The Core i3s have been absent a whole generation when it comes to Intel processors, but with the twelfth generation the lower-end CPUs are going to make a comeback. This means that the advantages of the Alder Lake architecture will not only benefit the most demanding segments and as such there will be cheap CPUs for the new platform. Well, now we know what the performance of the new Core i3-12100 is as well as its specifications.
Mounting a gaming computer or i3-based workstation is a lousy idea, however, not everyone who has a computer to work from the office or study uses a high-powered PC. Many times it is their work tool and they cannot afford more powerful hardware and that is where CPUs such as the Core i3 or the AMD Ryzen 3 come in.
The last i3s to be launched correspond to the tenth generation, so they will be the segment that will benefit the most when the successors within the Core 12 range are launched, since we are talking about a jump of two generations. At the moment the i3-12100 is not for sale and we will surely see it appear with a range of motherboards with the more modest chipsets of the Intel 600 series.
Its release date? Early 2022, so after a long time the range of input processors will be on the move again.
I3-12100 Specifications
As we can see in the screenshot above these lines, we are faced with a variant of the Intel Core 12 "H0" that differ from the other models by lacking the E-Cores, but with an additional difference with respect to to the i5 and is that two of the P-Cores cores are inactive leaving 4 cores and 8 threads of execution. By the way, we must also highlight how the L3 cache of the Alder Lake architecture, which serves as LLC and gives coherence to all cores with respect to memory, has one size or another depending on the number of clients, since in comparison with the i5 it has been reduced from 18 to 12 MB.
In the characteristics we have no information about the clock rate basis, however, we know that the TDP in PL1 mode is 60 W and PL2 mode, when the cores are put in Turbo, is 77 W. Extrapolating the data, it appears that the Turbo will be 4.3 GHz, although the base clock speed is unknown at the moment.
This is your performance
If before we had criticized Intel for not supplying the low-end with a new processor, the same happens with AMD, since its Ryzen 3 is still based on Zen 2. And let's not forget that Lisa Su's company has made the decision that any quad-core CPU has to be Zen 2, which at the beginning gives a huge advantage to the i3 CPUs based on Alder Lake architecture such as the i3-12100. In any case, we cannot forget that AMD will launch new low-end CPUs in the coming weeks. So this comparison will be out of date in a short time.
Well, since the CPU is already finished they have decided to test it by mounting it on an ASRock Z690 Steel Legend board, an RTX 3060 Ti and 16 GB DDR-3200 in dual channel and they have compared it with an AMD Ryzen 3 3300X with the Same memory and graphics card configuration, as well as a Ryzen 3 3100, with which it will surely compete on price.
And what have been the results? Well, as expected, the new Intel CPU surpasses the current Ryzen 3 in all benchmarks, in summary:
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In PCMark the i3-12100 achieves 15% better results compared to the more powerful Ryzen 3.
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The second benchmark where it has been put to the test is in Cinebench R23 where this time the differential is 26% in multi-thread and 27% in the single-thread test.
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In V-Ray it scores 1000 points higher than AMD's 3300 X, a rise of 20%.
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Pugetbench is a benchmark benchmark for those who work with Adobe applications on a daily basis. It is where there is the greatest difference with a 50% advantage for the i3-12100.
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In Counter Strike: Global Offensive, the most popular game on Steam right now, Intel's new i3 scores 8.5% more than its rivals from AMD.
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In the benchmark integrated in Cyberpunk 2077, we will see how at 1080P ultra and without active DLSS the three CPUs tie, but it achieves 20 FPS more than the most powerful Ryzen if we activate the DLSS and it is the only CPU to exceed 100 FPS if we also activate the Ray Tracing.
