The Intel Core i5-12600K was tested with various games and workloads to assess its performance compared to AMD's Ryzen 5 5600X. The benchmark testing revealed that the i5 had decent leads at both 1080p and 1440p resolutions, while 4K resolution showed essentially the same differences between the two processors. This is the case in most games, as there wasn't really a point in testing 4K, but it was included to illustrate that processor selection doesn't matter as much at this higher resolution.

Likewise, I tested Control, which is a GPU-heavy game, to demonstrate that some titles aren't going to see significant differences even at the lower 1080p resolution, making CPU selection less important compared to graphics card. The i5's performance was only marginally better than the Ryzen 5600X in this title, highlighting the relatively small difference between these two processors.

For games with slightly different results, Assassin's Creed Valhalla saw a couple of FPS differences in favor of the i5, but nothing major. F1 2021 didn't show any significant average FPS differences, while the i5 had notably higher 1% low performance, resulting in fewer dips. Another older game tested was Shadow of the Tomb Raider with the game's benchmark, which only saw minor differences between the two processors.

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. However, there were some outliers in these results, with Rainbow Six Siege showing a fairly big lead on the 5600X and other titles like Far Cry 6 and Watch Dogs: Legion having nice boosts with the i5.

As the resolution increased to 1440p, the i5 was always ahead of the Ryzen 5600X in all 10 games, but the margin could vary from almost nothing to nearly a 10% higher frame rate. These differences are expected at this higher resolution, as the GPU takes on most of the work.

However, when moving to 4K resolution, the differences between these two processors were even smaller, which is to be expected due to the increased demands of pushing such high pixel counts.

The current processor pricing at Newegg shows that the i5-12600K is generally the best option. If you really need the integrated GPU in the K variant, it's a little worse value compared to the Ryzen 5 5600X, though not by much. Unfortunately, this doesn't tell the full story, as the cost of Z690 motherboards and DDR5 memory can make the AMD option more expensive overall.

Right now, the older AM4 platform is cheaper overall due to its availability and lower price of DDR4 memory. However, this should change over time, as the adoption of newer technologies becomes widespread.

Purely in terms of raw processor performance, Intel's i5-12600K has smashed it out of the park with the addition of E cores. It has some nice leads in productivity workloads, an area where Ryzen has traditionally held strong.

However, when compared to gaming performance, the difference between these two processors was much smaller. The i5 does need quite a bit more power to achieve its lead, but despite this, it still wasn't getting significantly hotter than the 5600X.

Combined with the fact that Intel's KF version is actually cheaper than the 5600X, AMD might finally be in trouble, which is awesome for us.

Granted, when we factor in things like a Z690 motherboard and potentially DDR5 memory, the total platform cost does become quite a bit more. However, it would certainly be nice if AMD lowered the price of the 5600X to be more competitive.

Even if they don't, Intel is starting to put 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.

