Intel 12th Generation ‘Alder Lake’ HX CPUs with up to 16 Cores for Premium Gaming Launched

Intel has introduced a new 55W tier in its 12th Generation ‘Alder Lake’ laptop CPU range. The HX series consists of seven new CPU variants that are effectively desktop-class Alder Lake CPUs repackaged to fit inside laptops. With an appropriate cooling system, the 55W nominal TDP may reach 157W.

These CPUs, unveiled today at Intel’s Vision technology conference, will target a new generation of high-end gaming and workstation laptops.

These CPUs are not for the thin-and-light category, with up to 16 heterogeneous cores, PCIe 5.0, overclocking capabilities, and high-speed connections.

The top-of-the-line Core i9-12950HX includes eight Hyper-Threading performance cores and eight efficiency cores for 24 threads.

The P cores have a Turbo Boost frequency of 5GHz. The overall cache memory is 30MB. This model has Intel’s vPro management technology but is similar to the Core i9-12900HX, which is more often seen in consumer and gaming laptops.

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Three Core i7 versions and two Core i5 variants are also available at the bottom of the stack.

You get more cores and a higher TDP limit than the Alder Lake H series, but specific models have lower clock rates and less powerful integrated GPUs. Optional error correction and XMP profile switching are available for DDR5 and DDR4 memory but not for the comparable low-power standards.

The HX series supports memory and core overclocking, with separate P and E cores controllers.

The business promises to outperform AMD’s current top-end Ryzen 6000 series and Apple’s M1 Max SoC in professional and video encoding tasks.

Thread Director, an Intel function that helps distribute workloads to the most suitable available core or thread, is intimately integrate with Windows 11.

The 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes may utilize to connect with a discrete GPU, while the extra PCIe 4.0 routes can interface with up to four NVMe SSDs. There’s also Wi-Fi 6E and Thunderbolt as an option.

Lenovo, HP, Dell, Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte are the first laptop makers to reveal models based on these new CPUs. They might also appear in small desktops or all-in-one computers, such as Intel’s NUC series.