Core i5-12600 vs Ryzen AI 9 HX 370

Gaming speed, cores and clocks

The Core i5-12600 and the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 are within a few percent of each other for gaming. In a game, you will not see the difference.

The Core i5-12600 has 6 cores and 12 threads, and the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 has 12 cores and 24 threads. The extra cores of the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 help with video editing, streaming while you play and heavy multitasking more than with the game itself. Boost clocks are 4.8 GHz and 5.1 GHz.

Platform, power and price

The Core i5-12600 uses the LGA1700 socket and the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 uses BGA, so they need different motherboards, and often different memory. When you compare prices, count the board as well as the chip.

Rated power is 65 W for the first and 28 W for the second. That is close enough that cooling needs will be similar.

We do not have launch prices for both chips, so we cannot compare value.

Which graphics cards each one can feed, and which to buy

At 1080p the Core i5-12600 can feed a card up to the Radeon RX 9070 before it holds the card back by more than 10 percent. The Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 reaches the GeForce RTX 4090 Laptop. Both chips are in the same range for graphics card pairing.

Choose the Core i5-12600 if you want the faster gaming chip. Choose the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 if you would rather spend the difference on a graphics card, which does more for frame rates in most games.