Intel's new 12th gen Alder Lake chips have already made huge waves in the industry but it looks like it's not done yet. The company just announced a new member of its 12th gen Alder Lake desktop CPU family, the Core i9-12900KS. According to Intel, the new special edition Core i9-12900KS is the world's fastest desktop processor with a max turbo frequency of up to 5.5GHz. This particular announcement from Intel comes hot on the heels of the arrival of AMD's new Ryzen 7 5800X3D processor with 3D V-cache memory.

World's Fastest Desktop Processor

The new Core i9-12900KS is very similar to the already powerful Core i9-12900K CPU. The new chip flaunts a boost clock speed of 5.5GHz, which is slightly higher than that of the 12900K. This is pretty much the only difference between the Core i9-12900K and the 12900KS. The new chip also supports Intel's Adaptive Boost Technology for improved gaming performance.

Besides that, however, we're looking at a very familiar processor. The Core i9-12900KS features 16 cores (eight P-cores and eight E-cores), 24 threads, 150W processor base power, and more. It also offers 30MB Intel Smart Cache and comes with support for PCIe Gen 5.0 and 4.0. You can also use new DDR5 memory modules with this, same as how you can with a 12900K too. It also goes without saying that the new Core i9-12900KS is compatible with existing Z690 motherboards as it uses the same LGA1700 CPU socket and Intel's 600 series chipset.

Lastly, it's worth pointing out that the Core i9-12900KS is a fully unlocked processor, which means enthusiast gamers and overclockers can further tweak the settings and get more performance out of this chip.

Pricing & Availability

The new Intel Core i9-12900KS will be available to purchase starting April 5 with a recommended price of $739. It'll be available to purchase as a standalone processor or as a part of pre-built computers from various OEMs. The Core i9-12900K, in case you are wondering, is now available to purchase for just $610 from Best Buy. We'll have more to talk about this new processor once we get a chance to test and compare it with other chips. It'll be interesting to see the kind of results we'd get when comparing with AMD's new Ryzen 7 5800X3D chip.