Intel Core i9-12950HX vs Intel Core i5-12600HX

Core i9-12950HX vs Core i5-12600HX benchmarks

In our benchmarks, the Core i9-12950HX beats the Core i5-12600HX in overall performance. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i5-12600HX in all gaming tests too.

When comparing core counts for these CPUs, we notice that the Core i9-12950HX has slightly more cores with 16 cores compared to the Core i5-12600HX that has 12 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i5-12600HX. With our hardware info, we find that the Core i5-12600HX has a slightly higher clock speed than the Core i9-12950HX. Despite this, the Core i9-12950HX 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. In terms of cache, the Core i9-12950HX has significantly more L2 cache when compared to the Core i5-12600HX. The Core i9-12950HX also has significantly more L3 cache.

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 i9-12950HX has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.