Intel has now officially announced the 12th generation Alder Lake HX processors. Alder Lake-HX will feature the same principle as Intel’s other Alder Lake product lines. The Golden Cove cores and the Gracemont cores are combined to give Alder Lake-HX a hybrid design. Intel’s mobile Alder Lake-H processors reach a maximum of 14 cores (6 P and 8 E cores) and 20 threads, Alder Lake-HX is the last addition of the 12th generation and offers up to 16 cores (8 P and 8 E cores) and 24 threads.
The Alder Lake HX is supposed to deliver desktop-class performance for mobile devices, according to the marketing. However, more cores result in higher power consumption. While Alder Lake-H has a processor base power (PBP) value of 45W, Alder Lake-HX is 10W higher, bringing the new chips to 55W. However, the MTP (max turbo power) for Alder Lake-HX is unknown. The peak power of the Alder Lake-H chips is 115W.
Alder Lake-HX will compete with AMD’s recently announced 6nm Ryzen 6000 (Rembrandt) processors, which feature Zen 3+ cores and RDNA 2 graphics. Intel’s Gracemont efficiency cores complement the core count of the Alder Lake-HX and make it look impressive on paper, while the Ryzen 6000 has up to eight full-fledged Zen 3+ cores. Inexperienced consumers might fall for the Alder Lake-HX’s high core count, as the chips appear to have twice the cores of the Ryzen 6000, but we’ll have to wait for a thorough test before we can judge who’s faster.
The Core i9-12900HX is the flagship model of the Alder Lake HX series. It has 16 cores and 24 threads with base and boost clock speeds of up to 2.3 GHz and 5 GHz, respectively. The Core i9-12950HX is the vPro version and will have similar clock speeds.
Although the Core i9-12900HX boasts a total of 16 cores, only eight of these are the powerful Golden Cove cores. If we disregard the Gracemont cores, the Core i9-12900HX also only has eight cores, just like the Ryzen 9 6980HX. Both chips have the same 5GHz boost clock, but the Ryzen 9 6980HX has a 1GHz higher base clock, but only on paper, which doesn’t mean anything.
Looking at the specs, it’s clear that Intel had to cut some base clock speeds and increase the PBP for Alder Lake-HX. For example, the Core i9-12900HX has two more cores than the Core i9-12900H, and while both processors share the same 5GHz boost clock, the Core i9-12900H has a higher base clock.
The Core i7-12800HX received similar treatment. The chip has two more cores than the Core i7-12800H, but its base clock is higher. Finally, the Core i5-12600HX seems to be the oddball among the chips. It features the same 12-core, 16-thread configuration as the Core i5-12600H, but has a 200MHz lower base clock and a 100MHz higher boost clock.
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