Time for PC upgrade?

[Yongkit]

Swapped my ram out with spares, seems more stable now. I'll still upgrade my rig though, thinking of getting the below over the next couple of months as prices come down (hopefully):

Asus Prime H670-Plus D4
Intel i5 12600
G.Skill Trident Z RGB 3600Mhz 2x16Gb
Samsung 980 M2 NVME 1Tb

Rest of the components will be salvaged from existing rig. For the above specs, should I be getting a 550W or 650W PSU (if I wanna upgrade to 3070/3080 in the future)?

to be advice if getting non k cpu and non z board, please consider RAM at 3200Mhz for major stability and cost effectiveness as you will be hard to pass through 3600Mhz RAM unless you have intention to RAM OC or tighten the timing.

 

[Phen8210]

Swapped my ram out with spares, seems more stable now. I'll still upgrade my rig though, thinking of getting the below over the next couple of months as prices come down (hopefully):

Asus Prime H670-Plus D4
Intel i5 12600
G.Skill Trident Z RGB 3600Mhz 2x16Gb
Samsung 980 M2 NVME 1Tb

Rest of the components will be salvaged from existing rig. For the above specs, should I be getting a 550W or 650W PSU (if I wanna upgrade to 3070/3080 in the future)?

Don't be fooled by the marketing. Avoid buying the 12600 as It is NOT a non-k variant of the 12600K. The 12600 is just another 12400, both with just 6 core. Just save the bucks and get 12400.

Also, with your budget, I would pick 12700 as 12400 already struggling in CPU-depending games like cyberpunk. Not to mention your plan for a GPU upgrade in the future.

For PSU, consider Leadex III 750W/850W. For me, 3080, I will pick 850W.

Also, you can get 970 Evo Plus for SSD as it will have better sustained speeds. 980 is when you have no more budget or don't care. Some may argue getting other ODM PCIE4 drives for the same price, but you are sacrificing durability for speed, and in use cases that don't matter, it's irrational.

Don't forget to buy a CPU cooler also

 

[Koenig168]

Don't be fooled by the marketing. Avoid buying the 12600 as It is NOT a non-k variant of the 12600K. The 12600 is just another 12400, both with just 6 core.

....

^^^^^ this.

The K version has 4 more cores and perform much better. You can't OC the non-K to get 4 more cores.

 

[Phen8210]

^^^^^ this.

The K version has 4 more cores and perform much better. You can't OC the non-K to get 4 more cores.

nvidia also doing same shiat now with their 4080 12GB

 

[deepblue_82]

wah i also want to hijack this thread... i am hoping to upgrade during this down trend.. i am not looking at mid or ihigh end stuff... 12400 + 3060 will be very very good for me already

 

[TimberWolfMk2]

550w is barely enough for a 3070, 650w should be safer. if u get a quality 650w unit a 3080 is also viable, though some may argue getting an even higher wattage as they are quite notorious for transient power spikes.

as for the other parts, if u are considering 12600 non k, i would suggest getting the 12400 instead as it offers basically the same performance for cheaper. furthermore, u will likely be serviced better with a quality b660 mobo (eg msi pro b660m-a) rather than h670 as they are easier to find and generally cheaper; asus' prime series are pretty garbage in general anyway. it might also not be a bad idea to consider ddr5 mobo and ram, as budget ddr5 is only a little bit more expensive than reasonably fast ddr4. the performance on offer by either gen are equivalent now, but u have the option of upgrading to better ddr5 once it matures and becomes cheaper.

Thanks for the recommendations! I read that B660 has less PCIE lanes than the H670 though, not sure if that's a concern. Only the Z690s are DDR5 compatible right? The cheapest DDR5 ram are out of my budget though...

 

[TimberWolfMk2]

to be advice if getting non k cpu and non z board, please consider RAM at 3200Mhz for major stability and cost effectiveness as you will be hard to pass through 3600Mhz RAM unless you have intention to RAM OC or tighten the timing.

Oh u mean anything above DDR4 3200Mhz will be unstable for a non-K cpu and non-Z mobo?

 

[TimberWolfMk2]

Don't be fooled by the marketing. Avoid buying the 12600 as It is NOT a non-k variant of the 12600K. The 12600 is just another 12400, both with just 6 core. Just save the bucks and get 12400.

Also, with your budget, I would pick 12700 as 12400 already struggling in CPU-depending games like cyberpunk. Not to mention your plan for a GPU upgrade in the future.

For PSU, consider Leadex III 750W/850W. For me, 3080, I will pick 850W.

Also, you can get 970 Evo Plus for SSD as it will have better sustained speeds. 980 is when you have no more budget or don't care. Some may argue getting other ODM PCIE4 drives for the same price, but you are sacrificing durability for speed, and in use cases that don't matter, it's irrational.

Don't forget to buy a CPU cooler also

12700 abit out of budget, but will consider it if I can cut down elsewhere. Thanks for the 970 Evo Plus recommendation. Do I really need a 750/850W PSU though? Another bro mentioned 650W is enough.

 

[Phen8210]

12700 abit out of budget, but will consider it if I can cut down elsewhere. Thanks for the 970 Evo Plus recommendation. Do I really need a 750/850W PSU though? Another bro mentioned 650W is enough.

go watch youtube on transient spikes and decide for yourself

 

[NightRaven49]

I read that B660 has less PCIE lanes than the H670 though, not sure if that's a concern.

depends on how many nvmes/expansion cards u plan to throw at it. if u just want 1 gpu + 1 nvme then it doesnt matter.

Only the Z690s are DDR5 compatible right?

there are a few b660 boards that do support ddr5. conversely, there are also z690 boards with ddr4.

Oh u mean anything above DDR4 3200Mhz will be unstable for a non-K cpu and non-Z mobo?

it will be fine, its just that 3200-3600mhz is the sweet spot for ddr4 price to performance, anything faster offers diminishing returns for exponential premiums.

 

[Yongkit]

Oh u mean anything above DDR4 3200Mhz will be unstable for a non-K cpu and non-Z mobo?

because for 12th gen non k cpu and z series motheboard have lock system agent voltage and not all guarantees can run at 3600Mhz at xmp which also depends on the CPU+MOBO+RAM combination.

can refer to the following video as reference, also you can change the subtitle to english if needed.

 

[TimberWolfMk2]

go watch youtube on transient spikes and decide for yourself

Also just read about the subpar performance of Intel 12th gen chips on Windows 10 (which I'm using now). Is the 12700 still an option in this case or should I stick to the 12400 since it doesn't have E-cores?

 

[Phen8210]

Also just read about the subpar performance of Intel 12th gen chips on Windows 10 (which I'm using now). Is the 12700 still an option in this case or should I stick to the 12400 since it doesn't have E-cores?

Well, modern 6-core processors are hitting 100% usage during busy scenes in games like cyberpunk. I will definitely get something with more headroom.

You can see this fellow driving around the street also at 80%+ CPU usage already, in busier scenes, there is no need to explain.


There are other CPU-demanding titles also, not just cyberpunk. It's also why I upgraded from 6 core because I investigated the frame dips due to CPU resources getting a hard cap. You never want to be hard-capped on CPU resources when gaming.

i7 12700 has 8 perf cores, you will need it, especially when pairing with a higher-end GPU.

If you don't want to use win 11 then go for win 10 with a ryzen build, it's been around for 2 years and is more or less fuss-free. In fact i also built a 5600G rig recently for light usage, not for myself.