Intel Alder Lake-H Core i9-12900HK Review: MSI's Raider GE76 Goes Hybrid
by Brett Howse on January 25, 2022 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- MSI
- Laptops
- Alder Lake
- GE76 Raider
- 12th Gen Core
- Alder Lake-H
The Test Platform: MSI's Raider GE76
For 2022, MSI has not updated the underlying chassis for the new Alder Lake product, and as such our review of the GE76 Raider from 2021 with Tiger Lake does not fundamentally change in terms of chassis design and cooling. This is still a big, relatively heavy desktop-replacement system. It features an aluminum surface where you will be touching it, and a polycarbonate base.
MSI generally builds a very solid product, and for 2022 they have upgraded the cooling with a new phase-change thermal pad which allows them to wick heat away from the processor and GPU quicker, without some of the negatives of a pure-liquid thermal compound and crystallization that can occur.
The system offers a per-key RGB backlit keyboard from SteelSeries. There is a 1080p webcam as well, and the system now offers an AI-based setting to let the system automatically switch the power levels for the user without having to manually do it, although the manual options are still there. MSI has updated their Silent mode to now leverage the microphones on the system to match the noise floor of the room, which lets them extract more power from the processor, and more fan speed, while still being inaudible.
The Raider GE76 offers lots of connectivity, including a single Thunderbolt 4 port, an additional USB Type-C port, and several USB Type-A ports. There is also a SD card reader which is still convenient when uploading from a camera.
The system offers Wi-Fi 6E support thanks to the Killer AX1675 Wi-Fi adapter, and also includes the Killer E3100G 2.5 Gbps Ethernet adapter.
MSI offers a range of display options, with a 1920x1080 144 Hz panel on their least expensive Raider GE76, a 1920x1080 360 Hz panel which is in the sampled unit, a 2560x1440 240 Hz panel, and a 3840x2160 120 Hz offering.
On our Tiger Lake sample we reviewed late last year, the display accuracy was not up to par with typical MSI offerings. Thankfully that appears to have been a one-off, which we do see from time to time even on devices that are hardware calibrated at the factory. MSI does allow you to use a built-in tool to calibrate the display, but you do need a supported colorimeter.
Thanks to Portrait Displays for the use of their Calman software so we can continue to accurately measure displays for our reviews.
As you can see, the color accuracy of this sample is much improved over the Tiger Lake model from last year that we received.
Brightness and Contrast
Grayscale
Gamut
Saturation
Gretag Macbeth
The MSI Raider GE76 is a fantastic test bed for Intel's Alder Lake system, with a powerful cooling system, and a great build quality.
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lmcd - Wednesday, January 26, 2022 - link
(To be clear, point is that they probably had wind of the upcoming release's significance in 2012 and started planning then. 2013 the A7 release, 2014 is the last Intel smartphone SoC, which was probably mostly done and committed to at the point that the A7 was released.lemurbutton - Tuesday, January 25, 2022 - link
People still compare this to AMD? AMD is far behind.Let's just compare Apple and Intel. At this point, Apple is far far far ahead of Intel which is far ahead of AMD.
web2dot0 - Wednesday, January 26, 2022 - link
Now we know why Apple left Intel. Intel’s direction going forward is simply different from Apple.Their power performance curve just don’t match and it seems Intel has no interest in satisfying Apple.
End of relationship
corinthos - Wednesday, January 26, 2022 - link
Apple also left Intel because it failed to deliver and failed to deliver on time.corinthos - Wednesday, January 26, 2022 - link
that is overly simplistic. there are some workloads at which AMD Ryzen laptops excel, blowing Apple out of the water. It is workload dependent. know your needs to make the appropriate choice for you.Spunjji - Thursday, January 27, 2022 - link
People compare it to AMD because AMD is not actually "far behind" and is the only other option for a Windows platform. If you'd like Intel to charge whatever they want for their products then go ahead, ignore AMD.maroon1 - Wednesday, January 26, 2022 - link
12900HQ sustained power consumption is 85w in extreme performance mode and 75w in balanced mode but you only lose 3% performance in cinebenchSo, the huge gap between 5900HX and 12900HQ gap in power can't be coming from the CPU only. 12900HQ laptops has 3080 Ti, faster SSD and difference display. So those likely played factor
I wish to see power consumption difference between the CPU only. Not the whole laptop power consumption
ddhelmet - Wednesday, January 26, 2022 - link
What's the difference between 6+8 processors? Better binned or just clock speeds?Otritus - Friday, January 28, 2022 - link
6+8 processors means that you have 6 high performance cores and 8 high efficiency cores. In Alder Lake 4 high efficiency cores is about equal to 1.5 big cores in multi-threaded performance, allowing Intel to achieve about 9 cores of performance with 8 cores worth of die size. It also helps boost battery life because Intel big cores are incredibly bloated. Different 6+8 processors will be binned and clocked differently.Hulk - Wednesday, January 26, 2022 - link
For us tech heads it would be nice to know the P and E average effective clocks during testing at the 3 power levels reported?