Intel Core i9-12900KS 3.4GHz 8x P-Cores 8x E-Cores LGA1700

Description

Alder Lake’s Finest Silicon

The i9-12900KS is Intel’s Special Edition bin-sorted variant of the 12900K, featuring the same 16-core Alder Lake design — 8 Golden Cove P-cores and 8 Gracemont E-cores — but with clock speeds pushed to 5.5 GHz via Thermal Velocity Boost, a 300 MHz improvement over the standard 12900K. This was the first desktop processor to reach 5.5 GHz out of the box, and the first generation to implement Intel’s performance hybrid architecture on the desktop — combining high-IPC P-cores for demanding, latency-sensitive tasks with E-cores for background workloads and multitasking. Intel Thread Director is embedded in silicon, dynamically directing workloads to the correct core type in real time without user intervention.

Boost Technologies and Overclocking

The i9-12900KS carries Turbo Boost 2.0, Turbo Boost Max 3.0 targeting the two best P-cores at 5.3 GHz, Thermal Velocity Boost pushing the single-core peak to 5.5 GHz, and Adaptive Boost for opportunistic all-core frequency gains. The unlocked multiplier enables overclocking with Z690 chipset motherboards — separate overclocking controls for both P-cores and E-cores give fine-grained tuning flexibility. Both DDR4 and DDR5 are supported, providing platform flexibility. PCIe 5.0 and PCIe 4.0 connectivity are available for GPU and NVMe storage. ECC memory is supported on compatible W680 workstation chipset motherboards.

Platform Considerations

The i9-12900KS is a 12th-generation Alder Lake processor on the LGA 1700 socket, compatible with Intel 600-series chipset motherboards — Z690, H670, B660, and H610. It is not natively compatible with 700-series boards without a BIOS update on some boards. At 150W base power and 241W maximum turbo, a premium 360mm AIO or top-tier tower cooler is required for sustained workloads.

⚠️ No cooler included — a premium 360mm AIO or top-tier tower cooler is essential for this 150W/241W processor.

Key Highlights:

• 16 cores (8 P-cores + 8 E-cores) / 24 threads, Alder Lake (Intel 7)
• P-core base: 3.4 GHz | P-core max turbo: 5.2 GHz | Turbo Boost Max 3.0: 5.3 GHz | Thermal Velocity Boost: 5.5 GHz
• E-core base: 2.5 GHz | E-core max turbo: 4.0 GHz
• 30MB L3 Smart Cache + 14MB L2 cache
• LGA 1700 socket | DDR4 & DDR5 support | PCIe 5.0 & 4.0
• 150W base power / 241W maximum turbo power
• Intel Thread Director — automatic P-core/E-core workload scheduling
• Turbo Boost 2.0, Turbo Boost Max 3.0, Thermal Velocity Boost & Adaptive Boost
• Unlocked multiplier — overclocking supported (Z690 required)
• ECC memory supported (requires W680 chipset motherboard)
• Integrated Intel UHD Graphics 770
• Compatible with Intel 600-series LGA 1700 motherboards (Z690, H670, B660, H610)

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