DaVinci Resolve Studio: Intel Core i9 12900KS Performance

Introduction

When Intel launched their 12th Gen Intel Core desktop processors (code-named "Alder Lake") in November of 2021, they showed a terrific performance improvement over previous generations. They also made some significant changes to how their CPUs fundamentally worked, primarily through their hybrid architecture which utilizes a mix of Performance and Efficient-cores.

Since then, the wider availability of DDR5 memory and improvements in thread scheduling have allowed them to expand their performance lead over AMD in a number of workflows. And today, Intel is launching yet another model to their 12th Intel Core lineup: the Intel Core i9 12900KS.

On paper, the 12900KS appears to simply be a higher binned version of the Core i9 12900K. It has the same number of cores and the same cache, but the frequency is slightly higher. The exact amount depends on which kind of core is being used as well as what type of Turbo, but at most we are looking at about a 6% increase in Turbo frequency.

To handle the higher frequency, the 12900KS has a slightly higher base power draw of 150W versus the 125W of the 12900K. Interestingly, the maximum Turbo power is the same at 241W, which means that it may not actually run much hotter under heavy load situations.

The last difference is, of course, the price. With an MSRP of $739, the 12900KS is $140 more expensive than the 12900K. This is still a bit below the $799 MSRP of the AMD Ryzen 5950X, but it certainly brings Intel and AMD closer in terms of pricing at the top of their consumer CPU lines.

In this article, we will be examining the performance of the new Intel Core i9 12900KS compared to the 12900K, as well as the AMD Ryzen 5900X and 5950X. If you are interested in how these processors compare in other applications, you can check out the summary of all our testing results – and links to more detailed analysis – in our Intel Core i9 12900KS Review Roundup article.

Test Setup

Listed below are the specifications of the systems we will be using for our testing:

*Latest drivers, OS updates, BIOS, and firmware as of March 31st, 2022

In order to see how the new Intel Core i9 12900KS performs in After Effects, we will be comparing it to the Core i9 12900K, AMD Ryzen 5900X, and AMD Ryzen 5950X. For the test itself, we will be using our PugetBench for DaVinci Resolve benchmark and the latest 17.4.6 version of DaVinci Resolve Studio. Our benchmark includes the ability to upload the results to our online database, so if you want to know how your own system compares, you can download and run the benchmark yourself.

As for the test platforms, we want to point out that due to the wider availability of DDR5 RAM, all our testing is now using DDR5 on any platform that supports it (currently just Intel Z690). We try to stay within spec for memory speed whenever possible, which is why we are using 2x32GB of DDR5-4800 RAM on the Intel platform. While the move from DDR4 to DDR5 can improve performance by a decent margin, the speed of the RAM doesn't make a big difference in most content creation applications. If you want to read more about the impact of DDR5 RAM speed, we recommend checking out our Impact of DDR5 Speed on Content Creation Performance article.

Benchmark Results

While our benchmark presents various scores based on the performance of each test, we also like to provide the individual results for you to examine. If there is a specific task that is a hindrance to your workflow, examining the raw results for that task is going to be much more applicable than the scores that our benchmark calculated.

Feel free to skip to the next sections for our analysis of these results to get a wider view of how each configuration performs.

DaVinci Resolve Studio Overall Performance Analysis

DaVinci Resolve (especially the Studio version) gets a lot of attention in the hardware industry for how well it is able to take advantage of both high-end GPUs, and multi-GPU configurations. Despite that, having the right CPU is also vitally important. You can have all the GPU power in the world to chew through things like noise reduction and OpenFX, but if you can't actually process the base media fast enough to keep up, all that GPU power is just a waste of money.

If you are considering a consumer CPU from either Intel or AMD, however, you probably aren't planning on using multiple GPUs since you really should be using either an AMD Threadripper (Pro) or Intel Xeon W platform. But if anything, that makes it even more important to get as much CPU power as your budget allows.

Unfortunately, the new Intel Core i9 12900KS doesn't provide much in the way of "return on investment" compared to the Core i9 12900K. From an overall perspective, it only scored 2% higher, with most of that coming from the RED media and Fusion portion of the benchmark. In some of those tests, the 12900KS was as much as 8% faster than the 12900K, but enough of the other tests were almost identical in performance that the average was dragged down to just 2%. Intel still very much holds the edge over AMD Ryzen, but the 12900KS doesn't do much to expand their lead.

Is the Intel Core i9 12900KS Processor Good for DaVinci Resolve Studio?

While the new Intel Core i9 12900KS does have a slight performance lead over the Core i9 12900K, the difference in our tests averaged out to just 2%. That is going to be almost impossible to notice for most users, and likely means that you would be better off investing the cost difference in upgrades to some other aspect of your system.

Intel definitely still holds an edge in DaVinci Resolve compared to AMD's Ryzen line, but the Core i9 12900KS doesn't do much to expand on it. There were some tests where the 12900KS did show a performance advantage of up to 8% over the i9 12900K, but those were intermixed with other tests that showed no difference, which drug the average down to just 2%.

In summary, if you are looking for a CPU in the sub-$1000 range, we would currently recommend sticking with the Intel Core i9 12900K. The higher $739 MSRP of the 12900KS is still less than the $799 MSRP of the AMD Ryzen 5950X, but it is hard to justify the higher cost compared to the 12900KS for just a few percent higher performance.

Going into our testing, we were a bit worried about the higher base power draw of the 12900KS, but throughout our testing, we didn't notice any issues. Our standard 120mm Noctua heatsink was still more than enough to keep this CPU cool, and there was no noticeable increase in fan noise.

Keep in mind that the benchmark results in this article are strictly for After Effects and that performance will vary widely in different applications. If your workflow includes other software packages (we have similar articles for a number of other applications that can be found in our Intel Core i9 12900KS Review Roundup article), you need to consider how the system will perform in those applications as well. Be sure to check our list of Hardware Articles to keep up to date on how all of these software packages – and more – perform with the latest CPUs.