What makes the 12th Gen Intel® Core™ H-series a fabulous processor for Gaming?

12th Gen Intel® Core™ H-series
(Image credit: Intel)

The Intel® Core™ i9-12900HK is undoubtedly an impressive laptop processor, here’s why. With up to 14-cores in use and clock speeds up to 5 GHz, it not only gives you the perfect balance of power and performance but also provides low-latency competitive gameplay to streaming and multitasking that has never been possible before. 

Through the powerful 14-core (20 threads) mobile CPU, it’s possible to live stream gameplay, while rendering processor-intensive footage for productions as well. If you’re someone who wants their games and streams to look their best, then the new 12th Gen Intel® Core™ with a hybrid architecture is the ultimate choice for you.

Game. Stream. Record, Multi-task - Get unmatched performance

All 12th Gen Intel® Core™ processors have support for LPDDR5 RAM (up to 4800 MHz) allowing much higher frequencies, twice the bandwidth, and reduced power consumption than the DDR4. The 40% increase* over the 11th Gen CPU speed is due to the hybrid combination of Performance-cores with Efficiency- cores which work together to deliver high frame rates and low loading times.

*Based on superior performance of 12th Gen Intel Core i9 12900HK against Intel Core i9 11980HK, estimated based on measurements with Intel Reference Validation Platforms.For more details visit -https://edc.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/performance/benchmarks/mobile/

12th Gen Intel® Core™ - Hybrid Architecture

Performance-cores (P-cores)

  • Physically larger cores which are designed for raw power and efficiency
  • Optimized for single-threaded performance with low latency
  • Hyperthreading enabled 

Efficient-cores (E-cores)

  • Smaller cores made for multi-core performance-per-watt 
  • Primarily for background processes and scales with workloads 
  • Run at a lower voltage and speed up to match the demand 

Intel 12th gen

(Image credit: Intel)

Thanks to the combination of Performance and Efficiency cores, you will have the freedom to stream, gameplay or chat with your friends while recording and editing too, with nothing compromising your overall performance. Due to the way that the performance hybrid architecture works together with dynamic power management, your gaming laptop will be able to excel at the highest level without any lag or slow down to speak of.

Performance cores are larger and handle your gameplay and single threaded applications, with smaller Efficiency cores running the background processes, such as Discord.

The 12th Gen Intel® Core™ processors are powerful enough to be pushed to their limits so as to give you an unrivalled personalised performance in your gaming laptop. Through Intel® Extreme Tuning Utility, you can overclock the true potential of the CPU. What’s more, there’s no need to worry about lag and latency, as the Intel® Killer Wi-Fi 6E technology ensures you enjoy uninterrupted gaming at its best.

Intel 12th gen powered laptops

(Image credit: Intel)

This is because the Wi-Fi 6E (Gig+) is 3X faster than WiFi 5 with 75% less latency. The action isn’t just limited to what’s on your gaming laptop screen either, as the Intel® Core™ 12th Gen processors feature Thunderbolt™ 4 support that allows for multiple 4K monitors with a maximum throughput of up to 40Gbps. This means you can have a multi-monitor setup with no restrictions all through a dock.

Internal tests at Intel have already shown Intel's 12th generation to beat some stellar competition. The tests from the company have shown higher FPS gains of up to 66%* in League of Legends, up to 59%* in CS:GO and even up to 49%* in a single player game like Hitman 3: Dartmoor.

*Based on superior performance of 12th Gen Intel® Core™i9-12900HK on the majority of the 31 game titles tested as measured by frames per second or turn time on similarly configured systems with 11th gen Intel® Core™i9-11980HK, or Ryzen 9 5900HX processors. See www.intel.com/PerformanceIndex for additional details. Results may vary. Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others

12th Gen Intel® Core™ - Performance without compromise

The Intel® Core™ i9-12900HK is the flagship processor, however, there are other powerful mobile CPUs available in the line as well, offering exceptional performance. Also available is the i7-12800H, which features the hybrid 14-core (20 threads) framework, and the i5-12600H which is built upon 12-core (16 threads).

  • Intel Core i9-12900HK: Made for the most demanding games at up to 4K (2160p) resolution in the ultraportable form factor.
  • Intel Core i7-12800H: Perfect to play anywhere with a thin and light laptop offering fast performance with dedicated mobile graphics and high battery life.
  • Intel Core i5-12600H: Powerful enough for the latest games, streaming, and content creation in thin gaming laptops. 

For those who want to push their gaming performance to the limits, the Intel® Core™12th Gen mobile processors include both the Intel® Thread Director and the Intel® Turbo Boost Max 3.0 Technology. The former uses A.I. to assign cores to the correct threads, with automatic adjustments made to keep temperature and power consumption down. The latter acts as a performance boost without the need for overclocking, where the faster P-cores are assigned the most intensive processes, such as gaming. Check out the latest 12th gen Intel Core H series powered laptops at their official site.

GamesRadar+ was first founded in 1999, and since then has been dedicated to delivering video game-related news, reviews, previews, features, and more. Since late 2014, the website has been the online home of Total Film, SFX, Edge, and PLAY magazines, with comics site Newsarama joining the fold in 2020. Our aim as the global GamesRadar Staff team is to take you closer to the games, movies, TV shows, and comics that you love. We want to upgrade your downtime, and help you make the most of your time, money, and skills. We always aim to entertain, inform, and inspire through our mix of content - which includes news, reviews, features, tips, buying guides, and videos.