What CPU should I buy?

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[H]ard|Gawd
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I'm mulling over doing a switcheroo to Team Blue.

I was looking at the 12900KS and the 13900K

Which one is better for Gaming? I can save between 100 and 150 bucks going with the 12900KS. Maybe even 100 more if I go with a Z690 as well.

I know it's not that easy, but they're not even cousins. They're more like brothers of a different vintage and separated by a year.

I haven't looked too deeply at the 12900KS but most indications point to the 13900K beating the snot out of most things in Single Thread, Gaming and such.

I am not touching the DDR5 platform, just using the shitload of DDR4 I have laying around to jump into the platform. After the nightmare fuel that was AMD and DDR5 I am sticking to readily available, on hand, memory that I know works.

I know all about the 13700K being pretty much as fast as the old 12900K and the value may be in the 13600 lineup but I'm looking at the top of the lineup not the bottom for this migration.
 
it's a hard choice, made a similar one myself recently. in my case it was either the 12600KF or 13600KF. yes the raptor lake cpu's are all around better. only downside being they do consume more power and run a bit hotter. i also stuck with DDR4 and got a Z690 board, i didn't feel the benefits of DDR5 was enough to bother. memory about 3x more and more expensive mainboard.

in the end i went with the 12600KF because it was, as you say, nearly $150 cheaper (12600 was on sale at the time). i made a decision based on my needs - the difference in gaming is quite minimal. as usual, you're usually GPU bound. anything else i'm happy to wait for these days. sure the 13600 would have been better for gaming - just not enough for me to care. check out some reviews and pay close attention to your needs. playing at 4k? 1080p peasant like myself?
 
DDR5 costs 3 times more than DDR4? Is that what you are claiming? If so then that is nonsense. DDR5 is not all that much more expensive especially compared to fast DDR4. And the mobos I was looking at were only 10 bucks more for DDR5.
 
it's a hard choice, made a similar one myself recently. in my case it was either the 12600KF or 13600KF. yes the raptor lake cpu's are all around better. only downside being they do consume more power and run a bit hotter. i also stuck with DDR4 and got a Z690 board, i didn't feel the benefits of DDR5 was enough to bother. memory about 3x more and more expensive mainboard.

in the end i went with the 12600KF because it was, as you say, nearly $150 cheaper (12600 was on sale at the time). i made a decision based on my needs - the difference in gaming is quite minimal. as usual, you're usually GPU bound. anything else i'm happy to wait for these days. sure the 13600 would have been better for gaming - just not enough for me to care. check out some reviews and pay close attention to your needs. playing at 4k? 1080p peasant like myself?
I have been at 4K since the GTX 970 era and once I got a taste of it, I never went back. Been struggling to get playable, max resolution FPS ever since. I noticed the 13900K was beastly for FPS at 4K. Like, it actually outstrips other CPUs by 10-20FPS at times and it's 1% lows are all at very good and playable levels (40-50 FPS). Whereas other CPUs dip all the way down to a couple FPS.

Noting wrong with 1080P, I've just been corrupted by the beauty that is 4K.

I'm sticking with DDR4. So, in most benchmarks DDR4 3600 is within 1-3% of DDR5 6000, and it beats the DDR5 in some games. That margin of performance may have widened with the adoption of better DDR5 Memory controllers in the Z790 Boards (I hear it can be up to 10% if you buy ULTRA PREMIUM RAM 6400+ memory). However, I have a shitload of DDR4 laying around. I will simply drop in my CL15 DDR4 3600 or my DDR4 3866 and I suspect it will be fine for performance. If I really want to play around I heard the price for DDR4 4000 was plummeting from a friend and a lot of tech tubers are running these boards with DDR4 4000-4133 with no issues. Performance is just as good as the Premium 6000+ stuff at a fraction of the price.

The main reason why I am sticking with the DDR4, however, is to eliminate a problem in my build. When I attempted the DDR5 AMD build (and got a bad batch of DDR5) I almost pulled my hair out testing, ordering more parts and testing again. This time I have known good hardware from the get go and the case, Power Supply and all other components are new and stess tested on other hardware. So, should make the setup a breeze.

