Intel Core i9-7980XE vs Intel Core i9-12900F

Compare Intel Core X-series 18 core CPU vs Intel 12th Generation Core i9 16 core processor, specs and benchmark score. Which is the better CPU for gaming?

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Price

The cheapest price from our partner retailers

$ 699.00
$ 528.31
$ 170.69 significantly less expensive

Benchmark Score

Overall Score

A combined score of all workloads

10174 points
10606 points
4% slightly better overall score

Gaming Score

The raw gaming performance with a fast GPU

8591 points
12487 points
45% significantly better gaming score

Multitasking Score

Performance in workloads using up to 8 cores

10736 points
7% slightly better multitasking score
10032 points

Heavy Workload Score

Performance in workloads using up to 16 cores

10962 points
10% slightly better heavy workload score
9936 points

Free CPU Benchmark

Want to compare your processor against the Core i9-7980XE and the Core i9-12900F? Download our free and quick PC Performance Test.

Other Benchmarks

3DMark Physics score

3DMark Physics score

Physics simulation benchmark

11651 points
6% slightly higher 3DMark Physics score
10914 points
Blender score

Blender score

Cycles Render (Samples per minute)

376.16 points
27% slightly higher Blender score
293.98 points
Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Geekbench 6 (multi) score

Multi threaded benchmark

11124 points
13858 points
24% slightly higher Geekbench 6 (multi) score
Geekbench 6 (single) score

Geekbench 6 (single) score

Single threaded benchmark

1428 points
2526 points
76% significantly higher Geekbench 6 (single) score

Specifications

Cores

Number of physical processing units

18
12% slightly more cores
16

Threads

Number of logical processing units

36
49% significantly more threads
24

Clock Speed

Base frequency at which the chip operates

2.6 GHz
8% slightly higher clock speed
2.4 GHz

Turbo Speed

Higher frequency used for heavy workloads

4.2 GHz
5.1 GHz
21% slightly higher turbo speed

TDP

Thermal Design Power: Measure of heat generated by the CPU

165 W
65 W
153% significantly lower TDP

PCIe Lanes

Number of physical connections between the CPU and expansion slots

44
120% significantly more pcie lanes
20

Memory Channels

Lanes for simultaneous memory access

4
100% significantly more memory channels
2

Supported Memory

Maximum amount of RAM supported by this CPU

128 GiB
Identical
128 GiB

L1 Cache

Smallest embedded memory, but the fastest

1152 KiB
1280 KiB
11% slightly more L1 cache

L3 Cache

General memory pool for all cores

75 MiB
150% significantly more L3 cache
30 MiB

Other details

Rank

Ranking in the hardwareDB database

84th of 1,089
76th of 1,089

Family

The product line

Core X-series
12th Generation Core i9

Release date

The official date of release of this chip

2017 August
2022 February

Memory Type

The type of memory used by this chip

DDR4-2666
DDR5-4800

Is Unlocked

Can this CPU can be overclocked

Yes
Yes

Supports ECC memory

Does this CPU support error correcting memory

No
-

Core i9-7980XE vs Core i9-12900F comparison

According to the hardwareDB Benchmark tool, the Core i9-12900F is faster than the Core i9-7980XE. Furthermore, our gaming benchmark shows that it also outperforms the Core i9-7980XE in all gaming tests too.

With info from our database, we find that the Core i9-7980XE has slightly more cores with 18 cores whereas the Core i9-12900F has 16 cores. It also has more threads than the Core i9-12900F. Our comparison shows that the Core i9-7980XE has a slightly higher clock speed compared to the Core i9-12900F. Despite this, the Core i9-12900F has a slightly higher turbo speed. The Core i9-12900F outputs less heat than Core i9-7980XE thanks to a 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 i9-7980XE has more threads than cores. Each physical core is split into multiple threads.

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