Introduction

The Intel Core i3-12300 "Alder Lake" is an entry-level processor that succeeds an odd line of SKUs, such as the i3-10300, i3-8300, etc. This isn't the cheapest 12th Gen Core i3 you can buy, as that title goes to the almost-$100 i3-12100F, which won us over for some impressive gaming and general productivity performance at its feather-light price. The i3-12300, on the other hand, commands a price that's 50% higher, at $160.

So what are the premium features on the specs sheet for the Core i3-12300? Surprisingly, nothing much. Historically, Intel sub-classified its Core i3 desktop processor series into the i3-xx100 and i3-xx300 series, with the latter usually featuring not just higher clock speeds, but also a little more L3 cache. For example, the i3-10100 quad-core processor comes with 6 MB of L3 cache, while the i3-10300 has 8 MB. We tested both chips, and the i3-10300 ended up all of 3% faster in productivity tests on average, with the larger cache helping with certain streaming-data multi-threaded workloads, such as file compression.



The Core i3-12300, which we are reviewing today, does not come with a different hardware configuration from the i3-12100 aside from clock speeds. It ticks at 3.50 GHz, with 4.40 GHz Turbo Boost, while the i3-12100 comes with 3.30 GHz base and 4.30 GHz Turbo Boost. The Xe LP-based UHD 730 graphics is same on both SKUs, save for the 50 MHz higher iGPU boost frequency on the i3-12300. Both SKUs come with four "Golden Cove" performance cores (P-cores) and no "Gracemont" efficiency cores (E-cores). The cache structure is the same, too, with 1.25 MB L2 cache per core and 12 MB of shared L3 cache. The processor base power and maximum turbo power values are the same, too, at 60 W and 89 W, respectively. Lastly, the I/O is exactly the same, including native support for the same memory frequencies of DDR5-4800 and DDR4-3200, as well as support for PCI-Express Gen 5.

What's on offer if you put aside all of these is a sub-$150 product that gives you all of the next-gen I/O capabilities, and a 4-core/8-thread CPU with muscle for most desktop productivity use cases, as well as gaming. Just about 4 years ago, Intel felt 4-core/8-thread is all that gaming needed. A lot of water has flown under the bridge in the world of processors since, which especially holds true for Intel. The 4 cores of the i3-12300 come with the first massive generational IPC uplift for Core i3 in over six years! If you recall, Intel skipped Core i3 for "Rocket Lake" and its "Cypress Cove" cores.

In this review, we put the Intel Core i3-12300 through its paces, and tell you if the $20–$50 premium over i3-12100/F is worth something. More importantly, whether in the absence of i3-12100 inventory, the i3-12300 makes for a good enough choice over pricier Core i5 SKUs from current and past generations. In this review, we not only included results for "stock," but also did a run with the power limit removed, DDR5 replaced with more economical DDR4, and the processor overclocked to 5 GHz by using a motherboard with an on-board clock generator.


Intel paper-launched the 12th Gen Core processor family on October 27, allowing us to post everything about the processor except performance testing, so we did a more comprehensive Preview Article on the "Alder Lake" microarchitecture. The Core i3-12300 is based on a physically smaller die than the C0 die of the the i9-12900K, codenamed "H0." There are no die-shots from Intel of this die, but MSI OC Lab de-lidded a Core i5 "H0" processor and compared its die-size with that of the larger die. Built on the same Intel 7 node as the C0 die, formerly known as 10 nm Enhanced SuperFin, the new H0 die is about 24% smaller in area. Considering these are high-volume SKUs, that's a massive savings in wafer consumption at scale.


Unlike the C0 die, which physically features 8 "Golden Cove" P-cores and 8 "Gracemont" E-cores, the H0 silicon lacks E-cores and physically only has 6 "Golden Cove" P-cores. With the E-core clusters and a couple of P-cores out of the way, the shared L3 cache size is proportionately reduced to 18 MB. The uncore (integrated northbridge), Xe-LP graphics core, and I/O interfaces are the same as the C0 die. You get 16 lanes of PCI-Express Gen 5 which go toward the PEG slot, 4 lanes of PCI-Express Gen 4 toward a CPU-attached M.2 NVMe slot, and 8 DMI Gen4 lanes toward the chipset bus. The Core i3-12300 only features four active P-cores out of the six on the die, and the shared L3 cache size is cut down to 12 MB.


