Intel Core i7-6700 vs Intel Core i7-12700

Compare Intel 6th Generation Core i7 4 core CPU vs Intel 12th Generation Core i7 12 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

$ 122.39
$ 195.85 significantly less expensive
$ 318.24

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

3117 points
10390 points
233% significantly better overall score

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

4991 points
12574 points
151% significantly better gaming score

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

2559 points
9694 points
278% significantly better multitasking score

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

2457 points
9533 points
287% significantly better heavy workload score

Free CPU Benchmark

Want to compare your processor against the Core i7-6700 and the Core i7-12700? Download our free and quick PC Performance Test.

Other Benchmarks

3DMark Physics score

3DMark Physics score

Physics simulation benchmark

2828 points
9515 points
236% significantly higher 3DMark Physics score
Blender score

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

69.31 points
259.30 points
274% significantly higher Blender score
Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

4052 points
9492 points
134% significantly higher Geekbench 5 (multi) score
Geekbench 5 (single) score

Geekbench 5 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

1252 points
1788 points
42% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (single) score
Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

4207 points
10978 points
160% significantly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score
Geekbench 6 (single) score

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

1320 points
2375 points
79% significantly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score

Specifications

Cores

Number of physical processing units

4
12
200% significantly more cores

Threads

Number of logical processing units

8
20
150% significantly more threads

Clock Speed

Base frequency at which the chip operates

3.4 GHz
3% slightly higher clock speed
3.3 GHz

Turbo Speed

Higher frequency used for heavy workloads

4 GHz
4.9 GHz
22% slightly higher turbo speed

TDP

Thermal Design Power: Measure of heat generated by the CPU

65 W
Identical
65 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

64 GiB
128 GiB
100% significantly more supported memory

L1 Cache

Smallest embedded memory, but the fastest

256 KiB
960 KiB
274% significantly more L1 cache

L3 Cache

General memory pool for all cores

8 MiB
25 MiB
212% significantly more L3 cache

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

523rd of 1,089
78th of 1,089

Family

The product line

6th Generation Core i7
12th Generation Core i7

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2015 August
2022 February

Memory Type

The type of memory used by this chip

DDR4-1866
DDR5-4800

Is Unlocked

Can this CPU can be overclocked

No
No

Supports ECC memory

Does this CPU support error correcting memory

No
Yes

Core i7-6700 vs Core i7-12700 comparison

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i7-12700 performs better than the Core i7-6700. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i7-6700 in all gaming tests too.

With info from our database, we find that the Core i7-12700 has significantly more cores with 12 cores whereas the Core i7-6700 has 4 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i7-6700. These CPUs have different clock speeds. Indeed, the Core i7-6700 has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i7-12700. Despite this, the Core i7-12700 has a slightly higher turbo speed. Both these chips have an identical TDP (Thermal Design Power). This measures the amount of heat they output and can be used to estimate power consumption.

Modern CPUs generally have more logical cores than physical cores, this means that each core is split into multiple virtual cores, improving efficiency for parallel workloads. Indeed, the Core i7-6700 has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.

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