The official premiere of Alder Lake processors is expected only on October 27, but now there is an opportunity to look at high-quality live photos of the flagship of the series – Intel Core i9-12900K. It was filmed in China, which is not surprising: you can already buy such a processor in the Celestial Empire, and the price now looks much more adequate than in July. However, one must understand that no one has serial production: both in the photo and in the sale are only engineering samples of the Core i9-12900K, which may have a number of limitations.
So, according to the source, the Core i9-12900K ES2 shown in these photos operates at a frequency of 3.5-4.5 GHz, while the frequency of the serial version should reach 5.3 GHz. And the problem of specifically the second version of the engineering sample (the same ES2) is the impossibility of updating the microcode, in contrast to the ES3 and QS samples. Perhaps this was the reason for the massive sale of ES2 in China – there is already little to take from them.
A feature of Alder Lake in general and Core i9-12900K in particular is that the CPUs have become thicker, so they need a new cooling system or new fasteners for cooling systems at the disposal of users.
Source: gadgettendency