The Intel Core i3-12300 Review: Quad-Core Alder Lake Shines
by Gavin Bonshor on March 3, 2022 8:30 AM ESTIntel Core i3-12300 Performance: DDR5 vs DDR4
Intel’s 12th generation processors from the top of the stack, including the flagship Core i9-12900K) and the more affordable and entry-level offerings such as the Core i3-12300, allow users to build a new system with the latest technologies available. One of the main elements that make Intel’s Alder Lake processors flexible for users building a new system is that it includes support for both DDR5 and DDR4 memory. It’s no secret that DDR5 memory costs (far) more than the already established DDR4 counterparts. One element to this includes an early adopter’s fee. Having the latest and greatest technology comes at a price premium.
The reason why we have opted to test the difference in performance between DDR5 and DDR4 memory with the Core i3-12300 is simply down to the price point. While users will most likely be looking to use DDR5 with the performance SKUs such as the Core i9-12900K, Core i7-12700K, and Core i5-12600K, users building a new system with the Core i3-12300 are more likely to go down a more affordable route. This includes using DDR4 memory, which is inherently cheaper than DDR5 and opting for a cheaper motherboard such as an H670, B660, or H610 option. Such systems do give up some performance versus what the i3-12300 can do at its peak, but in return it can bring costs down signfiicantly.
Traditionally we test our memory settings at JEDEC specifications. JEDEC is the standards body that determines the requirements for each memory standard. In the case of Intel's Alder Lake, the Core i3 supports both DDR5 and DDR4 memory. Below are the memory settings we used for our DDR5 versus DDR4 testing:
- DDR4-3200 CL22
- DDR5-4800(B) CL40
CPU Performance: DDR5 versus DDR4
In our computational benchmarks, there wasn't much difference between DDR5-4800 CL40 and DDR4-3200 CL22 when using the Core i3-12300. The biggest difference came in our WinRAR benchmark which is heavily reliant on memory to increase performance; the DDR5 performed around 21% better than DDR4 in this scenario.
Gaming Performance: DDR5 versus DDR4
On the whole, DDR5 does perform better in our gaming tests, but not enough to make it a 'must have' in comparison to DDR4 memory. The gains overall are marginal for the most part, with DDR5 offering around 3-7 more frames per second over DDR4 memory, depending on the titles game engine optimization.
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Makaveli - Thursday, March 3, 2022 - link
DDR4-3200 CL22Don't know anyone using DDR4 with that high cas latency.
Going to CL14 memory will most likely remove the gap in gaming.
Oxford Guy - Thursday, March 3, 2022 - link
CL16 3200 RAM was cheap many many years ago and I have not heard of a single stability problem with any platform other than Zen 1, which was quite special.It’s preposterous to run 3200-speed RAM at anything slower than CL16.
mode_13h - Thursday, March 3, 2022 - link
Regarding the review:* Glad to see the DDR4 vs. DDR5 comparison.
* Sad to see DDR5 used for remainder of benchmarks, given current price & availability. People buying a sub-$150 CPU won't be using DDR5, making these benchmarks unrealistic.
* Sad to see minimal analysis of power consumption. I believe much of their advantage over the Ryzen R3 5300G comes from burning more power and DDR5, but without power measurements on individual benchmarks, we can't compute perf/W or make other conclusions about this.
* Glad to see the 5300G showing up, where it did.
* Glad to see the i7-6700K (and i7-2600K) sometimes making an appearance. So very interesting that a couple benchmarks showed the i7-6700K with roughly equal performance!
* On the last page, Turbo power is mistakenly stated as 69 W, although the first page chart correctly lists it as 89 W.
* Please ask Ian to open source his 3D Particle Movement benchmark, or stop using it. As the rest of your benchmarks are publicly available & independently verifiable, this is only fair.
Regarding the CPU:
* Definitely a performance bargain, if you can get it near list price!
* Sad to see ark.intel.com doesn't specify ECC support (which IMO means probably not... but check the docs of any LGA 1700 ECC-capable motherboard to be sure).
lmcd - Thursday, March 3, 2022 - link
Ironically DDR5 benchmarks can be used to get a sense of what using higher-speed DDR4 can unlock.Calin - Friday, March 4, 2022 - link
"Sad to see DDR5 used for remainder of benchmarks,"As a lower performance processor, DDR5 wouldn't bring too much to the table. They specify a 5-10% increase in performance with DDR5, with an average of some 6%.
So, basically nothing would change in the benchmarks - a 10% performance difference could easily be ignored for many other factors (price, availability, necessary power/cooling, ...)
mode_13h - Saturday, March 5, 2022 - link
> So, basically nothing would change in the benchmarks -> a 10% performance difference could easily be ignored
That's ridiculous. 10% is certainly significant. I would consider <= 1% to be down in the noise.
Calin - Monday, March 7, 2022 - link
3% used to be Anand's Anandtech "noise".I wouldn't care for a 10% - 25 seconds compile time down to 22... or editing images, 50 images to take 54 seconds instead of one minute.
That's the reason Intel used to compare new processors to 3 generations old ones (3-5 years old). The improvement over multiple generations grew to a nice 25% or more (at least in some benchmarks). But, if all you do takes seconds or minutes, that 10% reduction in time (or 10% increase in throughput) is almost never truly useful.
mode_13h - Tuesday, March 8, 2022 - link
> But, if all you do takes seconds or minutes, that 10% reduction in time> (or 10% increase in throughput) is almost never truly useful.
I'm not talking about upgrading for an absolute increase of 10%. However, 10% is a lot of error to stack with whatever else you're comparing against.
Either the accuracy of the benchmarks matters or it doesn't. If not, then obviously we don't need to bother about 10%. If it does, then 10% is too much to ignore.
Ryan Smith - Friday, March 4, 2022 - link
"Sad to see DDR5 used for remainder of benchmarks, given current price & availability. People buying a sub-$150 CPU won't be using DDR5, making these benchmarks unrealistic."Including the DDR4 vs. DDR5 numbers was our compromise, here. We're going to be using this dataset for a long time going forward; it didn't make much sense to base everything around DDR4, and thus unnecessarily kneecapping the CPU in current and future comparisons.
Alistair - Thursday, March 3, 2022 - link
I would like to point out that it has been five months already, still can not buy a single quad core CPU. Intel is teasing us with a good cheap product, but it doesn't actually exist. If and when it finally shows up, it will probably be overpriced (over $200 CAD?) so this product might as well not exist.