Intel Core i5-11600KF vs Intel Core i9-12900T

Core i5-11600KF vs Core i9-12900T specs and performance

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i5-11600KF performs better than the Core i9-12900T. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i9-12900T in all gaming tests too.

When comparing core counts for these CPUs, we notice that the Core i9-12900T has significantly more cores with 16 cores compared to the Core i5-11600KF that has 6 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i5-11600KF. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Core i5-11600KF has a significantly higher clock speed compared to the Core i9-12900T. Furthermore, both these CPUs have identical turbo speeds. The Core i9-12900T outputs less heat than Core i5-11600KF thanks to a significantly lower TDP. This measures the amount of heat they output and can be used to estimate power consumption. In terms of cache, the Core i9-12900T has slightly more L2 cache when compared to the Core i5-11600KF. The Core i9-12900T also has significantly more L3 cache.

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 i5-11600KF has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.