The Intel Core i3-12300 Review: Quad-Core Alder Lake Shines
by Gavin Bonshor on March 3, 2022 8:30 AM ESTCPU Benchmark Performance: Power, Office, and Science
Our previous set of ‘office’ benchmarks have often been a mix of science and synthetics, so this time we wanted to keep our office section purely on real-world performance.
For the Core i3-12300, we are running DDR5 memory at the following settings:
- DDR5-4800(B) CL40
Power
As expected from a 4C/8T processor, the Core i3-12300 has a lower power draw than the 6C/12T and 8C/16T models.
Office
Compared to previous generations of Intel's architecture, Alder Lake (Core i3-12300) is above everything else in regards to variable/lightly-threaded loads.
Science
In any scenario where AVX-based workloads or in multi-core and multi-threaded applications, the Core i3-12300 lags behind the chips with higher core and thread count.
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Calin - Thursday, March 3, 2022 - link
Last page:"Intel has rated the i3-12300 at base frequencies with a TDP of 60 W and a 69 W TDP when at turbo clock speeds." - the TDP was mentioned in the first page as 89W (basically a tie to the 88W of AMD).
"Due to AMD's Zen architectures, Intel has been on the ropes in both performance and value for a while." - Intel suffered a lot from their inability to improve their lithography, they could have been competitive in cost, performance and power use with better lithography
" One of AMD's most cost-effective processors remains the Ryzen 5 5600X, with six cores, eight threads" - it has 12 threads.
All in all, AMD still make sense in an "upgrade only the processor" scenario - though that could be a niche within a niche. And, apparently, the greatest competition the i3-12300 with DDR5 has is from the i3-12300 with DDR4 (or maybe an i5 with DDR4).
Wereweeb - Thursday, March 3, 2022 - link
Intel's dies are massive and entirely fabbed in Intel 7. They're only competing in cost because Intel is deliberately choosing to sacrifice their famous "Intel margins" to get back into the market.Failing to do that might've meant inactive fabs, and if fabs aren't making money they're losing money (Since new fabs are so expensive and there's a definite time frame where they can recuperate the investments into cutting edge tooling, after which wafer prices will tend to fall)
This is Intel at it's most desperate yet, and I'm loving it.
Calin - Friday, March 4, 2022 - link
Intel still reports very high "Gross Margins". How much other activities (cough OEM bribes cough) eat into this might not be truly evident.As for "Failing to do that might've meant inactive fabs, and if fabs aren't making money they're losing money"...
AMD simply can not produce enough - so if Intel stopped fabrication of those inferior processors (of the last at least couple of years), prices would have exploded.
While I don't condone the US government saving banks involved in the sub-prime mortgage crisis, at this moment at least Intel truly is too big to fail.
Lbibass - Thursday, March 3, 2022 - link
In my opinion, running both of these CPUs with JDEC standard memory is an incredibly stupid idea that makes this review significantly less useful. DDR4 3600cl18 or 3200cl16 are super affordable. DDR5 is not affordable right now, but purchasing DDR5 with similar latencies (timing in terms of ns, not just CAS latency) would result in a much more effective review.TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, March 3, 2022 - link
So where is this ddr5 that has equivalent latency? Also no matter which ddr4 kit is used the peanut gallery will complain it isn’t the RIGHT kitAlB80 - Thursday, March 3, 2022 - link
Imho, running both of these CPUs with XMP profile is an incredibly stupid idea for review.CPU, MB and stick makers give guarantee only for JEDEC profiles.
Wereweeb - Thursday, March 3, 2022 - link
If you mean warranty, how are they going to prove that you were running it with XMP on?AlB80 - Saturday, March 5, 2022 - link
Guarantee of stable operation. XMP is always OC.Also all XMP sticks have very low JEDEC profiles.
Oxford Guy - Sunday, March 6, 2022 - link
If JEDEC’s actual mission is stability, ECC should have been required for many many years now.Oxford Guy - Sunday, March 6, 2022 - link
The Apple Lisa bad ECC. That was 1983 tech. I am less than impressed with jEDEC and its alleged concern with stability.