Intel Core i5-12500 vs Intel Core i9-12900K

Core i5-12500 vs Core i9-12900K benchmarks

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i9-12900K performs better than the Core i5-12500. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i5-12500 in all gaming tests too.

With info from our database, we find that the Core i9-12900K has significantly more cores with 16 cores whereas the Core i5-12500 has 6 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i5-12500. A Core i5-12500 CPU outputs less heat than a Core i9-12900K 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 i5-12500 has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.