Upgrading - i9-12900 vs amd 5950x - and what motherboard to get

Wow! Thanks for the great explanations………

I’ve seen the displays on the $700+ motherboards, and thought the idea of showing the actual errors was great. Problem is I wouldn’t come close to exploiting a motherboard that expensive. If I thought I needed an $800 motherboard I’d buy it, but while I chew up a lot of memory and have periods when the system is 100% busy, it’s not constant for hours. Nor do I plan to overclock the system to the maximum extent it’s capable of.

I’ll not be concerned about the lack of a debugging display and presume if there’s a problem it’ll be easy to figure out what’s wrong from the 4 lights.

I’m likely one of the people that misunderstands what’s involved in overclocking, so thanks for the detailed explanation… So, a real-world question – and I’ll understand if the answer is “not likely without a $700 motherboard”… From looking at tests others have done (taken with a grain of salt), the 12900 can “easily” be overclocked to 4.9 GHz on air cooling. Presuming I get an average 12900 CPU, is it reasonable to expect to do that with a mid-range (those 60-70A boards) DDR4 motherboard like a $270 AORUS Elite, $300 MSI MAG Tomahawk or $350 ASUS Strix-A gaming? Or is even that likely to require a $600 -800 motherboard?

Again, thanks for the info on memory. I knew 3600 was the “sweet” spot on DDR4, and presumed when the memory gets built, they test it and most get thrown in the 3600 bin, the bad stuff gets thrown in the 3200 bin, the 10% of better stuff gets thrown in the 4000 bin, and the top few percent gets into 4400 bin. And things get priced accordingly.

I’ve looked at Ebay occasionally for memory, but the whole place seems so seedy these days that it doesn’t inspire confidence. It’s like buying a TV that “fell off a truck” from a buy in an alley. That’s OK for a $20 something, but I’m not sure I want to buy $1000 worth of memory that way.

Since you were aware of the December supply hit, do you have any feel for when supply is likely to open up to a reasonable level? Are we looking at January or June? Or even the end of 2022 or longer?
The thing is, overclocking the 12900K to 4.9GHz is basically pointless. The cores will exceed those clocks on their own. Intel and AMD CPU's do not sit at their base frequencies when loaded. They tend to sit somewhere between their base frequency and their maximum turbo clocks. Usually a couple hundred MHz off their highest maximum turbo value. It's honestly better to leave it on automatic as the cores can boost to 5.10GHz or even 5.3GHz depending on the circumstances. E-Cores only run at 3.9GHz and they can be taken slightly further, but not by a lot. I've seen AIO based all core overclocks of around 5.0GHz and even 5.1GHz.

This is achievable on most motherboards, regardless of price point. It isn't that you need more expensive motherboards to do that, it's that they make it easier to achieve those clocks and their finer tuning capabilities can get the most out of a CPU. Usually, we are talking about 100MHz (sometimes more) difference between cheaper boards and expensive ones if there is anything at all. The higher end motherboards can theoretically handle being clocked and run harder for longer periods of time than their lesser counterparts but this really depends on a lot of other factors, so even that's hard to prove. Again, overclocking isn't really the thing that separates these boards. It's the ease of overclocking and the general end user experience.

Primarily, it's features. You might get stuck with a Realtek 1.0GbE LAN controller and an older audio CODEC with a cheap board. Compare that to your ultra high end boards, and the difference is startling. The Maximus Z690 Extreme comes with a 2.5GbE Intel LAN and a 10GbE Aquantia LAN controller, plus WiFi and a much better audio solution, etc. You get 3x M.2 slots on a Biostar Z690 DDR4 board compared to 5x M.2 slots on the ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Extreme. Again it's features, quality, and the user experience that you pay for. That doesn't mean that you can't get the job done for a lot less.
 
OK, y'all, back to questions....... I've returned to earth with an unpleasant thump! DDR5 is ridiculous, and is going to STAY ridiculous for a while - and I need 64GB of the &^%$#@ stuff! By my estimate, I can build a 12900 system with DDR4 memory, USE IT for 6 months or a year, and when DDR5 stops being so stupid expensive, buy a DDR5 board and memory, sell the other one, and STILL be several HUNDRED CHEAPER than buying the DDR5 board and memory once any memory even shows up..........

SO, best reasonable motherboards for 12900 and DDR4, for image processing - it appears pretty demanding image processing - and that's BEFORE I touch video.

