Intel’s K-series desktop processors always get the most attention from enthusiasts because they deliver the best performance that new Intel processors are capable of when money, heat, and power don’t matter. But more people will end up using cheaper, non-overclockable versions of these processors, whether it’s an office desktop PC, a budget gaming PC, or a low-cost home video editing workstation.
Today we’re looking at the Core i7-12700, a 12-core, 20-thread processor that sells for around $340 (or $315 without integrated graphics). That’s somewhere between $75-$100 cheaper than an overclockable Core i7-12700K, plus the money you save by buying a cheaper H670 or B660 motherboard rather than the expensive Z690 model.
We were impressed with the performance of the i7-12700 but had mixed feelings about its energy efficiency, as we did last year when we reviewed some of the K-series processors. The good news is that home PC builders can usually decide for themselves whether they want to maximize performance or prioritize energy efficiency and heat dissipation. Using Intel’s recommended power settings, the i7-12700 can perform quite well. Just be aware that most motherboard manufacturers’ default power settings prioritize performance, even if it makes your desktop hotter and more power hungry.
Intel processor power settings explained
Most of this review is about how Intel CPU power limits work, so let’s start by defining the terminology. This will be especially true for those who have not built a computer for several years.
Intel and AMD have struggled for the past half century to cram more and more cores into their mainstream desktop processors. Taking Intel as an example, i7 processors went from four to six and eight cores between the seventh and ninth generations, and a new 10-core i9 level was also introduced above them. All of these chips were built using slightly modified iterations of the same Skylake CPU architecture and slightly modified iterations of the same 14nm manufacturing technology.
As a result, power budgets have skyrocketed, and when the chips are running at full power, the actual power consumption of the CPU is well above the 65W TDP that Intel has been listing on its desktop CPU pages for years.
To Intel’s credit, it ditched “TDP”in its 12th generation chips in favor of a base processor power number (PL1) and a maximum turbo power number (PL2). PL1 is more or less what TDP used to be – the amount of power and cooling power a processor is expected to need to run at its rated specs under constant load for more than a couple of minutes at a time. The PL2 number is the true value of the maximum power consumption you’ll see when running tasks for short periods of time or for applications like web browsers and games that don’t require 100 percent of your processor’s performance 100 percent of the time.
The problem is that the PL1 and PL2 ratings are more guidelines than hard requirements, allowing motherboard manufacturers to set various limits if they really want to. For enthusiast boards, this usually means pushing both numbers sky-high, or stripping the caps entirely in the name of better performance. The Gigabyte Z690 board I used for some tests has default power limits set to over 4000W. A CPU actually drawing that much power would certainly melt a hole deep in the Earth’s mantle, but the point is that a CPU can only use as much power as it and the motherboard can physically handle, unless it reaches its thermal limits..
The advantage of the flexible, user-configurable PL1 and PL2 limits is that they effectively allow non-K-series processors running on non-Z-series motherboards to be “overclocked”. its performance from “competitive with AMD Ryzen 7 5800X”to “stomping 5800X”.
The problem is that more power generates more heat, which requires either better cooling or running the processor at higher temperatures, which can shorten its lifespan. In some cases, you may lose some performance because the extra heat results in thermal throttling. And the performance benefits you get are not really commensurate with the extra power you use. In our tests, when thermal throttling was not an issue, the i7-12700 consumed about twice as much power, delivering somewhere between 25-40 percent performance gains.
This is a significant speed improvement, but it comes at a price.