Intel has been working on the release of their new 13th gen Raptor Lake CPU chips which are almost here, but meanwhile, why don’t we conduct a CPU comparison between their latest 12th gen Alder Lake CPU, the Intel Core i7 12700K, and their previous 11th gen Rocket Lake Intel Core i7 11700K to find out how much performance difference we can expect from the upcoming 13th gen Raptor Lake 13700k.
In this Intel Core i7 12700K vs Intel Core i7 11700K CPU comparison, we’ll be comparing the specifications, gaming, and application benchmarks to find the best Intel Core i7 processor.
Also read: i9-12900k vs i7-12700k
Intel Core i7 12700K Specifications
- Launch Date: Q4’21
- Lithography: Intel 7
- Recommended Customer Price: $409.00 – $419.00
CPU Specifications
- Total Cores: 12
- # of Performance-cores: 8
- # of Efficient-cores: 4
- Total Threads: 20
- Max Turbo Frequency: 5.00 GHz
- Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 Frequency ‡: 5.00 GHz
- Performance-core Max Turbo Frequency: 4.90 GHz
- Efficient-core Max Turbo Frequency: 3.80 GHz
- Performance-core Base Frequency: 3.60 GHz
- Efficient-core Base Frequency: 2.70 GHz
- Cache: 25 MB Intel® Smart Cache
- Total L2 Cache: 12 MB
- Processor Base Power: 125 W
- Maximum Turbo Power: 190 W
Memory Specifications
- Max Memory Size (dependent on memory type): 128 GB
- Memory Types: Up to DDR5 4800 MT/s | Up to DDR4 3200 MT/s
- Max # of Memory Channels: 2
Related: Best Motherboards for 12700k
Intel Core i7 11700K Specifications
- Launch Date: Q1’21
- Lithography: 14 nm
- Recommended Customer Price: $399.00
CPU Specifications
- Total Cores: 8
- Total Threads: 16
- Max Turbo Frequency: 5.00 GHz
- Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 Frequency ‡: 5.00 GHz
- Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 Frequency‡: 4.90 GHz
- Processor Base Frequency: 3.60 GHz
- Cache: 16 MB Intel® Smart Cache
- Bus Speed: 8 GT/s
- TDP: 125 W
- Configurable TDP-down Base Frequency: 3.10 GHz
- Configurable TDP-down: 95 W
Memory Specifications
- Max Memory Size (dependent on memory type): 128 GB
- Memory Types: DDR4-3200
- Max # of Memory Channels: 2
Differences in Specifications
In this section, we’ll be comparing the specifications of the Intel Core i7 12700K vs Intel Core i7 11700K to get a general overview of what to expect when we benchmark them on games and applications.
To begin with, the Intel Core i7 11700K was released in April 2021 as part of the Rocket Lake family of Intel processors. It’s an 8-core, 16-thread CPU with a stock clock speed of 3.6 GHz, which can be boosted up to 5 GHz.
Moreover, it also has 16 MB of Intel Smart Cache and a TDP rating of 125 W. Lastly, it’s worth a mention that Intel Core i7 11700K only has support for DDR4 memory, which greatly limits its performance.
On the other hand, the Intel Core i7 12700K was released in September 2021, along with other processors in the Alder Lake lineup of CPUs. Its overall core count is split into 8 P/Power cores and 4 E/Efficiency cores.
The P/Power cores have a base clock of 3.6 GHz, which can be overclocked up to 5 GHz, whereas the E/Efficiency cores have a stock clock of 2.7 GHz and 3.8 GHz when boosted.
Moreover, the Intel Core i7 12700K comes with 20 threads and a 25 MB Intel Smart Cache. Moreover, as Intel has changed its power rating standard, we don’t have a fixed TDP rating for the Intel Core i7 12700K.
Instead, it has a PBP/Processor Base Power of 125 W and an MTP/Maximum Turbo Power of 190 W. Also, the Intel Core i7 12700K has compatibility for DDR5 memory type, allowing for a much-needed performance boost.