I'm also currently working on testing the Intel i7-12700K and i9-12900K, so definitely do that so you don't miss those upcoming comparisons.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enIntel’s i5- 12600K absolutely destroys AMD’sRyzen 5 5600X while costing less money.I’m going to show you how both CPUs comparein games and applications so you can see allthe 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 hybridarchitecture and introduce P cores and E cores.P cores, or performance cores, are basicallyyour regular cores as we’ve had before,while the new E cores, or efficient cores,are smaller lower powered cores that can handleless important background tasks, though asyou’ll see they’re definitely still quitecapable.The 12600K has 6 P cores which have hyperthreading,and it’s also got 4 E cores which do nothave hyperthreading, meaning it’s actuallya 10 core 16 thread chip.The Ryzen 5 5600X on the other hand has 6cores 12 threads, but more cache.This might sound unfair, but right now theRyzen 5 5600X is going for $310 USD on Newegg,while Intel’s i5-12600K is just $10 moreat $320, however the KF version with no integratedgraphics 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 itsprice, and as you’ll see shortly they mightneed to do that in order to compete.But that said, Intel 12th gen does currentlyneed new Z690 motherboards and possibly evenDDR5 memory, both of which aren’t exactlycheap at launch.You can refer to updated prices with thoselinks in the description below.DDR5 memory is another difference, as Intel’s12th gen was the first to support it, andwhile 12th gen also supports older DDR4 memory,memory support will depend on the motherboard.MSI have sent over their Z690 Carbon WiFimotherboard, which supports the two 16 gigDDR5-5200 sticks of Fury memory that wereprovided by Kingston, and this is what myIntel testing has been done with.Both processors were tested in the same system,only the motherboards and RAM were changeddepending on the platform.Both processors were tested with MSI’s CoreLiquid S360 AIO as this has support for bothAM4 and 12th gen LGA 1700 sockets, and I’veused Noctua NT-H2 thermal paste on both forcomparable thermal results.I’ve also used Windows 11 for all testingas this is what Intel recommends to use with12th gen, and this is simply because Windows11 has better scheduling that understandsboth the P cores and the E cores, and Inteldid also acknowledge that 12th gen will probablyperform a little worse on Windows 10 becauseit doesn’t have those scheduling changes.Let me know if you’d be interested in seeinga comparison on 12th gen between Windows 10and Windows 11, as I’m sure not everyonewants to update to Windows 11 just yet, myselfincluded.There also shouldn’t be any problems runningRyzen with Windows 11, as I’ve tested withall required updates in place that resolveearly known performance issues.AMD notes that they verified performance withthese updates under Windows 11, and I confirmedresults were very close to when I previouslytested the 5600X under Windows 10.Alright so with all that in mind let’s getinto some benchmarks.We’ll start out by looking at productivityapplications, thermals, power draw, then moveinto gaming and cost per frame value afterwards.Let’s start out with everyone’s favoriteCinebench R23, as it’s a nice way to geta general idea of both single threaded andmulti threaded performance.It’s a rough start for AMD, with Intel’s12600K reaching a 24% higher single threadedscore and an even higher 53% higher multicorescore.Yeah the i5 does technically have more coreswhen you factor in the E cores, but both CPUsare basically the same price.Hang on a second, the multicore score in Cinebenchon the i5 beats my Threadripper 1950x with16 cores and 32 threads..Linux kernel compilation is the only testI’ve done on Linux rather than Windows 11.The 12600K was completing the task around33% faster when compared to the 5600X, soeven without the new scheduler in Windows11 the extra cores are clearly still beingutilized by this operating system.Blender was tested with the Open Data benchmark.This is another multithreaded workload, soit’s no real surprise that the i5 with itshigher 16 thread count was completing thelonger Classroom test about 31% faster thanthe 5600X with its 12 threads.The V-Ray benchmark is another core heavyrendering workload.This time the i5 was scoring 38% higher comparedto the similarly priced Ryzen 5 5600X, allthanks to those extra cores.The Corona benchmark also uses the processorto render out a scene, and again a similardeal here with the 12600K completing the taskabout 30% faster than Ryzen.Handbrake was used to convert one of my 4K60 