX4+4 / 122.4 GHz4.4 GHz12 MB16 EU @ 1300 MHz55W157W
Intel Core i5-12450H4+4 / 122.0 GHz4.4 GHz12 MB48 EU @ 1200 MHz45W95W
Intel Core i7-1280P6+8 / 201.8 GHz4.8 GHz24 MB96 EU @ 1450 MHz28W64W
Intel Core i7-1270P4+8 / 162.2 GHz4.8 GHz18 MB96 EU @ 1400 MHz28W64W
Intel Core i7-1260P4+8 / 162.1 GHz4.7 GHz18 MB96 EU @ 1400 MHz28W64W
Intel Core i5-1250P4+8 / 161.7 GHz4.4 GHz18 MB80 EU @ 1400 MHz28W64W
Intel Core i5-1240P4+8 / 161.7 GHz4.4 GHz12 MB80 EU @ 1300 MHz28W64W
Intel Core i3-1220P2+8 / 121.5 GHz4.4 GHz12 MB64 EU @ 1100 MHz28W64W

Intel Alder Lake-U Series SKUs

Moving over to the Alder Lake-U lineup, these chips will replace the Intel Tiger Lake-UP4 platform and max out at 10 cores comprising 2 Golden Cove cores and 8 Gracemont cores. The chips will be equipped with up to 96 EU Xe integrated graphics, Thunderbolt 4, WiFi 6E, but PCIe capabilities will still be limited to PCIe Gen 4. As for memory, the laptops featuring Intel Alder Lake-U chips will be available in both LPDDR4X and LPDDR5 flavors.

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The Intel U-series lineup will range from several Core i7, Core i5, Core i3, Pentium, and Celeron parts with the Core i7-1265U taking the charge of the U-series lineup with its 10 cores, up to 4.8 GHz clock speeds, and up to 55W TDP. There's also a more power-tuned variant of each chip & those run-up to 29W max boost power. Intel really has one of the strongest mobile CPU lineups it has ever made for the consumer segment and even AMD's Ryzen 6000 lineup won't be enough to conquer the crown until a more next-gen solution comes out.

Intel Alder Lake-U Laptop CPU Lineup Specs:

CPU NameCores / ThreadsBase ClockBoost ClockCacheGPU ConfigTDPMax Turbo Power
Intel Core i7-1265U2+8 / 121.8 GHz4.8 GHz12 MB96 EU @ 1250 MHz15W55W
Intel Core i7-1255U2+8 / 121.7 GHz4.7 GHz12 MB96 EU @ 1250 MHz15W55W
Intel Core i5-1245U2+8 / 121.6 GHz4.4 GHz12 MB80 EU @ 1200 MHz15W55W
Intel Core i5-1235U2+8 / 121.3 GHz4.4 GHz12 MB80 EU @ 1200 MHz15W55W
Intel Core i3-1215U2+4 / 81.2 GHz4.4 GHz10 MB64 EU @ 1100 MHz15W55W
Pentium 85051+4 / 61.2 GHz4.4 GHz8 MB48 EU @ 1100 MHz15W55W
Celeron G73051+4 / 61.1 GHzN/A8 MB48 EU @ 1100 MHz15W55W
Intel Core i7-1260U2+8 / 121.1 GHz4.7 GHz12 MB96 EU @ 950 MHz9W29W
Intel Core i7-1250U2+8 / 121.1 GHz4.7 GHz12 MB96 EU @ 950 MHz9W29W
Intel Core i5-1240U2+8 / 121.1 GHz4.4 GHz12 MB96 EU @ 900 MHz9W29W
Intel Core i5-1230U2+8 / 121.0 GHz4.4 GHz12 MB96 EU @ 850 MHz9W29W
Intel Core i3-1210U2+8 / 121.0 GHz4.4 GHz10 MB64 EU @ 850 MHz9W29W
Pentium 85001+4 / 61.0 GHz4.4 GHz8 MB48 EU @ 800 MHz9W29W
Celeron 73001+4 / 61.0 GHzN/A8 MB48 EU @ 800 MHz9W29W

About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.

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