Overall, it looks like the Intel Core i7 12700K is ahead when comparing the specifications of Intel Core i7 12700K vs Intel Core i7 11700K. It has 4 extra threads, 4 extra E/Efficiency cores, and an extra 9 MB cache.
However, both CPUs have the same clock speeds for P/Power cores and normal cores. With that said, let’s get into the gaming and productivity benchmarks to see an accurate difference in performance.
Related: Core i7-12700K vs. Core i5-12600K
i7 12700K vs i7 11700K Gaming Benchmarks
To continue the Intel Core i7 12700K vs Intel Core i7 11700K CPU comparison, we need to see some gaming benchmarks. For this, we used the benchmarks done by YT/Jarrod’sTech, where 10 games were tested at 1440p and 1080p resolutions.
Test PC
- CPU: INTEL CORE I7 11700K / INTEL CORE I7 12700K
- GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 3090 Ti Gaming X Trio
- Intel Core i7 12700K Motherboard: MSI Z690 Carbon
- Intel Core i7 11700K Motherboard: MSI Z590 Ace
- Intel Core i7 12700K Memory: 32 GB DDR5-5200 CL40
- Intel Core i7 11700K Memory: 32 GB DDR4-3200 CL14
- CPU Cooler: MSI Core Liquid S360 AIO
- Thermal Paste: Noctua NT-H2
- Storage: 2TB Seagate FireCuda M.2 SSD
- Case: NZXT H700I
- Power Supply: Corsair HX850I
Far Cry 6
We’ll be starting the Intel Core i7 12700K vs Intel Core i7 11700K comparison with Far Cry 6, which is one of the most notorious FPS games out there. Moreover, the game was tested for 1440p and 1080p resolutions at Ultra settings using the game’s own benchmarking tool.
At 1080p, we can see that the Intel Core i7 12700K was reaching 130 FPS, whereas the Intel Core i7 11700K was behind a few frames at an average of 119 FPS. This also shows that the Intel Core i7 12700K was delivering a 9% higher average FPS than the Intel Core i7 11700K, which is a very small difference.
For 1440p, the gap was even smaller, with the Intel Core i7 12700K being just 4% faster at rendering frames than the Intel Core i7 11700K at an average frame rate of 123 FPS, while the Intel Core i7 11700K was reaching 117 FPS.
Cyberpunk 2077
Moving on to Cyberpunk 2077, the game was benchmarked at high settings on both 1080p and 1440p resolutions. We know it to be one of the most demanding games for modern hardware to run because of bad optimization for PC, which means we can expect some interesting results.
From the Cyberpunk 2077 benchmark at 1080p, we can observe a very similar frame rate from both CPUs, with the Intel Core i7 12700K reaching 141 FPS and Intel Core i7 11700K reaching 138 FPS which means the Intel Core i7 12700K came out ahead with a tiny performance difference of just 2%.
With 1440p, there’s practically no difference between the 12th gen and 11th gen as both were outputting a frame rate of 96 FPS. The same case was observed for 1% lows of both processors with very similar results on both resolutions.
Red Dead Redemption 2
The 2018 action-adventure game Red Dead Redemption 2 has one of the most beautiful and detailed open worlds ever made. It is more GPU bound on most areas of the map. However, some towns do require more power from the CPU. It was also tested at 108p and 1440p resolutions on high settings.
From the 1080p benchmark, we can see a 9% higher average frame rate from the Intel Core i7 12700K over the Intel Core i7 11700K, which isn’t a lot of performance increase between the two different generations.
For 1440p, the difference gets even smaller, with Intel Core i7 12700K reaching 137 FPS whereas the Intel Core i7 11700K reaching 133 FPS. With that said, the difference for both processors was just 3% as the games get more GPU bound the higher you go up the resolution scale.
Microsoft Flight Simulator
For Microsoft Flight Simulator, the graphics were set too high for both 1440p and 1080p resolutions.
At 1080p, the Intel Core i7 12700K reached 126 FPS, whereas the Intel Core i7 11700K gave an average frame output of 113 FPS. This means that the Intel Core i7 12700K was 10% faster at rendering frames than the Intel Core i7 11700K.
