Intel's new Core Ultra 120 will be DOA if stores sell them at anything like these prices

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Looks like somebody forgot to look up what cheap means.

A photo of a Core i5 12400 processor, with its name crossed out and replaced with 'Ultra' and '120' to produce a comedic, fake Core Ultra 120 processor.
(Image credit: Future)

I'm a big fan of little, cheap processors for gaming, so when Intel stealthily announced the specifications for its six-core, 12-thread Core Ultra 120/120F processors, I was really looking forward to seeing them on retailers' shelves. Unfortunately, the first prices for them have just dropped, and Raptor Lake Regurgitated is anything but cheap, weighing in nearly three times more than an equivalent AMD chip.

The first I learned of the Intel Core Ultra 120 was from a post on X by user Momomo_us. Delving into Intel's processor database tells us everything we need to know about the new CPU: it's a Raptor Lake-based chip but with all its E-cores completely disabled. That means you just get six P-cores, with 12 threads in total. Add in a boost clock of 4.5 GHz, 18 MB of L3 cache, and a 65 W base power limit, and you've got Intel's version of a Ryzen 5 9600X.

Except you haven't, because while the 9600X uses AMD's latest Zen 5 architecture, the Core Ultra 120 is actually a marginally faster Core i5 12400. Yes, that's right: it's Alder Lake, not Raptor Lake. The telltale clue is the fact that the total L2 cache is 7.5 MB—1.25 MB per core—whereas a true Raptor Lake chip would sport 12 MB (2 MB apiece). This means that the 120 is really Intel's version of the Ryzen 5 5500.

So Intel has taken some duff old chips from 2022 and repackaged them as something new. I honestly have no problem with that, as long as the price reflects the aged architecture and the total lack of E-cores. Well, thanks to another post by Momomo_us on X, it would seem that somebody at Intel forgot to look up what cheap means.

I don't know what distributor the user has listed, but at $246.01 for the Core Ultra 120 and $216.66 for the iGPU-less 120F, there's a snowball's chance in hell that I'd recommend anyone to buy one at these prices. You can pick up a slower-but-still-six-core Ryzen 5 5500 is a mere $73 at Amazon. I don't care how good Intel's P-cores are; there's no way that they're worth three times more than AMD's Zen 4 cores.

To make matters worse, you can get a Core i5 12400 for $144 at Amazon. Hopefully, those distributor prices are just placeholders and not the final price tags, because if they are, Intel isn't going to shift a single one of them. Shame really, as I'd hope that Intel's plans for its E-coreless Raptor Lake chips were going to involve something cheap and gamer-friendly.

What we've actually been 'treated' to is a pile of regurgitated tat. Gosh, aren't we the lucky ones?

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Nick Evanson
Nick Evanson
Hardware Writer

Nick, gaming, and computers all first met in the early 1980s. After leaving university, he became a physics and IT teacher and started writing about tech in the late 1990s. That resulted in him working with MadOnion to write the help files for 3DMark and PCMark. After a short stint working at Beyond3D.com, Nick joined Futuremark (MadOnion rebranded) full-time, as editor-in-chief for its PC gaming section, YouGamers. After the site shutdown, he became an engineering and computing lecturer for many years, but missed the writing bug. Cue four years at TechSpot.com covering everything and anything to do with tech and PCs. He freely admits to being far too obsessed with GPUs and open-world grindy RPGs, but who isn't these days?

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