Intel Launched12th Gen ‘Alder Lake’ HX CPUs

Intel has introduced a new tier of 55W in its 12th Gen “Alder Lake” laptop CPU portfolio. Known as the HX series, the seven new CPU models are essentially desktop CPUs from Alder Lake repackaged for laptops.

The nominal TDP of 55 W can increase to 157 W with proper cooling. Announced today at Intel’s Vision technology conference, these CPUs target a new class of high-end gaming and workstation laptops.

With up to 16 heterogeneous cores, PCIe 5.0, overclocking support, and high-speed connectivity, these processors are not for the thin and light segment.

The high-end core i912950HX has eight performance cores with HyperThreading and eight efficiency cores for a total of 24 threads.

The P cores can reach a Turbo Boost frequency of 5 GHz, and a total of 30 MB of cache memory is available. This model supports Intel’s vPro management framework but is otherwise identical to the Core i912900HX, which is more likely to be seen in consumer or gaming laptops.

There are also three Core i7 models and two Core i5 models further down the stack. Compared to the Alder Lake H series, you get more cores and a higher TDP cap, but some models have slightly lower clock speeds and less powerful integrated GPUs.

DDR5 and DDR4 memory support optional error correction and XMP profile switching, but not the corresponding low-power standards.

The HX series supports core and memory overclocking with independent controls for the P and E cores for professional coding work and media.

Intel’s Thread Director feature is tightly integrated into Windows 11 to help assign workloads to the most appropriate core or thread available. Laptop OEMs can use the 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes to interface with a discrete GPU, while the additional PCIe 4.0 lanes can be used with up to four NVMe SSDs. There’s also WiFi 6E and an optional Thunderbolt.