As for the benchmark at 1440p resolution, the Intel Core i7 12700K was ahead by 5 frames with an average of 115 FPS, with the Intel Core i7 11700K reaching 110 FPS. This puts the Intel Core i7 12700K at a 5% higher frame rate than the Intel Core i7 11700K.
Watch Dogs Legion
Watch Dogs Legion is a 2020 action-adventure game released as the third installment in the Watch Dogs franchise developed by Ubisoft. The game is more CPU bound than others on this list however you’ll still need a powerful GPU to play at smooth frame rates. Watch Dog Legions was also tested on the highest settings at 1080p and 1440p resolutions.
For 1080p resolution, the benchmarks show the Intel Core i7 12700K reaching an average of 121 FPS, all the while the Intel Core i7 11700K was reaching 112 FPS. This puts a difference of 8% between the two processors.
As for 1440p, Intel Core i7 12700K had a lead of just 2 frames by reaching 100 FPS, while the Intel Core i7 11700K reached 98 FPS. This means that the Intel Core i7 12700K was reaching an average 2% higher frame rate than the Intel Core i7 11700K, which is a very small difference.
Also read: Intel i7-12700k vs Ryzen 7 5800x
Control
Control is another action-adventure game that relies highly on GPU to render its beautiful environments. This is one of the reasons why there’s close to no difference in performance between both CPUs. Control was benchmarked at 1080p and 1440p resolutions on high settings.
For 1080p, we can see that the Intel Core i7 12700K was reaching an average of 193 FPS, with the Intel Core i7 11700K falling behind by 3 frames at 190 FPS. With that said, there’s only a difference of 1.5% between the Intel Core i7 12700K and Intel Core i7 11700K for the Control benchmark.
Moving on to the 1440p test, there was almost no difference in performance as both CPUs were reaching 126-127 FPS on average. Although, the Intel Core i7 11700K did have a higher 1% low FPS which implies a slightly more stable frame rate than the Intel Core i7 12700K.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege is an online shooter game released in 2015. It’s a competitive CPU-bound game that relies on all cores to render frames smoothly. It was also tested at 1080p and 1440p with ultra settings and a 100% render scale on the game’s own benchmarking tool.
At 1080p, the Intel Core i7 12700K had an 11% higher frame rate than the Intel Core i7 11700K with it, reaching an average of 538 FPS, whereas the Intel Core i7 11700K reached 483 FPS.
On 1440p resolution, the difference was much smaller, with the Intel Core i7 12700K reaching an average of 409 FPS while the Intel Core i7 11700K was reaching 402 FPS. This means there was only a difference of 2% between the two processors.
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
Moving on to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the game was released in 2020 and is known to be poorly optimized, much like other Ubisoft titles. It was tested at both 1080p, and 1440p resolutions with all settings turned to high on the game’s own benchmarking tool.
For 1080p, the benchmarks show a very small difference of just 2 frames between the Intel Core i7 12700K and Intel Core i7 11700K.
Similarly, on 1440p, the results were much closer for both CPUs as the game is more GPU bound and doesn’t require too much CPU power. For gaming on higher resolutions, CPU power just doesn’t matter that much.
F1
Released in 2021, F1, a racing game developed by EA, shows a similar trend as all other games on this list, with a very small difference between the Intel Core i7 12700K and Intel Core i7 11700K in terms of average FPS. It was also tested at 1080p and 1440p resolutions on ultra-settings.
At 1080p, the Intel Core i7 12700K reached 180 FPS, while the Intel Core i7 11700K reached 176 FPS on average. This means there was only a difference of 3% between the two generations.
As for the 1440p resolution, the Intel Core i7 12700K was delivering 138 FPS, with the Intel Core i7 11700K falling behind by 2 frames at 136 FPS. The same case was observed with 1% low FPS drops on both resolutions.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
The last game on the list, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, is another popular title that was tested at 1080p and 1440p resolutions at the highest settings using the game’s own benchmark. Shadow of the Tomb Raider is both CPU and GPU intensive making it a good title to test our Intel Core i7 12700K vs Intel Core i7 11700K.
