If you happen to have Battlefield V installed, you may have noticed that a new update was released today on the PC. You're probably also wondering just what that update was all about.
I'm here to inform you that the roughly 200MB update released today was to add support for the latest Intel CPUs that were just released. Those new Intel CPUs being the 12th-gen Intel Core processors otherwise known as Alder Lake.
For those who haven't seen any tech news lately, Intel's Alder Lake CPUs include the Core i9 12900K, Core i7 12700K, and the Core i5 12600K. All three support DDR4 and the also newly released DDR5 memory modules. Prices for these 12th-gen Intel chips start at $289 (USD) for the 12600K, then hit $409 for the 12700K, and then top out at $589 for the 12900K.
These are also the first Intel chips to ditch the tired 14nm process that was first introduced back in 2015. These new CPUs run on a new 10nm process that Intel has branded as Intel 7. These chips also feature a mixture of performance (P) and power efficiency (E) cores.
For instance, the 12900K features 16 cores (8P + 8E) but makes use of 24 threads as only the P cores make use of hyperthreading. The 12900K tops out at 5.2GHz at a power draw of 241W, which is pretty damn high.
The big takeaway from today's new Alder Lake release is that they are now the best performing CPUs available on the market, often surpassing the former top of the line CPU, AMD's Ryzen 9 5950X. Benchmarks can be seen from AnandTech, Arstechnica, Gamers Nexus, Linus Tech Tips, Hardware Unboxed, and at most other major technology enthusiast outlets.
Today's update for Battlefield V was also released alongside similar updates for Star Wars Battlefront 2 and Need for Speed Heat. These three titles are the lucky ones. According to PC Gamer's review of the Intel Core i9 12900K, Intel says that they found at least 32 titles with Denuvo that will not run on these new Alder Lake processors. Unfortunately, an actual list of what those impacted games are was not actually provided.
