Intel’s i5- 12600K absolutely destroys AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600X while costing less money.
I’m going to show you how both CPUs compare in games and applications so you can see all
the differences!
Both of these CPUs are kind of 6 core parts, but there’s more to the story than that.
Intel’s 12th gen processors use a hybrid architecture and introduce P cores and E cores.
P cores, or performance cores, are basically your regular cores as we’ve had before,
while the new E cores, or efficient cores, are smaller lower powered cores that can handle
less important background tasks, though as you’ll see they’re definitely still quite
capable.
The 12600K has 6 P cores which have hyperthreading, and it’s also got 4 E cores which do not
have hyperthreading, meaning it’s actually a 10 core 16 thread chip.
The Ryzen 5 5600X on the other hand has 6 cores 12 threads, but more cache.
This might sound unfair, but right now the Ryzen 5 5600X is going for $310 USD on Newegg,
while Intel’s i5-12600K is just $10 more at $320, however the KF version with no integrated
graphics actually ends up being cheaper at $300.
So they’re both very close in terms of price, which is why I’m comparing them.
The 5600X has already been out for a year, so it is possible that AMD could lower its
price, and as you’ll see shortly they might need to do that in order to compete.
But that said, Intel 12th gen does currently need new Z690 motherboards and possibly even
DDR5 memory, both of which aren’t exactly cheap at launch.
You can refer to updated prices with those links in the description below.
DDR5 memory is another difference, as Intel’s 12th gen was the first to support it, and
while 12th gen also supports older DDR4 memory, memory support will depend on the motherboard.
MSI have sent over their Z690 Carbon WiFi motherboard, which supports the two 16 gig
DDR5-5200 sticks of Fury memory that were provided by Kingston, and this is what my
Intel testing has been done with.
Both processors were tested in the same system, only the motherboards and RAM were changed
depending on the platform.
Both processors were tested with MSI’s Core Liquid S360 AIO as this has support for both
AM4 and 12th gen LGA 1700 sockets, and I’ve used Noctua NT-H2 thermal paste on both for
comparable thermal results.
I’ve also used Windows 11 for all testing as this is what Intel recommends to use with
12th gen, and this is simply because Windows 11 has better scheduling that understands
both the P cores and the E cores, and Intel did also acknowledge that 12th gen will probably
perform a little worse on Windows 10 because it doesn’t have those scheduling changes.
Let me know if you’d be interested in seeing a comparison on 12th gen between Windows 10
and Windows 11, as I’m sure not everyone wants to update to Windows 11 just yet, myself
included.
There also shouldn’t be any problems running Ryzen with Windows 11, as I’ve tested with
all required updates in place that resolve early known performance issues.
AMD notes that they verified performance with these updates under Windows 11, and I confirmed
results were very close to when I previously tested the 5600X under Windows 10.
Alright so with all that in mind let’s get into some benchmarks.
We’ll start out by looking at productivity applications, thermals, power draw, then move
into gaming and cost per frame value afterwards.
Let’s start out with everyone’s favorite Cinebench R23, as it’s a nice way to get
a general idea of both single threaded and multi threaded performance.
It’s a rough start for AMD, with Intel’s 12600K reaching a 24% higher single threaded
score and an even higher 53% higher multicore score.
Yeah the i5 does technically have more cores when you factor in the E cores, but both CPUs
are basically the same price.
Hang on a second, the multicore score in Cinebench on the i5 beats my Threadripper 1950x with
16 cores and 32 threads..
Linux kernel compilation is the only test I’ve done on Linux rather than Windows 11.
The 12600K was completing the task around 33% faster when compared to the 5600X, so
even without the new scheduler in Windows 11 the extra cores are clearly still being
utilized by this operating system.
Blender was tested with the Open Data benchmark.
This is another multithreaded workload, so it’s no real surprise that the i5 with its
higher 16 thread count was completing the longer Classroom test about 31% faster than
the 5600X with its 12 threads.
The V-Ray benchmark is another core heavy rendering workload.
This time the i5 was scoring 38% higher compared to the similarly priced Ryzen 5 5600X, all
thanks to those extra cores.
The Corona benchmark also uses the processor to render out a scene, and again a similar
deal here with the 12600K completing the task about 30% faster than Ryzen.