For 1080p, the Intel Core i7 12700K was delivering 200 FPS on average, whereas the Intel Core i7 11700K was reaching 185. This means that the Intel Core i7 12700K was 7.5% faster at outputting frames than the Intel Core i7 11700K.
Moving on to 1440p resolution, the Intel Core i7 12700K was ahead by 5 frames by delivering an average frame rate of 169 FPS, whereas the Intel Core i7 11700K was reaching 164 FPS.
10 Game Average
Across 10 games that were tested, the Intel Core i7 12700K gave a 7% higher average FPS than the Intel Core i7 11700K for 1080p resolution. As for 1440p, the results show the Intel Core i7 12700K reaching a 3% higher average frame rate than the Intel Core i7 11700K.
i7 12700K vs i7 11700K Productivity Benchmarks
To continue the Intel Core i7 12700K vs Intel Core i7 11700K comparison, we have both processors tested on different applications to see how fast they can complete tasks and how much they score on different benchmarking tools. Like before, the benchmarks were tested from YT/Jarrod’sTech, and the same setup was used for productivity benchmarks.
Cinebench R23
Starting with Cinebench R23, we can see a huge difference in performance between the Intel Core i7 12700K and Intel Core i7 11700K.
For the multi-core benchmark, the difference in score between the Intel Core i7 12700K and Intel Core i7 11700K was a staggering 35%.
Similarly, for single-core tests, the Intel Core i7 12700K had a 19% higher score than the Intel Core i7 11700K, which is a monumental improvement in just the span of one year.
Linus Kernel Compilation
Linus Kernel Compilation test shows us a difference of 28% between the Intel Core i7 12700K and the Intel Core i7 11700K. The Intel Core i7 12700K took 18 seconds less than the Intel Core i7 11700K to complete the task. It’s worth mentioning that the higher thread count of the Intel Core i7 12700K plays a huge role in impacting the overall difference.
Blender
The blender test was done by rendering out a classroom scene and a BMW car model. This is great to see how fast the processors take to finish the rendering.
For the Blender classroom benchmark, the Intel Core i7 12700K took a much shorter time to completely render the scene. Overall, the difference between the Intel Core i7 12700K and Intel Core i7 11700K was 30%.
As for the Blender BMW benchmark, the difference between the two processors was a similar 32%, with Intel Core i7 12700K in the lead.
V-Ray
For the V-Ray benchmark, the higher thread count of the Intel Core i7 12700K allows it to score 30% higher than the Intel Core i7 11700K. It’s another big win for the Intel Core i7 12700K.
Corona Benchmark
Corona benchmark also uses the capabilities of both processors to render out a scene. By noting down the time, we can see how fast the one CPU compares to the other.
For the Corona benchmark, the Intel Core i7 12700K was performing 25% faster than the Intel Core i7 11700K at completing its assigned tasks.
Handbrake
For editing videos, the Handbrake benchmark was conducted by downscaling a 20-minute 60 FPS 4K video into 1080p.
As is the case with all other benchmarks, the Intel Core i7 12700K performed 30% faster than the Intel Core i7 11700K to complete the task.
Adobe Premiere
Both Intel Core i7 12700K vs Intel Core i7 11700K were benchmarked on Adobe Premier to test out how fast the processors can render edited videos. For Adobe Premiere, the Puget System benchmark was used to rank the capabilities of both processors.
The Intel Core i7 12700K scored 17% higher than the Intel Core i7 11700K, which is another nice difference between the two generations of CPUs.
DaVinci Resolve
DaVinci Resolve is another video editing software to test both processors’ capabilities at rendering videos. It also uses the Puget System benchmark to score both processors.
For DaVinci Resolve, we can see another 14% difference in score in favor of the Intel Core i7 12700K. So far, this is the closest the Intel Core i7 11700K has managed to close the gap.
Also read: 12900k vs 12700k vs 12600k
Microsoft Office
Looking at different Microsoft Office benchmarks across MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, and MS Outlook, we can see a similar trend as all other benchmarks in this list, with the Intel Core i7 12700K beating the Intel Core i7 11700K by a decently high margin.
