Intel Core i5-12400 Early Review Dubs it a Game Changer

The upcoming Intel Core i5-12400 processor could be a game changer in the mid-range, according to an early gaming performance review by Igor’s Lab, which landed simulated the chip by disabling the E-cores, and setting the right clock speeds and power values. Based on the smaller H0 silicon of “Alder Lake-S,” which physically only features six “Golden Cove” CPU cores, and no “Gracemont” E-core clusters, the i5-12400 ticks at 2.50 GHz, and 4.40 GHz boost frequency, with 65 W base power, and 117 W maximum turbo power (MTP).

Testing reveals that this MTP value lends the processor some stellar energy-efficiency numbers, and the chip strikes a performance/Watt sweetspot. Igor’s Lab, however, recommends that for the best efficiency, the i5-12400 should be paired with DDR4 memory. In its testing, DDR4-3733 (with Gear 1) was used. Gaming benchmarks put out by Igor’s Lab shows that the Core i5-12400 trades blows with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X “Zen 3” in a number of games, beating it in several of them by virtue of higher IPC of the “Golden Cove” cores, and beating the i7-11700K “Rocket Lake” 8-core/16-thread processor at a fraction of its power-draw. A word of caution, though, is that the i5-12400 was simulated on a C0 silicon, possibly the i9-12900K, and the real i5-12400 die may not have the same refinements or electrical characteristics. Even with the E-core cluster disabled, the L3 cache size isn’t the same (30 MB vs. 18 MB). Catch the review in the source link below.