I sold out to the 4K god, Picked up a 13900K & an MSI Tomahawk Motherboard. ;)
 
DDR5 costs 3 times more than DDR4? Is that what you are claiming? If so then that is nonsense. DDR5 is not all that much more expensive especially compared to fast DDR4. And the mobos I was looking at were only 10 bucks more for DDR5.
If you want the DDR5 that performs well and outstrips DDR4 3600 by 10% then you will pay 3 times as much. I already have DDR4 3866 on hand, and the DDR4 4000 kits are dropping in price if I want even faster. DDR4 4000 is indistinguishable from good DDR5 6000+ at, a generally lower price.

You can get cheap DDR5, it's just gonna be that okay-ish performance that I have already seen with it.

I ordered some DDR4 4000 B-Die just for Shits and Grins to see if it's any faster than my 3866 Memory. I doubt it, but we shall see.
 
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it's a hard choice, made a similar one myself recently. in my case it was either the 12600KF or 13600KF. yes the raptor lake cpu's are all around better. only downside being they do consume more power and run a bit hotter. i also stuck with DDR4 and got a Z690 board, i didn't feel the benefits of DDR5 was enough to bother. memory about 3x more and more expensive mainboard.

in the end i went with the 12600KF because it was, as you say, nearly $150 cheaper (12600 was on sale at the time). i made a decision based on my needs - the difference in gaming is quite minimal. as usual, you're usually GPU bound. anything else i'm happy to wait for these days. sure the 13600 would have been better for gaming - just not enough for me to care. check out some reviews and pay close attention to your needs. playing at 4k? 1080p peasant like myself?
Did you add in the LGA 1700 Socket support bracket? I ordered the Thermaltake one and wonder if it will work with my Arctic II 280 mounting hardware. That's the only thing I can't easily find any information about.
 
I'm mulling over doing a switcheroo to Team Blue.

I was looking at the 12900KS and the 13900K

Which one is better for Gaming? I can save between 100 and 150 bucks going with the 12900KS. Maybe even 100 more if I go with a Z690 as well.

I know it's not that easy, but they're not even cousins. They're more like brothers of a different vintage and separated by a year.

I haven't looked too deeply at the 12900KS but most indications point to the 13900K beating the snot out of most things in Single Thread, Gaming and such.

I am not touching the DDR5 platform, just using the shitload of DDR4 I have laying around to jump into the platform. After the nightmare fuel that was AMD and DDR5 I am sticking to readily available, on hand, memory that I know works.

I know all about the 13700K being pretty much as fast as the old 12900K and the value may be in the 13600 lineup but I'm looking at the top of the lineup not the bottom for this migration.
13700k beats 12900K and KS in everything. Gaming included.
 
If you need to buy a motherboard to fit a modern Intel CPU, then the 13900K simply can't beat this deal unless you really need all those extra E-cores.
https://www.microcenter.com/product...s-tuf-gaming-wifi-ddr4,-cpu-motherboard-combo

I will admit, the DDR4 compatibility was a factor in me making a similar jump, but with a 12700K (wasn't going to pay more for E-cores that I'd gladly disable if mine didn't have AVX-512 fused off).

13700k beats 12900K and KS in everything. Gaming included.
Get an early 12900K or 12700K that didn't have AVX-512 fused off, enable it (disabling your E-cores in the process, making the 12900K kinda pointless), and it will demolish Raptor Lake in RPCS3 - but I don't think most people are going to spend that much for a new CPU just to play old PS3 games.

That said, it's an edge case, and there's little reason to buy into Alder Lake if you're not like me and live within driving distance of a Micro Center that's practically handing out free motherboards with the last-gen CPUs.
 
only downside being they do consume more power and run a bit hotter.
Don't believe everything you hear, as I went from a 12900K to a 13900K and temps are within a few degrees of each other running with the same cooler.
 
