Back in October, Intel detailed its new desktop-bound 12th-gen Alder Lake chips and now it’s bringing its H chips to laptops.
The new processors are based on a hybrid design with up to 6 performance cores and up to 8 efficiency cores. This is the first time Intel is using this design on laptops and it promises huge gains in performance while maintaining excellent battery life.
The new chips are based on Intel’s improved 10nm process and are rated at 45W (though will likely push way past that under load). The processors support DDR5-4800 and low-power LPDDR5-5200 RAM, which should add to the performance boost.
That performance boost is significant. Based on Intel’s own numbers, the 12th-gen i9-12900HK is up to 44% faster than its 11th-gen predecessor in PugetBench and is up to 30% faster in Blender.
The Intel CPU also has AMD’s performance Ryzen R9 5900HX and Apple’s M1 Max beat on both tests.
Intel also detailed the upcoming 12th-gen chips that will come to thin and light laptops later in Q1. U processors, made for thinner laptops will have 2 performance and 8 efficiency cores, while the P line, meant for more powerful thin-and-light laptops, will gain up to 6 performance and up to 8 efficiency cores.
Intel’s 12th-gen H laptop processors will land in devices in Q1.