Intel has confirmed that it will release its new flagship Core i9 12900KS during its CES 2022 presentation. We recently reported on its likely introduction, based on Intel’s teaser tweet, and now it’s confirmed.
12900KS is capable of boosting up to 5.5 GHz on a single P-core and up to 5.2 GHz on all P-cores. Intel stated that it can maintain 5GHz boost clocks in the long run, which is quite impressive and shows that Intel’s production is really underway.
The chip was shown running Hitman 3 along with the HWiNFO monitoring tool. It shows all eight P-cores running at the advertised 5.2 GHz, and the eight E-cores running at 4.0 GHz, a small 100MHz bump above 12900K. The 12900K is already an excellent gaming processor, and once DDR5 stocks stabilize, we are confident that affluent gamers will search for them for their high-end rigs.
However, the 12900KS may have a challenger. It will have to contend with AMD’s Ryzen X3D CPUs with their stacked L3 cache. The 12900KS is likely Intel’s hold-my-beer response to combat AMD’s claims that the upcoming 5800X3D can match or beat the 12900K.
The 12900KS is not Intel’s first high bin chip, though they have tended to be limited editions. We saw the 40th anniversary Core i7 8086K in 2018, followed by the i9 9900KS at the end of 2019. There were none released in the 10th and 11th generations. As 13th generation CPUs look like a proposal by the end of 2022, Intel may choose to continue production in the longer term to ward off the threat from AMD’s X3D CPUs.
Information, including availability and prices, was not disclosed. AMD’s X3D chips are coming this spring (autumn for those at the bottom of the world), so it’s safe to say that Intel will have the stocks ready by that time. In addition, Intel did not mention the type of cooling it used during its demonstration. Considering that a 12900K can throttle without advanced cooling, it is likely that you will use 360 mm AIO cooling, if not custom water, to get the best out of it.
We stay on top of 12900KS news and we hope we have a sample to review over time.
