Intel - Core i9-12900K Desktop Processor 16 (8P+8E) Cores up to 5.2 GHz Unlocked LGA1700 600 Series Chipset 125W - Grey/Black/Gold

Best single thread performance, bar none. Competitive multi-core performance. Competitively priced. Performs well in games and everything else too. Only thing tasks where it's slower than the competition is in long multi-threaded runs, but even then it's about 5-10% at most deficit, which is not much compared to the 20% lead in everything else. I myself went from a Zen2 based Ryzen Threadripper 3960X to this CPU, which is a multi-thread downgrade of about 25% but a single thread upgrade by 50+%. Even more in apps where Zen architecture was holding back performance. Most drastic use case was StarCraft II minimum FPS went from ~45 FPS to ~150 FPS and averages went from ~90 FPS to ~350 FPS all using the same GPU, RTX 3090.

The i9 12900K represents Intel’s return to top notch gaming performance but also fires back at AMD in multi-threaded tasks and applications. Intel used a hybrid approach of 8 high performance (8P) and 8 efficiency (8E) cores instead of trying to catch up with AMD’s 12 and 16 performance cores. For most people gaming with high end GPUs beyond 1080p, you won’t see much if any difference compared to AMD or even recent Intel chips in games, but it is interesting to see Intel pushing higher FPS in CPU limited situations. Beyond Intel’s return to competitiveness with Ryzen, LGA1700 and the Z690 chipset bring some of the biggest platform upgrades we’ve seen in nearly a decade. DDR5, PCIE5.0, WiFi 6E, 2.5/5/10gbe NIC options, 3-5 m.2 SSD slots, and Thunderbolt 4.0 connections are all commonplace on these boards. While not all of these are super useful today, this platform is built to last. For me the Nvme slots for Direct Storage in newer games is going to be a game changer for load times and streaming textures in open world games. WiFi 6E will also give you higher than gigabit speeds if your internet supports it. One important thing to note is you will need Windows 11 to maximize the performance of this CPU as the Windows task scheduler will help determine which core to run each thread on depending on the application or service. I was lucky to get this CPU on launch day around 11:30am EST from Bestbuy who had the best price I’ve seen on it. They delivered it today next day and I’ll be building my system Sunday when my ROG Max Hero arrives. DDR5 memory is hard to come by and none of the faster kits seem to be available yet. Still, I’m excited to pair up my 3090 with this new rig. The 12900K has the coolest packaging I’ve seen yet on a CPU, and while I don’t need the onboard GPU, I bought the K just for that fake silicon wafer packaging. :)

OMG this thing is fast, I have some extremely fast machines in my arsenals an this one is the fastest. It outperforms my dual Xeon machine hands down in almost every way. I've got mine hooked up with a RTX 3090 as well and in gaming it's blowing every game out of the water. I use it for work building virtual machines regularly for deployment onto servers an this paired with 4x Samsung 980Pro's in Raid0 is the definition of fast, Read Write hovering around 28GBps, yes you read that correct, GigaBytes Per Second. My local storage on this beast is around the same speed as most people's ramdisk. I also have a full 10G network connected to it an it breezes through any remote task I throw at it. Also water cooled it as it does get a tad toasty an it doesn't come with a stock cooler so if your gonna buy this thing keep that in mind.

It's hard for me to decide who I could recommend this to. To put it simply, this CPU is an absolute savage. It's insanely fast, literary crashes everything, but by doing so, it likes to suck a lot of power and push out a lot of heat. Now it is that bad? As bad as some people say the heat and power consumption is? Not at all! Here is what a lot of reviewers don't tell you. While this top of the line i9 12900K can demand a lot of power from your system, it only does that on very intense loads. In normal day-to-day operation, it's actually very energy efficient. In my normal daily use, it uses around 45W on average, with up to 60W spikes from time to time. A bit more in games. Not a big deal. With the temperatures, you have to be a bit more mindful. As long as you have a very good cooler, you don't have to worry about it, but it doesn't have to be anything extreme either. I use a Corsair H100i Caperlix 240mm. A lot of people say 240 is not enough, but it's been fine, and I have my fans set on silent. With regular use it operated at around 40-50C, on idle hovers around 30C, in games it's around 65-75C, and in heavier loads, like video encoding, it reached around 80-85C. The only time I can get it to 99C is in a multicore Cinebench R23 benchmark, about halfway through. If never reached 100C and never throttled on me. I'm fine with that. So do you need this CPU? Well, I still think for the most people, the i7 12700K is more than enough. You would get an almost identical performance for a much lower price, plus lower temps. If you're like me however, and just want the top of the line in your system, this i9 is a monster. One of the quickest out there, period. The best gaming processor, period. Definitely gives you some bragging rights and your friends will be jealous, no questions about it. Plus the box will look very cool on your shelf. So just decide, are you a sensible person who wants a great performance at a great price? Then the 12700K is the one for you. Or, are you a geek with too much money burning a whole in your pocket? Then get the 12900K, and you will not be disappointed! Good luck friends.

Works great, and it is fast! It was also a lot cheaper than the other brands!