Core i3-12100 Outperforms Ryzen 5 3600 in Gaming

Alder Lake CPU
Alder Lake CPU (Image credit: Newegg)

Art of PC has released one of the Internet's first reviews of Intel's new Alder Lake Core i3-12100 CPU, giving us a sneak peek of the gaming performance for Intel's new entry-level Core i3 product stack. The site compared the quad-core Alder Lake chip's performance against a Ryzen 5 3600 and shows very competitive results -- making it a contender in our Best CPUs for Gaming 2022 list.

Specs-wise, the Core i3-12100 is very different from its higher-tiered Core i5 and Core i7 brethren. Packing only four cores and eight threads, this CPU lacks E-cores and sports four Golden Cove performance cores. Base frequency starts at 3.3 GHz, with single-core turbo speeds maxing out at 4.3 GHz.

But, thanks to Golden Cove's significant boost in IPC performance, the Core i3 is no slouch, and according to Art of PC's coverage can go toe to toe with any of Intel or AMD's hexa-core CPUs from just a couple of years ago.

Art of PC tested gaming performances against a Ryzen 5 3600, with a testbed including 32GB of 3600 MHz DDR4, ROG Strix Z690-A D4, Dark Rock Pro 4, and GeForce RTX 3080 GPU for the Core i3 setup. The Ryzen 5 3600 testbed is identical to the Core i3 except for the motherboard, an Asus ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Hero.

The site revealed the average FPS for several games, including Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Microsoft Flight Simulator, Cyberpunk 2077, Forza Horizon 5, and more.

The Core i3-12100 cumulatively outperforms the hexa-core Ryzen 5 3600 by 7.85%. A rather impressive result considering the Ryzen 5 3600 has two more cores and four more threads.

Looking at the Ryzen 5 3600's general performance against other CPUs, we suspect that the Core i3-12100 will outperform or be just as fast as other CPUs such as the Ryzen 3 3300X and Core i5-10600K from a few years ago as well. If these results are accurate, the Core i3-12100 could make a powerful entry-level CPU for gaming.

Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

  • SYNERDATA
    I would prefer if the title were clear that it is testing a new 2021 Intel chip against an old 2019 AMD chip
    Reply
  • larkspur
    SYNERDATA said:
    I would prefer if the title were clear that it is testing a new 2021 Intel chip against an old 2019 AMD chip
    I see what you're saying but what should they compare it to? The problem is that AMD doesn't have any new 4-core CPUs to compare it with. Should they compare it with the 3100? That's the only 4-core that is even close to available for purchase and is only Zen 2 (It's also $200). I guess they could compare it to the low-end OEM-only Zen 3 APUs but again, not really available. The 12100 is a sub-$150 CPU ($122 tray price). There's simply nothing to properly compare it with in AMD's stack.
    Reply
  • wifiburger
    SYNERDATA said:
    I would prefer if the title were clear that it is testing a new 2021 Intel chip against an old 2019 AMD chip
    That's not the authors fault ! That would be crap AMD lineup & overpriced Zen3 cpus.
    Reply
  • Why_Me
    SYNERDATA said:
    I would prefer if the title were clear that it is testing a new 2021 Intel chip against an old 2019 AMD chip
    What AMD CPU should it be compared to?
    Reply
  • heickel.ramadhan
    Why_Me said:
    What AMD CPU should it be compared to?

    let's compare it to 12400F then, so the comparison would be more "Bloody"

    after all AMD refuse to sell us sub 200$ CPU

    Intel already blow AMD on sub 200$ since CML, RKL and now ADL
    Reply