That margin of performance may have widened with the adoption of better DDR5 Memory controllers in the Z790 Boards

The memory controller is in the CPU, not the chipset. The board could make a difference if the ram traces are shorter, more even, more shielded, etc. Z790 boards might have benefited from experience of earlier ddr5 boards.
 
Did you add in the LGA 1700 Socket support bracket? I ordered the Thermaltake one and wonder if it will work with my Arctic II 280 mounting hardware. That's the only thing I can't easily find any information about.
yes but probably not the one you're thinking. i use a custom water setup, heatkiller 4 on the cpu. bought a LGA1700 backplate and mount kit for the block.
 
Did you add in the LGA 1700 Socket support bracket? I ordered the Thermaltake one and wonder if it will work with my Arctic II 280 mounting hardware. That's the only thing I can't easily find any information about.
If you're talking about the bracket to prevent bending I use the Thermalright one with the Arctic Cooler 420mm AIO without issue. Should be the same installation as the 280mm AIO you have.
 
OP, do you plan to switch from 5900X? Or are you building new rig using new rtx 4000 / rx 7900 series?
 
If you are looking for those 10 extra fps at 4K. Swap out the 5900X with a 5800X3D and wait for new 3D cache procs from AMD. That’s what I did.
 
The memory controller is in the CPU, not the chipset. The board could make a difference if the ram traces are shorter, more even, more shielded, etc. Z790 boards might have benefited from experience of earlier ddr5 boards.
Yeah, that too. I was simply parroting a talking point from a tech tuber that reviewed the boards. The Z790 Chiipset or the Microcode on the lineup supports faster RAM even on the DDR4 side of things.
 
yes but probably not the one you're thinking. i use a custom water setup, heatkiller 4 on the cpu. bought a LGA1700 backplate and mount kit for the block.
Gotcha, I will have to fight with it then. lol Looks like someone else already has the same setup, I should be good.
 
If you are looking for those 10 extra fps at 4K. Swap out the 5900X with a 5800X3D and wait for new 3D cache procs from AMD. That’s what I did.
If it works for you that's cool. I didn't really care for it's single thread performance. Benchmarks were not favorable to a 10 FPS gain at 4K as far as I was aware. It was more like 1-4 over the 5900X with the 5900X winning sometimes at 4K. I didn't really see the point in reducing overall system performance by moving to an inferior, experimental 1st gen, chip. I figured, if I'm going to upgrade I want it to be an upgrade. Plus, I have kinda been itching to see what the Intel performs like compared to my other AMD setups.

I tried the 7000 series AMD stuff and that was a nightmare.

Now I'm test driving Intel, in a couple days.

If rumors are to be believed, the Z790 Platform will get a 14th Gen refresh of Raptor Lake. Looks like Meteor Lake is in development hell on the desktop side of the spectrum. So, the LGA1700 might not be a dead platform yet. Possibly one more year of new chips for it.
 
I would be interested in your report. Let us know how you like the 13th gen Intel build when you have it.
 
I just switched over to Intel yesterday after a week of trying to get the 7950X to work correctly. I have no regret leaving AMD although I really didn't want to. The random reboot/bsod during downloads of Steam games, during game play or just idling got tiring. I also got tired of the long boot and restart time. I'm used to my old X570 with a 5900X booting up cold in 10 seconds and no bsod/reboots....

Now with my new system the bootup time is not as fast as my old X570 build but still faster than the 7950X. It can boot up around 15-25 seconds. I also don't have to deal the high temps when downloading my Steam games which lead to random reboots/bsod. It was hovering around 70C and sometimes that trips the emergency shut down on my H150 LCD when I'm not by my pc. I come back and it's already at the log on screen. My new rig is in my sig down below and so far it's acting like my old X570. I can again download Steam games without fear of it doing a random reboot or bsod. I do most of the downloads when I'm going to bed so by the time I'm up it's done. It was so stressful with the 7950X and now I understand why there's so many complaints about it.

Now i'm happy with my 13900K build and as soon as all my games are done downloading and I have like almost 8 TB of game to download I'll be back to playing them.....
 
