Intel's best gaming CPU ever (again) is here, but it has an eye watering price tag. At $800, the 12900KS is one of the most expensive processors ever released, and though it is the fastest gaming chip we've ever seen, breaking 5.5GHz on a couple of cores at a time, that's a hell of a lot to ask for a mere 10% performance uplift, and it comes at a huge thermal cost too.
Intel's Alder Lake generation of CPUs are the most impressive gaming CPUs ever made, featuring incredible single threaded performance, and amazing multi-threaded capabilities -- especially when paired with the Efficiency cores of the higher-end models. At the top end clock speed is incredible too, with the 12900K hitting 5.2GHz on a single core, and up to 5GHz on all of them at once.
The 12900KS is a halo product designed to ward off the AMD Ryzen 5800X3D that is fast approaching its own release. With a 5.5GHz boost clock, and the ability to hit 5.2GHz on all cores at once, it may well hold on to the gaming crown, but it comes at a huge cost. It's heavily binned to find the 12900K CPUs that can clock this high, which means it's super niche, and it needs a lot of power to do it.
The TDP is as much as 260W when running at full tilt, and it might go even more if you remove the power limits in the BIOS. You'll also need a hefty wallet, as the CPU alone is priced at $800.
Considering you can get the 12900KF for as little as $570, that's a massive price jump for a very modest performance boost.
Worth it if you're trying to break records and don't mind turning your PC into a space heater, but for everyone else, just ignore this one and wait for the next-gen. It's not far off now.
The 12900KS is in stock and ready to buy on Newegg right now.