Handbrake was used to convert one of my 4K 60 FPS laptop review videos to 1080p.
Again as a workload that benefits from more threads, the i5-12600K was able to complete
the task 47% faster compared to the 5600X, one of the bigger differences out of all applications
tested.
Adobe Premiere was tested with the Puget Systems benchmark tool, and this tests video editing
tasks like exporting, playback and more.
I’ve tested with the latest version of Premiere which does add official Windows 11 support,
and the i5 was scoring 21% higher compared to Ryzen here.
DaVinci Resolve is another video editing workload, and was also tested with the Puget Systems
benchmark.
This test generally gets a bigger boost based on the GPU, though the i5 was still able to
offer a 16% higher score compared to Ryzen in this one.
Now for some office tasks, this is basically the new PCMark.
Microsoft Excel was scoring 27% higher with the i5, Microsoft Word was scoring 23% higher
with the i5, Microsoft PowerPoint was 19% higher with the i5, and Microsoft Outlook
was 17% faster with the i5, so if you need to send some email ASAP, Intel’s apparently
the way to go.
I’ve used 7-Zip to test compression and decompression speeds, and this is an area
where AMD has traditionally beat Intel, but not anymore, granted the margins are the smallest
out of all applications I’ve tested.
Compression was around 15% faster on the i5, while decompression was slightly ahead on
the 5600X, its first win so far.
AES encryption and decryption was way faster on the i5, more than 68% ahead, the biggest
difference out of all of the applications that I’ve tested.
I don’t personally rely on Geekbench scores at all, but you guys ask for it and the i5
was reaching a 15% higher single core score and a much higher 46% multi core score owing
to the higher thread count.
Here’s how Intel’s newer 12th gen Core i5-12600K compares against AMD’s Ryzen 5
5600X processor with both running at stock speeds.
The results could vary a fair bit depending on the specific workload, but the i5 was clearly
ahead in all workloads with the exception of 7-Zip decompression at the bottom.
Whether we’re talking single or multithreaded, the i5 is dominating here, especially when
you remember that the KF version is actually cheaper than a 5600X.
The performance increase with the i5 isn’t for nothing though.
Although the 12600K was completing the Blender benchmark around 31% faster than the 5600X,
it’s using 52% more power at the wall to do so.
More power generally equals more heat, and we can see that the 12600K was slightly warmer,
granted the way both chips use sensors to measure and report temperature to software
means this probably isn’t a perfectly fair comparison.
These are the clock speeds being hit during the same Blender test, again not directly
comparable, but we can see the E cores were running at around 3.4GHz while the P cores
were closer to 4.5GHz.
I haven’t bothered with overclocking as results are always going to come down to silicon
lottery anyway.
I also wanted to note that I normally test Adobe Photoshop, but unfortunately I wasn’t
able to because it kept crashing when I ran the benchmark.
I asked the Puget Systems guys about it, as it’s their benchmark, and they said it’s
a known issue of running Photoshop on 12th gen, so hopefully that’s fixed soon.
That was the only problem I had while testing all of these applications on this new platform,
well, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla did also crash a few times but I can’t tell if that’s
just Ubisoft being Ubisoft.
Speaking of games, let’s see how both processors compare in 10 different games at 3 different
resolutions.
Far Cry 6 was tested with the game’s benchmark.
I’ve got the 1080p results down the bottom, 1440p in the middle, and 4K up the top.
At 1080p the 12600K was reaching a 13% higher average frame rate, however the 1% low had
a much larger 26% boost, so a more stable experience on the Intel system.
The 12600K was clearly ahead in all tests here, but this game did the best on the i5
out of all 10 titles tested, so let’s look at the opposite next.
Rainbow Six Siege was also tested with the game’s benchmark, and the 5600X had a fairly
big lead at the lower 1080p resolution, granted with more than 400 FPS the i5 isn’t going
to be unplayable or anything.
The differences at 1440p and 4K were far smaller though, which is generally the case in most
games as more pixels makes the workload more GPU bound.
Cyberpunk 2077 was tested in little china and was just 4% higher on the i5 at the lower
1080p resolution, at least in terms of average FPS, again like Far Cry there’s a larger
17% boost seen in the 1% lows, so fewer dips on the Intel system.
Again the difference is much closer together at 1440p, and then at 4K you’re not going
to be able to tell them apart while playing.
Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested in the game’s benchmark, and was similar to Rainbow Six
in that the 5600X had the lead at the lower 1080p resolution.
Ryzen was reaching a 6% higher average frame rate, but then again there’s no practical
difference at either 1440p or 4K resolutions.
Microsoft Flight Simulator was tested in the Sydney landing challenge, and the 5600X was
again a little ahead at 1080p, at least in average FPS, because the i5 had a subtle edge
in 1% lows.
The i5 takes the lead at 1440p in average FPS while the gap between 1% low performance
widens a little further now.
Watch Dogs Legion was tested with the game’s benchmark.
The i5 had decent leads at both 1080p and 1440p resolutions, while 4K was essentially
the same.
This is the case in most games, there wasn’t really a point in testing 4K but I like to
illustrate that processor selection basically doesn’t matter there.
Likewise I like to test Control as it’s a GPU heavy game, so just goes to show that
some titles aren’t going to see much of a difference even at the lower 1080p resolution
making CPU selection less important compared to say the graphics card.
Speaking of small differences, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla was tested with the game’s
benchmark, and best case saw a couple of FPS difference in favor of the i5, nothing major
at all here.
F1 2021 wasn’t too different in terms of average FPS with the game’s benchmark, hardly
any difference at all, though like some of the other games tested, the i5 had notably
higher 1% low performance, so less dips.
Just for a bit of an older game I’ve tested Shadow of the Tomb Raider with the game’s
benchmark.
Again only minor differences here with the i5 slightly ahead.
When comparing all 10 games tested at 1080p, the Intel Core i5-12600K was less than a percent
faster than AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600X on average.
There were some outliers though, Rainbow Six Siege had a fairly big lead on the 5600X,
while others like Far Cry 6 and Watch Dogs Legion had nice boosts with the 12600K, so
it depends on the game, but yeah once you average out a number of results there’s
basically no change.
Stepping up to the higher 1440p resolution and the i5 was always ahead in all 10 games
now, though the margin could vary from essentially nothing, like in Red Dead Redemption 2 down
the bottom, while others like Far Cry 6 nearly had a 10% higher frame rate with Intel.
The differences get even smaller at the higher 4K resolution, which is to be expected because
when you’re pushing this many pixels the GPU is taking on most of the work, so the
processor selection matters far less.
If we factor in current processor pricing at Newegg then the 12600KF is generally the
best option.
If you really need the iGPU in the K variant then it’s a little worse value compared
to the Ryzen 5 5600X, though not by much at all.
Unfortunately this doesn’t tell the full story, because as mentioned earlier right
now Z690 motherboards and DDR5 memory aren’t exactly cheap, there’s always an early adopter
tax, so when comparing the lowest prices on Newegg for RAM and a motherboard, well the
AMD option ends up being far better value, and that’s simply because there are a lot
more boards available and DDR4 is simply cheaper as an older technology.
This should change over time though, but right now the older AM4 platform is cheaper overall.
Purely in terms of raw processor performance, I think Intel’s i5-12600K has smashed it
out of the park with the addition of E cores.
It’s got some nice leads in productivity workloads, an area where Ryzen has traditionally
held strong.
Though as we saw, the gaming differences between these two was much smaller.
That said the i5 does need quite a bit more power in order to achieve its lead, but despite
this it still wasn’t getting too much hotter when compared to the 5600X.
Combined with the fact that Intel’s KF version is actually cheaper than the 5600X, and well,
AMD might finally be in trouble, which I think is awesome for us.
Granted with Intel 12th gen once we factor in things like a Z690 motherboard and potentially
DDR5 memory, the total platform cost does end up being quite a bit more, but that should
get cheaper over time.
It would certainly be nice if AMD lowered the price of the 5600X to be more competitive,
but even if they don’t Intel is starting to put the pressure on AMD which will hopefully
keep them from getting stagnant, and that should mean better CPUs for all of us.
Now things might change in early 2022 when AMD launch their new CPUs with V-Cache, so
make sure you’re subscribed for my upcoming comparison once all of those are released,
and I’m also currently working on testing the Intel i7-12700K and i9-12900K, so yeah
definitely do that so you don’t miss those upcoming comparisons.
Otherwise for now you can check out some of my other CPU comparisons over here next, I’ll
see you in one of those.