Intel Core i3-12100 and i3-12300 “Alder Lake” Quad-Core Chips Tested

Intel’s upcoming Core i3-12100 and i3-12300 quad-core processors that form the value-end of the 12th Gen Core “Alder Lake-S” desktop processor family, pack an incredible mix of performance for their segment, which puts them ahead of six-core parts from the previous-generation, according to performance testing on the ChipHell forums. The two chips are based on the “H0” silicon, and feature four “Golden Cove” P-cores with HyperThreading enabled; no E-cores, and 12 MB of shared L3 cache. From what we can tell, the i3-12100 and i3-12300 are segment only by a 100 MHz maximum boost frequency value, and possibly at the iGPU-level.

Among the tests run by ChipHell are Cinebench R20, Cinebench R23, CPU-Z bench, CS:GO; and power/thermal testing using AIDA64. Right off the bat, we see the two chips flex their high IPC in the CPU-Z bench, scoring 687 points (i3-12100), and 702.5 points (i3-12300). An AMD “Zen 3” based quad-core chip, such as the OEM-only Ryzen 3 PRO 5350G, should score roughly 620 points, while the slowest “Rocket Lake” part, the i5-11400, only does 566 points. The multi-threaded test sees scores ranging between 3407 to 3482 points for the two.

CB R20 and R23 see the i3-12100 and i3-12300 top the performance charts in comparison to the Ryzen 3 5350G, posting 21-25% higher single-threaded scores in CB R20; and 22-25% in CB R23 single-thread. Both chips offer proportionately high multi-threaded performance compared to the 5350G. The i3-12300 ends up 17% slower in multi-threaded CB R23 than the six-core i5-11400, and 28% slower than the 5600G. Find these results and more, in the source links below.