HIGHLIGHTS
- The top-tier Core i9-12950HX features 16 heterogeneous cores and supports PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 with ECC and XMP switching.
- Various OEMs will shortly launch laptops featuring HX series CPUs.
Intel has introduced a new 55W tier in its 12th Generation 'Alder Lake' laptop CPU range. The HX series of seven new CPU variants are essentially desktop-class Alder Lake CPUs repackaged to fit inside laptops. With a suitable cooling system, the nominal TDP of 55W may be increased to 157W. These CPUs, which were unveiled today at Intel's Vision technology conference, will target a new class of high-end gaming and workstation laptops. These CPUs are unsuitable for the thin-and-light category, since they include up to 16 heterogeneous cores, PCIe 5.0, overclocking capabilities, and high-speed connections.
The top-tier Core i9-12950HX processor includes eight performance cores with Hyper-Threading and eight efficiency cores for a total of 24 threads. The P cores have a Turbo Boost frequency of 5GHz. Total cache memory is 30MB. This variant includes Intel's vPro management technology but is otherwise equivalent to the Core i9-12900HX seen in consumer or gaming laptops. Lower in the stack, there are three Core i7 variants and two Core i5 models.
The Alder Lake H series has more cores and a higher TDP limit, however certain versions have slightly lower clock rates and less capable integrated GPUs. DDR5 and DDR4 memory are supported, but only with optional error correction and XMP profile switching.
The business claims that it outperforms AMD's current top-end Ryzen 6000 series and Apple's M1 Max SoC in professional and media transcoding workloads.
Intel's Thread Director function works in tandem with Windows 11 to assist allocate workloads to the best available core or thread. Laptop OEMs can connect a discrete GPU to the 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes, while extra PCIe 4.0 lanes can connect up to four NVMe SSDs. There's also Wi-Fi 6E and Thunderbolt as an option.
