Intel
Intel Core i3-12100
Four Golden Cove cores with Hyper-Threading and no E-cores, sold as the cheapest ticket onto LGA1700. Its defining trait is that its per-core speed is nearly identical to a much pricier i5-12400, so it feeds a mid-range GPU at 1080p while costing about as much as a decent cooler.
Pros
- Single-thread throughput within a few percent of an i5-12400 thanks to 4.3 GHz Golden Cove cores
- 60 W base power keeps it quiet and cool on the bundled Laminar RM1 cooler
- UHD Graphics 730 iGPU lets the machine post, troubleshoot, and do office work with no discrete card
- Full PCIe 5.0 x16 from the CPU on a budget B660 board — H610 runs that slot at Gen4
- Runs on cheap DDR4 boards, so a whole build can skip DDR5 pricing
Cons
- Only 4 cores and 8 threads — game streaming, heavy multitasking and CPU-bound simulation titles run out of room
- 12 MB of L3 hurts 1% lows versus 6-core i5 parts in cache-sensitive games
- Locked multiplier, and memory tuning requires a Z690/Z790 board it would rarely be paired with
- LGA1700 is end-of-life, so the only upgrade path is another 12th/13th/14th gen part
Below average
Computed from specs & benchmarks via our public methodology.
Full specifications
Everything we track for the Intel Core i3-12100
General
- Announced
- 2022
- Socket
- LGA1700
- Process
- 10 nm
- Base TDP
- 60 W
- Max turbo power
- 89 W
- Unlocked multiplier
- No
- Cooler included
- Yes
Cores & Clocks
- Cores
- 4
- Performance cores
- 4
- Efficiency cores
- 0
- Threads
- 8
- Base clock
- 3.3 GHz
- Boost clock
- 4.3 GHz
- L2 cache
- 5 MB
- L3 cache
- 12 MB
Integrated GPU
- iGPU
- Intel UHD Graphics 730
- iGPU clock
- 1,400 MHz
Memory
- Memory support
- DDR5-4800 / DDR4-3200
- Max memory
- 128 GB
- Memory channels
- 2
Platform
- PCIe version
- 5
- CPU PCIe lanes
- 20
Benchmarks
- Geekbench 6 (single)
- 2,050
- Geekbench 6 (multi)
- 6,700
- Cinebench R23 (single)
- 1,680
- Cinebench R23 (multi)
- 8,700
- PassMark
- 14,000
Quick answers
Is the Intel Core i3-12100 good in 2026?
The Intel Core i3-12100 earns an Inno Score of 41/100 (“Below average”) based on its specs and benchmark results. Four Golden Cove cores with Hyper-Threading and no E-cores, sold as the cheapest ticket onto LGA1700. Its defining trait is that its per-core speed is nearly identical to a much pricier i5-12400, so it feeds a mid-range GPU at 1080p while costing about as much as a decent cooler.
What are the key specs of the Intel Core i3-12100?
Cores: 4 · Threads: 8 · Boost clock: 4.3 GHz · Socket: LGA1700
What are the closest alternatives to the Intel Core i3-12100?
Its closest rivals on InnoReviews are AMD Ryzen 5 5500, Intel Core i3-12100F, AMD Ryzen 5 3600 — open the comparison pages for a spec-by-spec breakdown.