Intel Core i7-4790K vs Intel Core i9-12900KS

Core i7-4790K vs Core i9-12900KS specs and performance

According to the hardwareDB Benchmark tool, the Core i9-12900KS is faster than the Core i7-4790K. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i7-4790K in all gaming tests too.

With info from our database, we find that the Core i9-12900KS has significantly more cores with 16 cores whereas the Core i7-4790K has 4 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i7-4790K. Our comparison shows that the Core i7-4790K has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i9-12900KS. Despite this, the Core i9-12900KS has a slightly higher turbo speed. A Core i7-4790K CPU outputs less heat than a Core i9-12900KS 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 i7-4790K has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.