[PLUS] 16 mainboards for Core i-12000 in the largest PCGH mainboard test ever

16 boards for 16 cores

As we announced in the previous issue, this month’s biggest PCGH motherboard review awaits you. The reason for this is changes to the test hardware, the test software, the rating system and, above all, to the firmware on the part of the manufacturer. Measured values ​​and grades from newly tested boards are therefore no longer comparable with the results of previous articles – and these also increasingly deviate from the current status quo. So time to start again from scratch.

New hardware & software

The starting point for our innovations are the failures of a memory channel in the original test CPU and a short time later a memory bar of the DDR5 kit used up to now. The latter could have been replaced by an identical module after a corresponding delivery time, and the defective Core i9-12900K will be replaced by a new processor of the same type anyway. However, two CPU models of the same model also differ slightly in terms of their turbo behavior, their power consumption and their heat development. In terms of absolute performance, this doesn’t make a big difference, but if the processor is just a test tool to work out the sometimes subtle differences between mainboards, even small shifts become a problem – blame board A because its system uses 10 watts more power with factory settings as circuit board B, while in reality the built-in processor converts 5 percent more energy would be unfair. So after replacing the processor, we decided to throw all the old measurement results overboard and only accept new values.

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