Test Setup
For our tests, we will be using a test rig which is comprised of the ASRock Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6e Motherboard, along with an Intel Core i9-12900KF @ 3.9 GHz / Boost @ 5.2 GHz, as well as 16GB of Adata XPG Spectrix D60G DDR4-3600 in dual channel mode.
All tests were conducted at turbo clock speeds at a resolution of 1920×1080. High or Ultra settings enabled.
| CPU | Intel Core i9-12900KF (Alderlake) 12th Gen 10nm |
| Cooling | Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML240 AIO 240mm |
| Motherboard | ASRock Z690 Steel Legend WiFi 6e |
| Ram | 16GB of Adata XPG Spectrix D60G DDR4-3600 |
| XMP profiles | Yes |
| SSD/HDD | Gigabyte Aorus NVMe Gen4 500GB SSD (PCIE Gen4x4) |
| PSU | Thermaltake ToughPower 1275W |
| VGA card | Zotac GeForce RTX 2080 AMP |
| Drivers | Latest Game Ready Drivers from Nvidia |
| OS | Windows 10 |
AIDA64 Info
CPU-Z Info
Load Temps
Using the the Cooler Master MasterLiquid ML 240 (fitted with the LGA1700 brackets), the processor produced a full load temperature of 103 degrees Celsius, which is shockingly high! I’ve never seen anything reached that high before. A few weeks ago, when rumors were circulating about Alder Lake’s extremely high load temperatures, I thought they were just nonsense rumors … but boy! I was wrong. The things is … the processor wasn’t even overclocked, it just run Intel’s native Turbo Boost.
There’s a simple explanation for this … Intel’s Alder Lake processors has a TDP of 125W (241W with Turbo Boost enabled). I highly recommend you get a decent AIO Liquid cooler for your Alder Lake processors.
