Customer Ratings & Reviews

Stumbled upon Best buy when just searching for what processors were new so I could upgrade from an i7 7700k, and it just happened to be the day after these bad boys came out! Got to me super fast and now that I've received it I never have to slow down in any aspect of my life. Definitely blown away and happy that I scored one before they sold out!

Great CPU for gaming, even in December 2024. I bought this in June of 2021 for a water cooled PC I was building and it is the best gaming PC I have ever owned. By far the most reliable CPU I have used. I am a photographer by day and a gamer by night and I use the same PC for everything. I for my photos I use photoshop, Lightroom, and auto stacker (to stack 200+ lunar exposures from telescope images) and I game AAA titles. This CPU handles it all like a champ. I have it cooled with a ThermalTake 480 AIO water cooler and MX-6 paste and it stays ice cold day and night. I do a thermal paste swap annually just to be safe but have no issues for 3 or so years now.

For the first time in my long history of building computers (over 15 years) I decided to be brave and jump on a new platform right after launch. While I didn't get a DDR5 motherboard to pair this with as I don't feel like spending stupid amounts for a very iffy increase in performance, I think this is truly a massive step forward by Intel. For the first time in a long time, we have a good ol' processor war going on between AMD and Intel. I came from a 3700X and my Cinebench R23 scores nearly doubled. I saw a decent increase in FPS in some CPU limited games. I don't do any real production work so I can't speak to that aspect but, I am sure this chip is sufficient for whatever you may throw at it. To be honest, for gaming this thing is a lot of overkill. I would have just rolled with the 12600K but, I managed to get this for a good deal on a sale. Now for the elephant in the room. This thing is powerful but, it is power hungry as well. Running synthetic benchmarks this CPU will pull easily over 230W. Make sure you are running a 240mm+ AIO or a very good air cooler to keep it cool if you plan on hitting it on all cores. Power efficient under max load this chip is not. Gaming loads are much more reasonable. I was seeing less than half of that wattage playing Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 4. It is an excellent time to be a PC enthusiast (chip shortage and GPU pricing not withstanding). Alder Lake is what Intel need after a pathetic showing with Rocket Lake. I am a life long AMD guy and here I am with a 12700K now. Your move AMD.

Trust me you do not need an i9-12900K (well I wish I could afford one). This CPU is a beast and can be overclocked. I have an MSI Z690-A mother board, basic stuff so the CPU is not at its full potential. It runs games such as DCS and flight simulator smoothly with no crashes. At idle, it runs at about 28°C-32°C with 3 radiator fans at 10% running. Overall a wonderful CPU especially while on sale You have to get a 12700K

I have always had an affinity for AMD over Intel, and with the last several years being really good to AMD I was planning to continue building with their CPUs. However, I found myself needing a system now and not able to wait for their new AM5 chipset to come out, and I definitely did not want to buy an AM4 setup when it is on its last run. Intel has been doing really well with these Alder Lake CPUs and the fact that it supports DDR5 and newer standards was a better prospect. I have to say I am VERY glad I went Intel on this build. The single-core performance and general responsiveness in most applications is noticeably better than some of the high end AMD builds I have seen. My boot time improved quite a bit, too, which surprised me. I run it with a Mini-ITX board in a tiny case (Lian Li Dan A4-H20) so it is bound to get a bit hot, but nothing outrageous. Overall the performance is excellent and the price is really good comparing to higher end AMD CPUs at the moment. I DID still give AMD some love by going with a 6950 XT instead of a higher end Nvidia GPU, which was also a great call after years of Nvidia, for what it's worth :) This is a great time to go Intel and there is nothing to be disappointed about with this chip! Full build specs: Lian Li Dan A4-H20 case Intel Core i7-12700K NZXT Kraken X53 240mm AIO MSI MEG Z690I Unify 32GB Kingston Fury Beast DDR5 @ 5600Mhz CL40 PowerColor Radeon 6950 XT Red Devil Silverstone SX1000 - 1000W 80+ Platinum SFX-L PSU

Wow. So I replaced a Ryzen 5900X with this and for the most part the performance was equivalent if not a little better with this CPU for nearly $200 less than the 5900X. I paired it up with a MSI Tomahawk Z690 DDR4 board and the total platform cost was nearly the same at what I spent on the Ryzen side (granted the Ryzen motherboard was a premium board where was the Intel board was a midrange board). I was worried about cooling since these things run hotter than Ryzen. Utilizing a 280mm Arctic Liquid Freezer II I only hade one core hit 100 in a 20 minute stress test. Everything else stayed in the high 80s. Under normal circumstances and gaming sessions I will sometimes hit the mid 80s which is acceptable/normal for Intel. Since the socket is fairly new be sure to check whatever cooler you getting has a LGA 1700 bracket. The only downside for this chip is that for productivity work, if you're a software developer, you're going to want more cores if you're running a lot of background services or are going to do a lot virtualization. The architecture here really is not conducive to that. Other than that specific use case though, I can't think of a reason to go with this CPU.

