Intel Core i3 12100 Linux Performance Benchmarks

From the recent setup of the MSI Alder Lake motherboard flashed with Dasharo/Coreboot I had an extra LGA-1700 motherboard around. With some Phoronix readers in the past having inquired about more Alder Lake benchmarks on the low-end, I picked up a Core i3 12100 processor that features four performance cores / eight threads. For those curious about the CPU performance and that of the integrated UHD Graphics 730, here are some Ubuntu Linux performance benchmarks with the i3-12100 and other similar processors.

The Intel Core i3 12100 launched earlier this year as a 4 core / 8 thread processor at around $120 USD. There are no E cores but simply four P cores that have a 3.3GHz base frequency and 4.3GHz maximum turbo frequency. The i3-12100 has a 5MB L2 cache, 12MB Intel Smart Cache, and a 60 Watt base power rating and 89 Watt maximum turbo power rating. The UHD Graphics 730 with the i3-12100 has 24 EUs with a maximum dynamic frequency of 1.4GHz.

As this isn't a full review but just looking at the performance for this purchased low-end processor, the few other CPUs I re-tested for this fresh comparison included:

- Intel Celeron G6900 "Alder Lake"
- Intel Core i3 7100 "Kaby Lake"
- Intel Core i3 8100 "Coffee Lake"
- Intel Core i3 10100 "Comet Lake"
- Intel Core i3 12100 "Alder Lake"
- Intel Core i3 12400 "Alder Lake"
- Intel Core i5 12600K "Alder Lake"
- AMD Ryzen 3 3300X "Zen 2"

The selection was based on the available lower-end CPUs I had available and other Alder Lake SKUs. The CPUs were at stock speeds (the clock frequencies shown in the system table are due to a Linux kernel sysfs reporting bug).

From there a wide range of Linux benchmarks were carried out for those curious about the performance potential of the i3-12100 especially as an upgrade from the past lower-end Core i3 x100 models.