I liked ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI when looking at DDR5 mobos. Any great reason I should look elsewhere for DDR4 boards? I recently stepped down from boards like the AORUS Master to the Ultra or even the Pro, or the MSI MPG Carbon. But on ASUS I keep looking and end up rejecting boards below the Strix E gaming for various reasons.

I've GOT to have wifi, and it should be an ATX board. I need a quite a few rear panel Type-A slots (multiple printers, scanner, pen tablet, monitor and a couple things I don't even remember) all using USB ports on the back. It would be NICE to have a lot of front panel USB slots since there's a webcam, Logitech dongle, headset dongle, camera tether, 2 memory card readers and 2 external USB 3 HDD connected to the front. I'm currently pulling extensions from 4-rear panel USB-3 ports to the front of the system so I have enough front-panel plugs... If I have to I can split the single USB 3.2 header and add an 8-usb3 port front panel for more slots - ASSUMING this doesn't screw up speeds on the usb3 ports.

I plan to overclock to a reasonable extent, but nothing insane and I'll be HOPING to stay with my Noctua NH-D15 tower cooler rather than going to the hassle of water cooling.
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I'm ALSO looking at memory - I need 64GB and want it in TWO sticks, not 4. And I'd MUCH prefer memory that just does a great job of being MEMORY - FAST memory - not putting on a light show. The fastest I can reasonably get, preferably with some reasonable overclocking capability - 3600 worst case, preferably something 4000 or faster.

AND, of course, this is going to happen QUICKLY - 'cause otherwise I'll start thinking about it and decide to wait 3 months for DDR5 to be available and 3 more months for it to get to a reasonable price and in six months I STILL won't have built a system......

So, best choices?
Most benchmarks with DDR5 are not that much faster than a decent set of DDR4, tech not matured yet. Plan on waiting myself. The Vengeance DDR5 kits, go easy on the pockets. The 32GB model retails for $289.99, while the 64GB demands a $614.99 price tag.
 
Thanks again Dan_D. As I continue rummaging and finding bits and pieces I'm finding more and more that you're right - the CPU is already pushed pretty far from the factory, so any overclocking gains on the CPU without a significant amount of work is likely to be minuscule and probably not worth the effort. In that case, since I don't need a 2.5GbE (I presume this is for a NAS?), which I don't use, or multiple Type-C ports on the back (or actually ANY as far as I know), I'm going away from the more expensive boards like the Strix-A gaming or MSI Edge, and instead looking AROUND $300 at the ASUS TUF Gaming Plus, MSI Tomahawk and Gigabyte Elite AX. The Aorus Pro would be good, but there don't seem to be any - I don't know if there ever were any in DDR4. I'm inclined toward the Tomahawk since the TUF only has 4 SATA ports and I'd like more SATA ports, but either the Tomahawk or Elite would seem about equal. Anything point toward which is likely to be the best between the MSI Tomahawk and Gigabyte Eilte AX? Bios better in one over the other? Ease of management? ANY gotchas I'm missing?
 
Thanks again Dan_D. As I continue rummaging and finding bits and pieces I'm finding more and more that you're right - the CPU is already pushed pretty far from the factory, so any overclocking gains on the CPU without a significant amount of work is likely to be minuscule and probably not worth the effort.
This is generally true although there are circumstances where a manual all core overclock can be beneficial in multi-threaded applications. However, performance with single-threaded applications usually suffers using this method. For the vast majority of users it makes more sense to let the CPU regulate its own speeds. There are things motherboard makers do in order to make the CPU's boost longer such as ASUS' multi-core enhancement, but these things sometimes cause issues.
In that case, since I don't need a 2.5GbE (I presume this is for a NAS?), which I don't use, or multiple Type-C ports on the back (or actually ANY as far as I know), I'm going away from the more expensive boards like the Strix-A gaming or MSI Edge, and instead looking AROUND $300 at the ASUS TUF Gaming Plus, MSI Tomahawk and Gigabyte Elite AX. The Aorus Pro would be good, but there don't seem to be any - I don't know if there ever were any in DDR4. I'm inclined toward the Tomahawk since the TUF only has 4 SATA ports and I'd like more SATA ports, but either the Tomahawk or Elite would seem about equal. Anything point toward which is likely to be the best between the MSI Tomahawk and Gigabyte Eilte AX? Bios better in one over the other? Ease of management? ANY gotchas I'm missing?
2.5GbE and 10GbE LAN controllers have lots of uses. Primarily, they are for people who need to transfer large files on a regular basis. The individual reasons for this will vary. It's not just for NAS access. As for those other boards, I can't say. I haven't looked at them.
 
