Intel's Alder Lake Core i9-12950HX is a hotly anticipated flagship CPU for next-generation laptops, and now we have more details and some performance details which show what a disruptive bit of tech it could be. This 16-core CPU will blow away the competition, performing as much as 50% faster than the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX in multi-threaded benchmarks.
For much of 2020 and 2021, AMD made huge inroads in the mobile space, with its Ryzen 5000 mobile processors showing better performance, greater efficiency, and better pricing than even Intel's best Tiger Lake alternatives. That's going to change with the high-end Alder Lake CPUs, though, with Intel's new top-tier chips blowing AMD's best out of the water.
The 16 Core (8+8) Core i9-12950HX will have a boost clock as high as 4.9GHz. In early Geekbench testing, this chip reportedly hit a single threaded score of 1921 points. That's not quite as high as the 12900H, but it's not far off, and it's more than 300 points higher than the Ryzen 9 6900HX. In multi-threaded testing, however, the difference was even more stark.
The 12900HX achieved a score of 15974, where the 6900HX only managed 10151. That was still a decent uplift over the 5980HX, which is only capable of 8217, but both chips are far behind the Intel competition here.
That said, this Intel CPU is effectively a desktop chip so will only be used in niche cases, and its efficiency will be terrible, resulting in abysmal battery life. AMD's Ryzen 6000 mobile chips will be far more efficient throughout the stack, so it may be that AMD mid-range laptops are far more attractive when the wider ranges hit release.