Chinese outlet Xfastest has shared a review of the yet unreleased Core i3-12100. Featuring four performance (Golden Cove) cores, the budget Alder Lake-S SKU utterly destroys the dated Ryzen competition in the sub-$150 segment. AMD’s primarily offerings in this segment are the Ryzen 3 3100 and 3300X. Both are quad-core Zen 2 parts priced just over the $100 mark (although the chip shortages have pushed it over $200). The Core i3-12100 is roughly 20-25% faster than the Ryzen 3 3300X in most workloads, and over 30% faster than the 3100.
In 7-zip, the Core i3-12100 is marginally faster than the Ryzen 3 3300X and a fair bit ahead of the 3100. However, surprisingly, the tables are turned in the decompression test. Both the Ryzen chips manage to overcome the 12100 by a notable margin here.
The Core i3-12100 is 30-40% faster than the Ryzen 3 3300X in the Cinebench R23 single-threaded test while leading by 25% in the multi-threaded test. The 3100 is another 5-10% slower in both tests.
V-Ray performs roughly the same as the Cinebench multi-threaded benchmark, but PugetBench (Premiere Pro) sees the biggest deltas between the two SKUs. In the Export test, the Core i3-12100 is nearly 2x faster than the Ryzen 3 family. In the other two benchmarks, its lead is less intimidating, although, nothing short of a crushing victory.
In gaming workloads, the Core i3-12100 is consistently 15-20% faster than the Ryzen 3 3300X/3100. Cyberpunk 2077 sees the Alder Lake part take a massive 50% lead over the 3100 at 1080p Ultra (+DLSS), while CS: GO is easier on the aging Ryzen parts, granting the 12100 a marginal lead of over 10%.
Coming to the TDP and thermals, the Core i3-12100 performs admirably demonstrating the efficiency of the Intel 7 node. In the AIDA64 test, the CPU draws just under 40W, slightly more than the Ryzen 3 3100, but a fair bit lower than the 3300X. The FPU test, however, pushes all three SKUs to their limits, with the 12100 approaching the 65W mark.
Finally, looking at the temps, the Core i3-12100 is the coolest of the three chips, staying under 60 degrees under even the most punishing workloads.
Via: XFastest
