Intel Core i9-10900 vs Intel Core i5-12600K

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

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Other Benchmarks
Specifications
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Intel Core i5-12600K

Price

The cheapest price from our partner retailers

$ 390.77

$ 184.46

$ 206.31 significantly less expensive

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

7582 points

9422 points

24% slightly better overall score

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

8692 points

12057 points

38% slightly better gaming score

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

7207 points

8581 points

19% slightly better multitasking score

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

7099 points

8381 points

18% slightly better heavy workload score

Free CPU Benchmark

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Other Benchmarks

3DMark Physics score

Physics simulation benchmark

12127 points

51% significantly higher 3DMark Physics score

8019 points

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

164.66 points

233.94 points

42% slightly higher Blender score

Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

7743 points

11486 points

48% significantly higher Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Geekbench 5 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

1567 points

2357 points

50% significantly higher Geekbench 5 (single) score

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

8309 points

11863 points

42% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

1714 points

2478 points

44% significantly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score

Specifications

Cores

Number of physical processing units

Identical

Threads

Number of logical processing units

25% slightly more threads

Clock Speed

Base frequency at which the chip operates

2.8 GHz

3.7 GHz

32% slightly higher clock speed

Turbo Speed

Higher frequency used for heavy workloads

5.2 GHz

6% slightly higher turbo speed

4.9 GHz

TDP

Thermal Design Power: Measure of heat generated by the CPU

65 W

130% significantly lower TDP

150 W

PCIe Lanes

Number of physical connections between the CPU and expansion slots

25% slightly more pcie lanes

Memory Channels

Lanes for simultaneous memory access

Identical

Supported Memory

Maximum amount of RAM supported by this CPU

128 GiB

Identical

128 GiB

L1 Cache

Smallest embedded memory, but the fastest

640 KiB

800 KiB

25% slightly more L1 cache

L3 Cache

General memory pool for all cores

20 MiB

Identical

20 MiB

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

163rd of 1,089

102nd of 1,089

Family

The product line

10th Generation Core i9

12th Generation Core i5

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2020 May

2021 November

Memory Type

The type of memory used by this chip

DDR4-2933

DDR5-4800

Is Unlocked

Can this CPU can be overclocked

Yes

Supports ECC memory

Does this CPU support error correcting memory

Yes

Core i9-10900 vs Core i5-12600K benchmarks

According to the hardwareDB Benchmark tool, the Core i5-12600K is faster than the Core i9-10900. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i9-10900 in all gaming tests too.

Our spec comparison shows that they have an identical amount of cores but the Core i9-10900 has more threads. With our hardware info, we find that the Core i5-12600K has a slightly higher clock speed than the Core i9-10900. Despite this, the Core i9-10900 has a slightly higher turbo speed. A Core i9-10900 CPU outputs less heat than a Core i5-12600K CPU because of its significantly lower TDP. 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 i9-10900 has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.