Get the beefy Intel Core i7-12700KF for £181 from Amazon right now
A handy discount on a nippy processor.
Intel's 12th-gen CPUs may be getting on a bit now, but some of them still remain fantastic options in relation to the modest upgrades that the last two generations have provided, and also considering the current large pickle Intel finds itself in with 13th and 14th gen chips. Being slightly older also means you can get some potent processors for a lot less. For instance, the nippy 12700KF with its 12 cores and boost clock of up to 5GHz is well under £200 from Amazon at the moment, although you will be waiting a little due to the current estimated delivery date of mid-September.
The 12700KF is identical to the 12700K we've tested, but it just comes without any integrated graphics. Otherwise, they're completely the same chip which has all the makings of a brilliant CPU for intensive workloads on paper, with a generous helping of cores, threads and overall speeds. To be precise, you're getting 12 cores - split asymmetrically between 8 Performance and 4 Efficiency cores - and 20 threads to make this quite a beefy choice for gaming and content creation alike. A boost clock of up to 5GHz is also speedy, while its 125W TDP seems reasonable for a processor of its competency. Being a -K chip also means you can overclock it for ekeing out even more performance, if you'd like.
With the 12700KF, you also get the benefit of having some choice for potential component pairings, as it supports either DDR4 or DDR5 RAM for instance, as long as you get the right motherboard. This means you can either use it for a more forward-looking beefier rig, or something a bit more affordable. With this in mind, top-class Z690 motherboards remain reasonably affordable, as does DDR4 RAM with DDR5 coming down in price slowly but surely to more wallet-friendly levels.
In our review, we noted the 12700K (non-F) to offer some solid performance in the likes of Flight Simulator 2020 where its 54.68fps result at 1080p both demonstrates it to be competitive against the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X's 53.56fps result, and as a great gen-on-gen upgrade against Intel's previous 11900K (54.43fps). It was the same story in Hitman 3's Dartmoor benchmark at 1080p, although the 12700K pulled ahead with a bigger lead (187.48fps) over both the 5950X (168.66fps) and the 11900K (160.73fps).
It's much the same story for content creation workloads too, where our testing in the likes of Cinebench R20 both proved the gains of Intel's 12th gen CPUs' single core performance against their predecessors, while also demonstrating how well the 12700K performs. This particular CPU gets within just 4 percent of the dearer 12900K in single core scores, and 15 percent quicker than AMD's top-end Ryzen 9 5950X. As for multi-core performance, that's where the 12700K comfortably beats the last gen 11900K with a score that's 47 percent higher.
If you want to grab a beefy CPU with some solid performance for intensive tasks, look no further than this Amazon deal on the Intel Core i7-12700KF.