Thought i'd just give an update. Finished the 12900k build today and just ran some tests. Just a reminder of what I did.

- Original build was in a Cooler Master NR200P Max w/x4 Lian Li SL Unifans (Yes you can get another 120mm if you elevate the GPU) so 2 x SL140's on the Stock Cooler Master 280mm AIO that comes with the case exhausting out the top and 2 x 120mm at the bottom bringing air in.
-12900k on a Gigabyte z690i Aorus ITX w/2 x 16GB Teamgroup DDR4 3600/Samsung 980Pro 1TB OS.
- Results were less than steller from a cooling perspective..you can read my original response here. After further research I found that the Lian Li Fan/RGB Hub that did not have the latest firmware can't handle PWM, etc so I updated the fan hub and used a fan profile..but still a bit warm for my liking, idling in the 40's and hovering around 78-79 in game around 87-88 for stress testing.

Moved this system to a Lian Li 011 Dynamic Mini Snow White, Gigabyte z690 Aero G DDR4 and a z63 AIO (z73) was out of stock and had this on hand...will be replacing later.
-Results were low 30's idle, low 60's gaming, 70's stress testing. Still have to play with the fan curves as it get's a bit loud but have room to work with there.

Overall, my perception right now is that the 12900k just feels snappier vs my 5950x, definately a big difference in gaming and the 12900k crushed the 5950x in Cinebench, though that's only one test. More than likely the snappiness is also a result from a fresh install of Windows 11 Pro, though my 5950x system was a fresh install about a month ago so it hasn't been that long. A couple of other things I didn't like with the z690 ITX Boards is that you have limited AIO choices due to the tall mezzanine that they are using for both M.2 and also Fan headers, RGB headers..etc. Not an easy board to work with overall. I hear the Asus is also a similar experience. I am liking the z690 Aero board though I have to be honest, you're not really getting anything other than 4 x M.2 slots for a "creator" board so I did have a spare Intel PCI-E NVMe drive and a Gigabyte 10Gb Vision NIC to match the asthetics which are very very nice. Overall, i'm pleased at this point. The film has not been taken off the panels yet..so it's not really a great pic.


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Hopefully, if I ask the question correctly, this will be my last ”trying-to-figure-out-the-jargon” question.​

Looking at 3600 memory. I can get 32GB kit at 16-19-19-39 (need 2). OR 64GB (2x32) at 16-22-22-42. If I use 4x16 rather than 2x32, will I end up with 16-19-19-39 for 64GB or will those timings degrade to any appreciable extent?​

OR, at 3600, I can use CAS 18, and everything I’ve looked at had the same 18-22-22-42 timings. Didn’t matter whether it was a 32GB kit or 64GB kit… The CAS 18 is slightly cheaper, but I've had trouble finding any real information on how much slower it will be.​

Looking at 4000 speed I found discussions that for "most" systems, 3600 memory will run at Gear 1 where the memory controller and memory clock run at the same speed, but 4000 memory will NOT. It changes to Gear 2 and the memory controller runs half the speed of the memory clock. This, supposedly, causes the 4000 speed memory to be as slow or slower than the 3600 speed in "real world" usage. True, false? And how much does it affect performance?​

For everything I looked at – staying under $500 for 64GB - the 4000 speed memory all appear to be 18-22-22-42 whether 32GB or 64GB (2x32). Since prices for the CAS 16 3600 and CAS 18 4000 speed are very close, which is going to provide the best performance for my image processing/video processing situation?​

 
After some more looking, and finding many opinions, a little data, and lots of conjecture, I finally decided to go with the 16-19-19-39, 3600 speed, 2x32 set. I know it's anecdotal, but I found way too many topics complaining that their 4000 or 4400 speed memory wouldn't reach those speeds without a lot of fiddling, and in a bunch of cases, at all. So rather than going with the 18-22-22-42 memory, I took the safer choice, figuring there should be a reasonably GOOD chance these will actually work at 3600. And, if I'm feeling frisky, I can always lock Gear 1, change the timings and see if I can get these to 4000, which would be interesting but not necessary.

All the pieces are ordered, and hopefully will be here next week, and with luck all the pieces will work.

