Intel Core i5-10600 vs Intel Core i9-12900KF

Compare Intel 10th Generation Core i5 6 core CPU vs Intel 12th Generation Core i9 16 core processor, specs and benchmark score. Which is the better CPU for gaming?

CPU Comparison

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Price

The cheapest price from our partner retailers

$ 289.00
$ 279.99
$ 9.01 slightly less expensive

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

5421 points
12789 points
135% significantly better overall score

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

7561 points
14030 points
85% significantly better gaming score

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

4735 points
12383 points
161% significantly better multitasking score

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

4578 points
12302 points
168% significantly better heavy workload score

Free CPU Benchmark

Want to compare your processor against the Core i5-10600 and the Core i9-12900KF? Download our free and quick PC Performance Test.

Other Benchmarks

Blender score

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

138.09 points
361.08 points
161% significantly higher Blender score
Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

6447 points
14840 points
130% significantly higher Geekbench 5 (multi) score
Geekbench 5 (single) score

Geekbench 5 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

1606 points
2507 points
56% significantly higher Geekbench 5 (single) score
Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

6270 points
14786 points
135% significantly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score
Geekbench 6 (single) score

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

1624 points
2584 points
59% significantly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score

Specifications

Cores

Number of physical processing units

6
16
166% significantly more cores

Threads

Number of logical processing units

12
24
100% significantly more threads

Clock Speed

Base frequency at which the chip operates

3.3 GHz
3% slightly higher clock speed
3.2 GHz

Turbo Speed

Higher frequency used for heavy workloads

4.8 GHz
5.2 GHz
8% slightly higher turbo speed

TDP

Thermal Design Power: Measure of heat generated by the CPU

65 W
270% significantly lower TDP
241 W

PCIe Lanes

Number of physical connections between the CPU and expansion slots

16
20
25% slightly more pcie lanes

Memory Channels

Lanes for simultaneous memory access

2
Identical
2

Supported Memory

Maximum amount of RAM supported by this CPU

128 GiB
Identical
128 GiB

L1 Cache

Smallest embedded memory, but the fastest

384 KiB
1280 KiB
233% significantly more L1 cache

L3 Cache

General memory pool for all cores

12 MiB
30 MiB
150% significantly more L3 cache

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

301st of 1,089
44th of 1,089

Family

The product line

10th Generation Core i5
12th Generation Core i9

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2020 May
2021 November

Memory Type

The type of memory used by this chip

DDR4-2666
DDR5-4800

Is Unlocked

Can this CPU can be overclocked

No
Yes

Supports ECC memory

Does this CPU support error correcting memory

No
-

Core i5-10600 vs Core i9-12900KF specs and performance

According to the hardwareDB Benchmark tool, the Core i9-12900KF is faster than the Core i5-10600. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i5-10600 in all gaming tests too.

When comparing core counts for these CPUs, we notice that the Core i9-12900KF has significantly more cores with 16 cores compared to the Core i5-10600 that has 6 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i5-10600. With our hardware info, we find that the Core i5-10600 has a slightly higher clock speed than the Core i9-12900KF. Despite this, the Core i9-12900KF has a slightly higher turbo speed. A Core i5-10600 CPU outputs less heat than a Core i9-12900KF CPU because of its significantly lower TDP. This measures the amount of heat they output and can be used to estimate power consumption.

Most CPUs have more threads than cores. This technology, colloquially called hyperthreading, improves performance by splitting a core into multiple virtual ones. This provides more efficient utilisation of a core. Indeed, the Core i5-10600 has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.

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