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

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?

Benchmark Score
Other Benchmarks
Specifications
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Intel Core i5-12600KF

Price

The cheapest price from our partner retailers

$ 484.10

$ 169.09

$ 315.01 significantly less expensive

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

8226 points

9948 points

20% slightly better overall score

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

8838 points

12699 points

43% significantly better gaming score

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

8007 points

9060 points

13% slightly better multitasking score

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

7938 points

8845 points

11% slightly better heavy workload score

Free CPU Benchmark

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Other Benchmarks

3DMark Physics score

Physics simulation benchmark

8988 points

12% slightly higher 3DMark Physics score

7997 points

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

231.23 points

2% slightly higher Blender score

226.61 points

Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

9381 points

12253 points

30% slightly higher Geekbench 5 (multi) score

Geekbench 5 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

1723 points

2468 points

43% significantly higher Geekbench 5 (single) score

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

9141 points

12301 points

34% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

1778 points

2520 points

41% slightly 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

3.7 GHz

Identical

3.7 GHz

Turbo Speed

Higher frequency used for heavy workloads

5.3 GHz

8% slightly higher turbo speed

4.9 GHz

TDP

Thermal Design Power: Measure of heat generated by the CPU

125 W

20% slightly 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

138th of 1,089

92nd 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

Core i9-10900K vs Core i5-12600KF benchmarks

Our benchmark analysis concludes that the Core i5-12600KF performs better than the Core i9-10900K. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i9-10900K in all gaming tests too.

When comparing these CPUs we notice that they have the same number of cores but the Core i9-10900K has more threads. Both the Core i9-10900K and Core i5-12600KF have the same clock speed. Despite this, the Core i9-10900K has a slightly higher turbo speed. A Core i9-10900K CPU outputs less heat than a Core i5-12600KF CPU because of its slightly 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 i9-10900K has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.