I'm in the process of doing actual timings of actual operations I perform in Lightroom, Photoshop, Topaz Denoise, Helicon Focus, Aurora HDR and whatever else I think of so I can see how much difference this new system makes.
 
I can tell you first hand that the ASUS VRM heatsinks are too damn tall. It's a pain to even mount a water block to one of those boards.
Crazy how a giant in the industry made such a fatal design error on half of their new Z690 ROG boards. Not only is mounting a water block a hassle but half the ROG series won't properly accommodate one of most popular and efficient air coolers from the last year.

Noctua NH-D15 / Asus Z690 Compatibility
 
I'm just annoyed that I had to move off of my ROG Crosshair VI Extreme to get a 5000 series CPU - that is a truly well done AM4 board and I've not seen anything released by Asus since with the same awesome combo of price, features, and aesthetics. It's a pity they never made an X470 chipset version of it...
 
I'm just annoyed that I had to move off of my ROG Crosshair VI Extreme to get a 5000 series CPU - that is a truly well done AM4 board and I've not seen anything released by Asus since with the same awesome combo of price, features, and aesthetics. It's a pity they never made an X470 chipset version of it...
I'm not sure why they did that. The Crosshair VI Extreme was one of the better AM4 boards we tested at the time. (In contrast, I think the Crosshair VI Formula was the worst if memory serves.) A lot of X470 chipset boards were largely the same, albeit with improved VRM's.

Crazy how a giant in the industry made such a fatal design error on half of their new Z690 ROG boards. Not only is mounting a water block a hassle but half the ROG series won't properly accommodate one of most popular and efficient air coolers from the last year.

Noctua NH-D15 / Asus Z690 Compatibility
I wouldn't call it a fatal flaw. A fatal flaw would be to have made those boards incompatible with almost everything to a point where there are no decent ways to cool the board. As it is, you can use an AIO or some other air coolers with them. Also, a lot of ROG boards are compatible with the cooler you mentioned. It's only a pain in the ass for EK's waterblocks which use thumb screws for retention rather than something you can actually use tools with. Certainly, ASUS should have had more foresight with the design but I wouldn't go so far as to call it a fatal flaw.
 
I'm just annoyed that I had to move off of my ROG Crosshair VI Extreme to get a 5000 series CPU - that is a truly well done AM4 board and I've not seen anything released by Asus since with the same awesome combo of price, features, and aesthetics. It's a pity they never made an X470 chipset version of it...

They've been adding 5000 support to a lot of older boards. Surprised they never did that to a flagship board like that.
 
I'm not sure why they did that. The Crosshair VI Extreme was one of the better AM4 boards we tested at the time. (In contrast, I think the Crosshair VI Formula was the worst if memory serves.) A lot of X470 chipset boards were largely the same, albeit with improved VRM's.


I wouldn't call it a fatal flaw. A fatal flaw would be to have made those boards incompatible with almost everything to a point where there are no decent ways to cool the board. As it is, you can use an AIO or some other air coolers with them. Also, a lot of ROG boards are compatible with the cooler you mentioned. It's only a pain in the ass for EK's waterblocks which use thumb screws for retention rather than something you can actually use tools with. Certainly, ASUS should have had more foresight with the design but I wouldn't go so far as to call it a fatal flaw.

It was the Crosshair VI Hero - I've got two of them in the house. Most of the bugs were worked out (or around) via BIOS updates eventually, but I hear some people still have trouble with the fan controllers and temp sensors. This was never a problem for me because all of my systems have Corsair Commander Pros in them (it further simplifies swapping boards when the family upgrade trickle down comes back to town). I got them for ~$100 each (used) and other than AMD's and Asus's desired to not officially offer 5000 series support, I have no complaints with them. Interestingly, there are some Asrock BIOSes that can be forced onto these boards which enable 5000 series CPU support, but some of the other features on the board get a little... janky... when you do that.

The Crosshair VI Extreme not supporting the 5000 series is a crime, though, especially considering it has a 32M ROM on it (unlike the VI Hero). That C6E board was PERFECT for my Cooler Master C700P case; just the right size to line up perfectly with the grommets for minimum cable visibility, and exactly the right number of the right headers for the front panel. It came with WiFi, the audio jacks were lit up for easy connecting in the dark AND the backlight on the board's edge was super nice. Oh well... my son is enjoying it now with his 3700X.
 
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