Intel Alder Lake-S 6-Core, 12-Thread Desktop CPU Leaks In New Benchmark Run
We are all curious to see what kind of performance Intel's upcoming Alder Lake processors will deliver, and how the hybrid architecture will play out. Answers will come in time. For now, we are left to scour the web for leaks and rumors, and to that end, another Alder Lake-S processor has poked its head over at SiSoftware's SANDRA database.
At least it's labeled as an Alder Lake-S processor, anyway. The "S" designation" means it is a desktop processor, and that i how the platform is labeled as well, in the database entry. However, it's paired with SO-DIMM memory, as typically found in laptops and some mini PCs, and an AMD Radeon RX 5500M mobile GPU.
In any event, the listing identifies the Alder Lake-S processor as having 6 physical cores and 12 threads of computing muscle. Assuming it is being correctly identified, this suggests it is without any lower power cores, the presence of which can lead to some seemingly oddball core and thread counts (as we have covered in the past).
That's because Intel is implementing a design that is similar in philosophy to Arm's big.LITTLE approach, pairing high performance cores with power efficient cores on the same die. So for example you could have a 14-core/20-thread processor, as has been previously leaked at Geekbench, consisting of 6 high performance cores with Hyper Threading support and 8 power efficient cores (6 high performance cores + 6 threads + 8 power efficient cores = 20 threads).
In this case, SANDRA is identifying 6 cores with Hyper Threading support, for a traditional 6-core/12-thread design. It's also shown as having 18MB of L3 cache, and a rather slow 800MHz clock speed. Incidentally, Geekbench also identified an 800MHz clock speed for the aforementioned 14-core/20-chip, albeit a much faster 4.7GHz turbo frequency.
Click to Enlarge (Source: SiSoftware SANDRA)
SANDRA does not mention the turbo clock on the 6-thread/12-core part, probably because this chip was locked at 800MHz. Regardless, it delivered "excellent performance" that is higher than 95.64 percent of ranked results.
It scored 540.56 Mpix/s in the processor multi-media test. Navigating the SANDRA database is a bit of a bear, but from what I can find, a 6-core/12-thread AMD Ryzen 5 5600X scores around 850 Mpix/s, depending on the clock speed. The Alder Lake-S part is way below, but again, it appears to be at a clock speed disadvantage.
Anyway, take the numbers with a grain of salt. Performance leaks should be a bit more reliable closer to launch, and of course the most accurate data won't be revealed until actual reviews emerge.