I was originally going to buy a Ryzen CPU (specifically the 5900x), and wasn't even considering Intel since their chips were very clearly inferior... until I started reading about the the new 12000 series chips. Intel finally, after like two years, started innovating again and was going to release chips that were better than AMDs offerings. I'll be honest, I was still a bit hesitant since these chips use a new architecture where some of the cores are slower than the rest (these are called efficiency cores), which kinda sounds a bit sus. Turns out this method is better because those cores handle all the stuff you don't need a lot of muscle for, like browsing the web and watching YouTube, which means less power is consumed and the cores you really need are still there waiting to be used. As far as gaming goes, this CPU has been excellent. Paired with a 3090 it handles everything perfectly, with zero stutters and zero issues. It also runs significantly cooler than my previous CPU (9900k), which is pretty great. Amazing CPU.

I upgraded from a I7-9700k and the performance difference was immense. Games now run at 30-40% CPU usage with very manageable temperatures. This is a much better value and more practical for most users than the I9-12900k at $200 more.

Had for almost 2 years now, and has run flawlessly. Run all my games. Even though it’s technology is a few years old now, it still competes just as great as most other new-gen CPUs on the market that I’ve used today, and this one comes at a much better price.

I always buy the 7 series chip and always buy the k version. This chip has proven to be very stable and fast at every task I throw at it. Have over clocked to 5.2 stable for teating purposes. At the standard boost clocks she hit 4.9 on most instances. Awsome chip and making me really want to try the I9-12900K

The processor is cool and efficient. Using simple air cooling with a Noctua DH-15 (a very large air cooler, I know), temperatures tend to stay in the 40s, maybe low 50s under very heavy load at most. The CPU has done everything I've asked of it without issue and without the need to overclock it. The only real downside is that it's a new form factor, so compatible motherboards are fewer and therefore more expensive. Also, be sure that your cooler has the necessary parts to fit this new form factor. If not, you may have to purchase a conversion kit for your cooler to ensure that it fits properly.

Runs great can handle a 4070ti with ease 10/10 would recommend

First Best Buy rocks for only marking this up $10 over MSRP, other retailers started at $450 and $470 and they were big name places, just shady (but they still sold out). I also got my 10% birthday discount so I was even happier with bestbuy for allowing that on a pre-order. For the chip, I have it with a MSI DDR5 board and memory and its amazing how much better it performs compared to my i7 9700k. I actually had a cpu bottleneck on some games (rtx 3080 ti). mobo, ram, cpu, gpu are all hard to find but if you can, these build awesome systems. I know I overpaid for my gpu ($500 markup over msrp) and DDR will crash in price soon but I don't like waiting to enjoy things in life.

the CPU works great and is super fast. i didn't really want to pay for the latest and greatest, mainly because i have found that a 10% increase can add 50% to the price of the CPU. one thing to watch out for, there is no cooling fan in this package, so you have to buy one. you can get the CPU with a fan, but it's a different part number. personally, even though it cost more to buy the fan separately, i believe the Noctua cooler i got will work much better than anything Intel provides.

Fast, reliable, and runs cool for the performance needed while being relatively cheap definitely a must buy.

If your looking for a good cpu for very high end GAMING then you have found it. there will be no bottlenecks here. i am using this with the 4080 and i am having a great experience. way faster than my old I-5

Powerhouse of a CPU that can handle anything you throw at it. Whether it be gaming, transcoding media, or editing photo/video this CPU doesn't break a sweat. Paired with an adequate cooler this CPU never has any issue keeping up with a modern gaming system.

Great cpu. Great preformemce and price. Great for gaming.

Finally upgraded from an i5-2500K that was getting a bit long in the tooth with today's AAA gaming titles. The Alder Lake i7-12700K, paired with Nvidia's 3080ti, more than doubles the frame rate with ease, while staying below 60c via Noctua cooling. For sure this processor is insanely fast, and future be told it will maintain the same strong running Sandy Bridge attained. Verdict ... buy this Intel beast right here, right now.

I think this might be the best value CPU from Intel right now for gaming. It is at least the better value compared to the I9-12900k as it delivers comparable performance at $200 less and doesn't heat up as much as the i9 CPU. I'm cooling my i7-12700K with the Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black and have paired this CPU with an Nvidia RTX 3070 FE. This combination is fantastic and I highly recommend this CPU.