Intel's new 'Enthusiast' 16-core Alder Lake-HX laptop CPU is official

Intel has made its new 12th Gen Core HX mobile processors official, with a family of new CPUs for next-gen laptops that tap desktop-level silicon... awesome to see.

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The new flagship chip is the Core i9-12950HX processor which rocks 16 cores and 24 threads at up to 5.0GHz, and a maximum power draw of 157W. Under that, we have the Intel Core i7-12850HX (16C/24T at up to 4.8GHz), the Core i7-12650HX (14C/20T at up to 4.7GHz), the Core i5-12600HX (12C/16T at up to 4.6GHz) and finally, the Core i5-12450HX (8C/12T at up to 4.4GHz).

The 12th Gen Intel Core HX processor family delivers real-world productivity, collaboration, content creation, gaming and entertainment in innovative mobile designs:

• Up to 16 cores (8 Performance-cores and 8 Efficient-cores) and 24 threads running at a processor base power of 55 W.
• Access to x16 PCIe Gen 5.0 via the processor and 4 x 4 PCIe Gen 4.0 from a dedicated platform controller hub (PCH) for increased bandwidth and faster data transfers.
• An industry-first unlocked and overclockable series of mobile processors.
• Memory support for up to 128GBs of DDR5/LPDDR5 (up to 4800 MHz/5200 MHz) and DDR4 (up to 3200 MHz/LPDDR4 4267 MHz) with Error Correcting Code (ECC) capability.
• Designs with Intel Wi-Fi 6/6E (Gig+)2 for improved connectivity and access to the new 6 GHz Spectrum.

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Intel has some impressive things to be proud of here with the 12th Gen Intel Core HX processors, with both Memory and Core overclocking supported. DDR5 memory is used with the new Alder Lake-HX processors, as well as DDR4 memory -- with XMP 3.0 support for DDR5 RAM -- and a new Intel Dynamic Memory Boost feature.

There's also the introduction of Efficient-core overclocking, updated Intel Speed Optimizer, and enhanced Intel Extreme Tuning Utility.

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Intel's new 12th Gen Core HX laptop processors deliver desktop-caliber technology in a mobile package, with the same 45 x 37.5mm high and wide -- but a reduction in the height by 2.4mm -- the new laptop CPUs are 2.0mm high BPA package, the desktop CPUs are 4.4mm LGA package.

• Read more: Intel Alder Lake-HX: 16-core CPU w/ OC + PCIe 5.0 support for laptops

Chris Walker, Intel corporate vice president and general manager of Mobility Client Platforms said: "With the new core architecture and higher power limits of 12th Gen Intel Core HX processors, we're enabling content creators to tackle the most demanding work flows like never before - for example, executing 3D renders in the background while continuing to iterate on other 3D assets in the scene".

"No more waiting around for processor-intensive workloads to finish, you can stay in the flow. Gamers and content creators will also have access to high bandwidth platform technologies like PCIe Gen 5 with RAID support, and support for ECC memory to ensure high levels of system data integrity and reliability".