FPS laptop review videos to 1080p.Again as a workload that benefits from morethreads, the i5-12600K was able to completethe task 47% faster compared to the 5600X,one of the bigger differences out of all applicationstested.Adobe Premiere was tested with the Puget Systemsbenchmark tool, and this tests video editingtasks like exporting, playback and more.I’ve tested with the latest version of Premierewhich does add official Windows 11 support,and the i5 was scoring 21% higher comparedto Ryzen here.DaVinci Resolve is another video editing workload,and was also tested with the Puget Systemsbenchmark.This test generally gets a bigger boost basedon the GPU, though the i5 was still able tooffer a 16% higher score compared to Ryzenin this one.Now for some office tasks, this is basicallythe new PCMark.Microsoft Excel was scoring 27% higher withthe i5, Microsoft Word was scoring 23% higherwith the i5, Microsoft PowerPoint was 19%higher with the i5, and Microsoft Outlookwas 17% faster with the i5, so if you needto send some email ASAP, Intel’s apparentlythe way to go.I’ve used 7-Zip to test compression anddecompression speeds, and this is an areawhere AMD has traditionally beat Intel, butnot anymore, granted the margins are the smallestout of all applications I’ve tested.Compression was around 15% faster on the i5,while decompression was slightly ahead onthe 5600X, its first win so far.AES encryption and decryption was way fasteron the i5, more than 68% ahead, the biggestdifference out of all of the applicationsthat I’ve tested.I don’t personally rely on Geekbench scoresat all, but you guys ask for it and the i5was reaching a 15% higher single core scoreand a much higher 46% multi core score owingto the higher thread count.Here’s how Intel’s newer 12th gen Corei5-12600K compares against AMD’s Ryzen 55600X processor with both running at stockspeeds.The results could vary a fair bit dependingon the specific workload, but the i5 was clearlyahead in all workloads with the exceptionof 7-Zip decompression at the bottom.Whether we’re talking single or multithreaded,the i5 is dominating here, especially whenyou remember that the KF version is actuallycheaper than a 5600X.The performance increase with the i5 isn’tfor nothing though.Although the 12600K was completing the Blenderbenchmark around 31% faster than the 5600X,it’s using 52% more power at the wall todo so.More power generally equals more heat, andwe can see that the 12600K was slightly warmer,granted the way both chips use sensors tomeasure and report temperature to softwaremeans this probably isn’t a perfectly faircomparison.These are the clock speeds being hit duringthe same Blender test, again not directlycomparable, but we can see the E cores wererunning at around 3.4GHz while the P coreswere closer to 4.5GHz.I haven’t bothered with overclocking asresults are always going to come down to siliconlottery anyway.I also wanted to note that I normally testAdobe Photoshop, but unfortunately I wasn’table to because it kept crashing when I ranthe benchmark.I asked the Puget Systems guys about it, asit’s their benchmark, and they said it’sa known issue of running Photoshop on 12thgen, so hopefully that’s fixed soon.That was the only problem I had while testingall of these applications on this new platform,well, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla did alsocrash a few times but I can’t tell if that’sjust Ubisoft being Ubisoft.Speaking of games, let’s see how both processorscompare in 10 different games at 3 differentresolutions.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% higheraverage frame rate, however the 1% low hada much larger 26% boost, so a more stableexperience on the Intel system.The 12600K was clearly ahead in all testshere, but this game did the best on the i5out of all 10 titles tested, so let’s lookat the opposite next.Rainbow Six Siege was also tested with thegame’s benchmark, and the 5600X had a fairlybig lead at the lower 1080p resolution, grantedwith more than 400 FPS the i5 isn’t goingto be unplayable or anything.The differences at 1440p and 4K were far smallerthough, which is generally the case in mostgames as more pixels makes the workload moreGPU bound.Cyberpunk 2077 was tested in little chinaand was just 4% higher on the i5 at the lower1080p resolution, at least in terms of averageFPS, again like Far Cry there’s a larger17% boost seen in the 1% lows, so fewer dipson the Intel system.Again the difference is much closer togetherat 1440p, and then at 4K you’re not goingto be able to tell them apart while playing.Red Dead Redemption 2 was tested in the game’sbenchmark, and was similar to Rainbow Sixin that the 5600X had the