Last week, Intel’s 12th generation Alder Lake CPU lineup officially hit the store shelves, with the Core i9-12900K spearheading the charge. But while all the CPUs announced were unlocked and overclockable, there was no mention or information about a non-K version of an Alder Lake CPU, up until recently.
Thanks to the French tech publication, Comptoir Hardware, the entity managed to get its hands on an unreleased Alder CPU, the Core i5-12400F. First mentioned in a leak from MSI, it is a 6-core, 12-thread processor that reportedly uses six Golden Cove cores and no Gracemont cores, but is still based on the Intel 7 process node. The CPU sample, bearing the code QYHX, suggests that Comptoir Hardware’s unit could simply be an engineering sample and that, in turn, means that the final product could turn out different.
Another screenshot via CPU-Z points to the 12400F having a TDP or as Intel calls it, Base Frequency Power (BFP), of 65W; nearly half of the power required by Intel’s six unlocked CPUs. Additionally, the CPU looks like it could have a boost clock of 4.4GHz on a single core and after reaching the Tau – that’s the period a CPU is able to maintain the PL2 state, it drops down to 3.4GHz. In terms of performance, Comptoir Hardware’s findings suggest that the non-K CPU is just slightly faster than AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600X, particularly in gaming.
According to review
12400F with DDR5 and Z690 (4.4 GHz boost , 4 Ghz all core)
Is slightly faster than 5600X in gaming (1%, on 11 gaming)
Slightly slower in application (2% on 16 application)
Same power usage
But need Z690 and DDR5— La Frite David Sauce Ketchup (@davideneco25320) November 5, 2021
At the time of writing, there is still no word as to when the Core i5-12400F will be available, although once again, considering that Intel just launched its top-of-the-range CPUs, we could be looking at an early 2022 release for the non-overclockable CPU.
(Source: Comptoir Hardware, La Frite David)