For Microsoft Excel, the Intel Core i7 12700K scored 16% higher than the Intel Core i7 11700K.
Similarly, on Microsoft Word, the Intel Core i7 12700K scored 14% higher than the Intel Core i7 11700K.
Moving on to Microsoft Outlook, the Intel Core i7 12700K scored 18% better than the Intel Core i7 11700K.
Finally, with Microsoft PowerPoint, the Intel Core i7 12700K beat the Intel Core i7 11700K by a margin of 14%.
7-Zip
7-Zip benchmark was done by compressing and decompressing 32MB of data to see how well both CPUs scored.
For compression, the Intel Core i7 12700K performed 18% better than the Intel Core i7 11700K. Similarly, with decompression, the Intel Core i7 12700K was reaching 25% higher MIPS than the Intel Core i7 11700K.
SiSoftware Sandra
SiSoftware Sandra was used for AES encryption and decryption multi-threaded tests to see how fast both CPUs were for such tasks.
For both encryption and decryption tasks, the Intel Core i7 12700K outclasses the Intel Core i7 11700K with a difference of 35% higher bandwidth.
Geekbench 5
Lastly, with Geekbench 5, both processors were tested for both single-core and multi-core benchmarks.
For multi-core, we can see that the Intel Core i7 12700K scores 34% higher than the Intel Core i7 11700K, which is a very huge difference.
As for the single-core test, the Intel Core i7 12700K scored 10% higher than the Intel Core i7 12700K. This is by far the smallest difference in all the application benchmarks.
All Application Differences
To end the application benchmarks with a rundown of both processors across all different software, we have the Intel Core i7 12700K almost 32% faster than the Intel Core i7 11700K.
The highest difference in performance comes from the Cinebench R23 multi-core test with a huge 53% difference. For the lowest margin of difference, we have the Geekbench 5 single-core benchmark with a difference of 10%.
Power
To compare the power draw of both CPUs, the Intel Core i7 12700K was actually using less power than the Intel Core i7 11700K while still scoring 30% faster in the Blender Classroom benchmark. Overall, the Intel Core i7 12700K was consuming 291 W, which was 4% more power efficient than the Intel Core i7 11700K, which was consuming 301 W.
Temperature
Regarding the temperatures of Intel Core i7 12700K vs Intel Core i7 11700K, the Blender Classroom test was used to see how hot the two CPUs get. Surprisingly, the Intel Core i7 12700K was 11 °C hotter than the Intel Core i7 11700K, with a difference of 16%; even though it was consuming less power than the Intel Core i7 11700K, it was much warmer.
Final Thoughts
To end this Intel Core i7 12700K vs Intel Core i7 11700K comparison, let’s get a quick summary. First, we discussed the differences in specifications, where the higher thread count of the Intel Core i7 12700K was the most glaring difference.
For gaming benchmarks, the Intel Core i7 12700K wasn’t that much of an upgrade over the Intel Core i7 11700K, as the highest difference it reached 1080p ranged from 2% to 11%. For 1440p, the difference was even less.
On the other hand, the application benchmarks showed the Intel Core i7 12700K completely destroying the Intel Core i7 11700K in every test. The highest difference was 53%, whereas the lowest was 10%. This actually makes the upgrade from Intel Core i7 11700K to Intel Core i7 12700K look viable.
It’s also worth mentioning that the Intel Core i7 12700K was more power efficient than the Intel Core i7 11700K, albeit being much warmer.
An upgrade from the Intel Core i7 11700K to the Intel Core i7 12700K would be impractical, though, as both CPUs are operating on different sockets, which means you would need to upgrade the motherboard as well. Moreover, to get the most out of the Intel Core i7 12700K, you’d also need to upgrade to DDR5 RAM, which costs way more than DDR4.
In the end, getting the CPU, you could find more value in the market, is recommended since there’s not a huge difference in gaming benchmarks. Unless you do a lot of productive work on a PC, we wouldn’t recommend upgrading from the 11th gen to the 12th.
Also read: Intel 12th Gen vs 11th Gen
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