14-Core Alder Lake CPU Benchmarks Hit Geekbench

Intel
(Image credit: Intel)

As Intel's Alder Lake platform falls into the hands of more and more developers, it is inevitable that specifications of engineering samples and preliminary benchmark results get revealed to broader audiences. On Saturday someone added benchmark results of a 14-core Alder Lake processor to Primate Labs' Geekbench 5 database.  

Intel's Alder Lake is a hybrid processor packing high-performance (HP) Golden Cove cores, energy-efficient (EE) Gracemont cores, Intel Xe graphics as well as supporting a PCIe 5.0 interface and four types of memory (DDR4, DDR4, LPDDR4, LPDDR5). Alder Lake will be Intel's first hybrid CPU for mainstream PCs, so enthusiasts are eager to learn about its performance and whether it can finally beat the best CPUs, including AMD's Ryzen processors, in multi-thread workloads, so all performance leaks immediately attract a lot of attention.  

This time around, an Intel partner currently working with the company's AlderLake-P DDR5 RVP (reference validation platform) based on a 14-core Alder Lake processor featuring a 1.40 GHz base clock (and a 27.1 GHz boost clock, which is clearly wrong) and a 24MB cache has accidentally posted Geekbench 5 results of the CPU. The Alder Lake RVP chip scored 1287 single-thread points and 8950 multi-thread points

Swipe to scroll horizontally
CPUSingle-CoreMulti-CoreCores/Threads, uArchCacheClocksTDPLink
AMD Ryzen 9 5980HS1,5408,2258C/16T, Zen 316MB3.30 ~ 4.53 GHz35Whttps://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/6027200
AMD Ryzen 9 4900H1,2307,1258C/16T, Zen 28MB3.30 ~ 4.44 GHz35~54Whttps://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/6028856
Intel Alder Lake-P1,287895014C/20T: 8HP + 6EE24MB1.40 GHz ~ 27.1 GHz (?)?https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/8014264
Intel Core i9-119001,71510,5658C/16T, Cedar Cove16MB2.50 ~ 5.20 GHz65Whttps://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/7485886
Intel Core i9-11950H1,3656,2668C/16T, Willow Cove24MB2.60 ~ 4.90 GHz?https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/7670672
Intel Core i9-10885H1,3357,9008C/16T, Skylake16MB2.40 ~ 5.08 GHz45Whttps://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/6006773
Intel Core i7-1185G71,5505,6004C/8T, Willow Cove12MB3.0 ~ 4.80 GHz28Whttps://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/5644005
Apple M11,7107,6604C Firestorm + 4C Icestorm12MB + 4MB3.20 GHz20~24Whttps://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/6038094

Since we do not know the actual boost frequency of the processor, it is hard to make any conclusions or even guesses about the real-world performance potential of Intel's upcoming platform. Meanwhile, considering a low base frequency and the power plan of the board set to 'balanced', we are probably dealing with a notebook platform rather than with a no-compromise enthusiast-grade system. 

We do observe that single-thread Geekbench 5 performance of a 14-core Alder Lake reference design board working at an unknown CPU clock is comparable to that of AMD's Ryzen 9 4900H (Zen 2, 3.30 GHz ~ 4.44 GHz). Yet, it is significantly behind results of Willow Cove-based Tiger Lake parts. Meanwhile, the same ADL-P RVP significantly outperforms AMD's Ryzen 9 5980HS (eight Zen 3 cores at 3.30 ~ 4.53 GHz) in multi-thread Geekbench 5 workloads. 

Overall, the Geekbench 5 results obtained on an Intel's AlderLake-P DDR5 RVP board look rather good, especially keeping in mind that production Alder Lake platform is expected to hit the market late this year, several months from now. Still, such leaked results should always be taken with a huge grain of salt.

Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

  • purple_dragon
    The second paragraph has an error with the four types of memory supported. (DDR4, DDR4, LPDDR4, LPDDR5) It should read DDR4, DDR5, LPDDR4, LPDDR5 I believe.
    Reply
  • Makaveli
    The only thing missing from the table is a comparison score to a Desktop AM4 cpu.

    Reply
  • tomkan
    Seems that Alder Lake P consists of 6 Golden Cove HT cores + 8 Gracemont single-threaded cores . What else 20 threads came from?
    Reply
  • peachpuff
    Finally we have 27ghz, this just be netburst 2.0!
    Reply
  • jkhoward
    tomkan said:
    Seems that Alder Lake P contains of 6 Golden Cove HT cores + 8 Gracemont single-threaded cores . What else 20 threads came from?

    The high performance cores don’t have hyper threading (which is odd because I thought they said early on it would be the other way around).
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    jkhoward said:
    The high performance cores don’t have hyper threading (which is odd because I thought they said early on it would be the other way around).
    It makes more sense though, the high powered cores are only there for single threaded performance and anything HT could do, extra cores will do better.
    Reply
  • CerianK
    tomkan said:
    Seems that Alder Lake P contains of 6 Golden Cove HT cores + 8 Gracemont single-threaded cores . What else 20 threads came from?
    That is the only algebraic solution possible, given the information provided.
    Reply
  • DotNetMaster777
    Good table with comparison !

    Let see how attractive is going to be on the market !!!!
    Reply