lead at the lower1080p resolution.Ryzen was reaching a 6% higher average framerate, but then again there’s no practicaldifference at either 1440p or 4K resolutions.Microsoft Flight Simulator was tested in theSydney landing challenge, and the 5600X wasagain a little ahead at 1080p, at least inaverage FPS, because the i5 had a subtle edgein 1% lows.The i5 takes the lead at 1440p in averageFPS while the gap between 1% low performancewidens a little further now.Watch Dogs Legion was tested with the game’sbenchmark.The i5 had decent leads at both 1080p and1440p resolutions, while 4K was essentiallythe same.This is the case in most games, there wasn’treally a point in testing 4K but I like toillustrate that processor selection basicallydoesn’t matter there.Likewise I like to test Control as it’sa GPU heavy game, so just goes to show thatsome titles aren’t going to see much ofa difference even at the lower 1080p resolutionmaking CPU selection less important comparedto say the graphics card.Speaking of small differences, Assassin’sCreed Valhalla was tested with the game’sbenchmark, and best case saw a couple of FPSdifference in favor of the i5, nothing majorat all here.F1 2021 wasn’t too different in terms ofaverage FPS with the game’s benchmark, hardlyany difference at all, though like some ofthe other games tested, the i5 had notablyhigher 1% low performance, so less dips.Just for a bit of an older game I’ve testedShadow of the Tomb Raider with the game’sbenchmark.Again only minor differences here with thei5 slightly ahead.When comparing all 10 games tested at 1080p,the Intel Core i5-12600K was less than a percentfaster than AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600X on average.There were some outliers though, Rainbow SixSiege had a fairly big lead on the 5600X,while others like Far Cry 6 and Watch DogsLegion had nice boosts with the 12600K, soit depends on the game, but yeah once youaverage out a number of results there’sbasically no change.Stepping up to the higher 1440p resolutionand the i5 was always ahead in all 10 gamesnow, though the margin could vary from essentiallynothing, like in Red Dead Redemption 2 downthe bottom, while others like Far Cry 6 nearlyhad a 10% higher frame rate with Intel.The differences get even smaller at the higher4K resolution, which is to be expected becausewhen you’re pushing this many pixels theGPU is taking on most of the work, so theprocessor selection matters far less.If we factor in current processor pricingat Newegg then the 12600KF is generally thebest option.If you really need the iGPU in the K variantthen it’s a little worse value comparedto the Ryzen 5 5600X, though not by much atall.Unfortunately this doesn’t tell the fullstory, because as mentioned earlier rightnow Z690 motherboards and DDR5 memory aren’texactly cheap, there’s always an early adoptertax, so when comparing the lowest prices onNewegg for RAM and a motherboard, well theAMD option ends up being far better value,and that’s simply because there are a lotmore boards available and DDR4 is simply cheaperas an older technology.This should change over time though, but rightnow the older AM4 platform is cheaper overall.Purely in terms of raw processor performance,I think Intel’s i5-12600K has smashed itout of the park with the addition of E cores.It’s got some nice leads in productivityworkloads, an area where Ryzen has traditionallyheld strong.Though as we saw, the gaming differences betweenthese two was much smaller.That said the i5 does need quite a bit morepower in order to achieve its lead, but despitethis it still wasn’t getting too much hotterwhen compared to the 5600X.Combined with the fact that Intel’s KF versionis actually cheaper than the 5600X, and well,AMD might finally be in trouble, which I thinkis awesome for us.Granted with Intel 12th gen once we factorin things like a Z690 motherboard and potentiallyDDR5 memory, the total platform cost doesend up being quite a bit more, but that shouldget cheaper over time.It would certainly be nice if AMD loweredthe price of the 5600X to be more competitive,but even if they don’t Intel is startingto put the pressure on AMD which will hopefullykeep them from getting stagnant, and thatshould mean better CPUs for all of us.Now things might change in early 2022 whenAMD launch their new CPUs with V-Cache, somake sure you’re subscribed for my upcomingcomparison once all of those are released,and I’m also currently working on testingthe Intel i7-12700K and i9-12900K, so yeahdefinitely do that so you don’t miss thoseupcoming comparisons.Otherwise for now you can check out some ofmy other CPU comparisons over here next, I’llsee you in one of those.\n"