The "Golden Cove" performance core (P-core) features numerical increments to the decode unit, micro-op queue, and micro-op cache. The out-of-order (OoO) engine sees similar increments with 6-wide allocation and 12-wide execution ports, compared to 5-wide allocation and 10-wide execution ports for Cypress Cove. The execution stage sees the addition of a fifth execution port and ALU, FMA with FP16 support, and an updated fast adder (FADD). Similar improvements are made to the cache and memory sub-system. These add toward the 28% IPC uplift for this core.

There are no E-cores physically present on the H0 silicon. With no Hybrid CPU Core architecture present, the Core i3 H0 processor is a traditional multi-core processor that doesn't quite need the Intel Thread Director middleware, although we don't know if Thread Director is absent on these chips or a vestige of it is present.


To eke out the best-possible thermals from the 14 nm node it was stuck with, Intel pulled off some innovative ways to transfer heat between the silicon and cooling solution over the past couple of solutions. These innovations continue with "Alder Lake." The die and STIM are now thinner, and the copper IHS thicker. Among the new overclocking capabilities are the ability to tweak even the E-cores, DDR5 memory, new XMP 3.0 profiles for DDR5 memory, synthetic BCLK that ensures a base-clock overclock doesn't break sensitive clock domains relying on it, and external clock generation, in addition to the processor's internal clock generator. The Core i3-12300 lacks an unlocked multiplier and hence doesn't offer a multiplier value beyond 44x. You could try playing with the 100 MHz base-clock on a Z690 chipset motherboard, as it is de-coupled with other sensitive clock-domains, such as PCIe.

Intel Z690 Chipset

The Z690 chipset is Intel's first client chipset with PCI-Express 4.0 downstream connectivity. It talks to the "Alder Lake-S" processor over the DMI 4.0 x8 chipset bus. Downstream PCIe connectivity includes 12x Gen 4 and 16x Gen 3 PCIe general-purpose lanes. The rest of its chipset-attached connectivity is the same as the Z590, including MIPI SoundWire support, NVMe RAID, 8-port SATA 6 Gbps, and recommended network interfaces that include 2.5 GbE and Wi-Fi 6E.

Intel B660 and H610 Chipsets

As of this writing, VERY few motherboards use the H670 client chipset, making the B660 Intel's mainstream desktop chipset for those with a "locked" 12th Gen Core processor, those who don't need the I/O options of the Z690 and want to save big on the motherboard. The B660 lacks CPU overclocking support, but permits memory overclocking. Motherboard vendors can choose to give it a PCIe Gen 5 PEG slot, as well as DDR5 memory, although you may come across plenty of motherboards with PCIe Gen4 PEG and DDR4 memory. The B660 chipset uses a narrower 4-lane DMI 4.0 chipset bus than what 12th Gen Core processors are capable of (up to 8 DMI 4.0 lanes). This shouldn't be too much of a problem as the chipset only puts out 6 downstream PCIe Gen4 lanes, besides 8 Gen3 lanes. Motherboard designers should use the downstream Gen4 connectivity to wire out another M.2 Gen4 slot. You also get fewer high-bandwidth USB3 port types. The H610 is the bare entry-level chipset. You lose out on memory overclocking, only get Gen3 PCIe connectivity across the board, and have no CPU-attached NVMe.

Unboxing and Photography

Here it is, the processor itself. It measures 37.5 mm x 45.0 mm and is a more rectangular-looking processor, much like the LGA1366 before it.


Included in the package is this new Intel stock cooler. It's a relatively simple, compact solution with a copper base.


Intel Socket LGA1700 has an intuitive installation process that should be familiar from many past LGA sockets. Trouble is that it comes with a different cooler mount-hole spacing than LGA1200 and the five different Socket-H series sockets before it, so you'll need to search for a compatible cooler. Most cooler companies are handing out adapters, but those aren't available in all countries.

Test Setup

• All applications, games, and processors are tested with the drivers and hardware listed below—no performance results were recycled between test systems.
• All games and applications are tested using the same version.
• All games are set to their highest quality setting unless indicated otherwise.

Super Pi

SuperPi is one of the most popular benchmarks with overclockers and tweakers. It has been used in world-record competitions since forever. It is a purely single-threaded CPU test that calculates Pi to a large number of digits—32 million for our testing. Released in 1995, it only supports x86 floating-point instructions and thus makes for a good test for single-threaded legacy application performance.