Core i5-12450H: CPU benchmarks and laptop guide

The Intel Core i5-12450H became the budget-gaming standard of the 2023–2024 season — 31 catalog models carry it. An 8-core, 45-watt H-class design, it meets the recommended CPU requirement in 35 of the 69 games the catalog tracks and pairs almost exclusively with real discrete GPUs. This guide covers where the chip sits among laptop CPUs, what it brings, and which laptops ship with it.

Where the Core i5-12450H sits in 2026

A catalog score of 50.2 places the chip 266th of 741 scored laptop CPUs — the exact middle of a table spanning two decades of silicon. The neighborhood: the Core Ultra 7 155U (50.5) and Ryzen 3 4300U (50.4) just above, the 2016-era Core i7-6920HQ (50.2) alongside, and its own P-series sibling Core i5-1240P (50) just below. The catalog's composite scale rates the 45 W H-class part and the 28 W P-class part as near-equals — cores and clocks buy throughput, efficiency gives it back.

What the chip brings

Alder Lake-H is an 8-core, 12-thread design on a 7 nm-class process rated at 45 W: 2.0 GHz base and up to 4.4 GHz boost. The integrated Iris Xe with 80 execution units handles display duty while the discrete GPU does the heavy lifting. Memory configuration details were not captured for this chip, so the table above sticks to what the catalog verifiably holds: a PassMark overall score of 15,951.

Games: CPU-side readiness

Measured purely as a processor, the chip clears the recommended CPU tier for 35 of 69 cataloged games — Far Cry 5, Diablo 4, Flight Simulator 2020, Escape from Tarkov, Doom Eternal and God of War among them. Another 27 sit at the minimum tier: Counter-Strike 2, PUBG, Metro Exodus, Cyberpunk 2077 and Dying Light 2 all list the chip above their minimum but below their recommended CPU requirement. Seven ask for more processor — Starfield, Helldivers 2, Baldur's Gate 3, Elden Ring and Fortnite among them. These verdicts are CPU-only — but unlike most mid-table chips, the 12450H's laptops bring the GPUs that decide the actual answer.

Laptops that carry it

The 31-model roster is the budget-gaming aisle. Lenovo's LOQ family — 15IAX9, LOQ Essential Gen 9 and 15IRX9 — sits at $1,152, with the Legion Slim 5 16IRH8 at $1,424 up the stack. MSI's Cyborg 15 and Katana 15 trade at $922, Gigabyte's G5 at $553 and Aorus 15 at $922, and the value end belongs to Acer's Aspire 7 (A715-76G) at $650 alongside the Vivobook 16X/14X OLED and Aspire 5 17 at $553. Roster medians tell the gaming story: best-GPU-score median 75.9, gaming index 67, games-at-recommended median 47 — against portability 31.15, the classic trade.

Bottom line

The Core i5-12450H is the value play of the used gaming market: mid-table CPU numbers, but a roster that pairs it with serious graphics from $553 to $1,424. It clears half the catalog at recommended CPU settings and runs the rest at minimum — for 1080p gaming budgets, that is usually enough. Buyers chasing Starfield-class CPU loads should step up a tier; everyone else gets a proven chip inside machines built to play.