I just switched over to Intel yesterday after a week of trying to get the 7950X to work correctly. I have no regret leaving AMD although I really didn't want to. The random reboot/bsod during downloads of Steam games, during game play or just idling got tiring. I also got tired of the long boot and restart time. I'm used to my old X570 with a 5900X booting up cold in 10 seconds and no bsod/reboots....

Now with my new system the bootup time is not as fast as my old X570 build but still faster than the 7950X. It can boot up around 15-25 seconds. I also don't have to deal the high temps when downloading my Steam games which lead to random reboots/bsod. It was hovering around 70C and sometimes that trips the emergency shut down on my H150 LCD when I'm not by my pc. I come back and it's already at the log on screen. My new rig is in my sig down below and so far it's acting like my old X570. I can again download Steam games without fear of it doing a random reboot or bsod. I do most of the downloads when I'm going to bed so by the time I'm up it's done. It was so stressful with the 7950X and now I understand why there's so many complaints about it.

Now i'm happy with my 13900K build and as soon as all my games are done downloading and I have like almost 8 TB of game to download I'll be back to playing them.....

That is a lot of games.
 
I just switched over to Intel yesterday after a week of trying to get the 7950X to work correctly. I have no regret leaving AMD although I really didn't want to. The random reboot/bsod during downloads of Steam games, during game play or just idling got tiring. I also got tired of the long boot and restart time. I'm used to my old X570 with a 5900X booting up cold in 10 seconds and no bsod/reboots....

Now with my new system the bootup time is not as fast as my old X570 build but still faster than the 7950X. It can boot up around 15-25 seconds. I also don't have to deal the high temps when downloading my Steam games which lead to random reboots/bsod. It was hovering around 70C and sometimes that trips the emergency shut down on my H150 LCD when I'm not by my pc. I come back and it's already at the log on screen. My new rig is in my sig down below and so far it's acting like my old X570. I can again download Steam games without fear of it doing a random reboot or bsod. I do most of the downloads when I'm going to bed so by the time I'm up it's done. It was so stressful with the 7950X and now I understand why there's so many complaints about it.

Now i'm happy with my 13900K build and as soon as all my games are done downloading and I have like almost 8 TB of game to download I'll be back to playing them.....
You know you can back up your games? Steam is super easy about recognizing game data.
 
I just assembled the 13900K system with an Tomahawk MB and tossed in my old DDR4 3866, I have some 4600 on order that was a pretty sweet deal. FYI It appears that the Company called Neo Forza is the real deal and while a newcomer to the RAM scene their prices are dirt cheap. So look em up on Newegg. Company is base out of Taiwan. I paid 139 Bucks for 32 Gigs of CL 20 DDR4 4600. It's also Dual Rank. The Reviews for the memory were very good. They are selling DDR4 4400 for like 99 bucks per 32 Megs!

It went up in price now like 209
https://www.newegg.com/neo-forza-32...rza-_-9SIAC0EEVU1155-_-Product&quicklink=true

4400 stuff up to 125
https://www.newegg.com/neo-forza-32...rza-_-9SIAC0ECVS1760-_-Product&quicklink=true

So, back to the Intel build, it was stupid easy compared to the 7000 series Ryzen experiences I had. This is the fastest and least painful build of a system I have ever done. Ho-lee-shit! I will tinker with the RAM speed as I move forward but, this has been a nearly painless experience other than mounting the back plate for the Arctic II 280. So far soo good!
 
Before I passed out last night I switched the my CL18 3866 RAM to Gear 1. No problems. Looking forward to seeing how far I can take that 4600 Mhz Stuff I ordered. I read it's dependent on your Mainboard. Like, I would have no problem on an MSI Godlike. But we shall see what happens with the Tomahawk and a 300 dollar motherboard peasant like me! LOL. Out of the box I got the CPU is running 5684.78 Mhz.... Bus Speed is 101.51 Mhz.
1672638767486.png

1672638809267.png

It's 42% Faster in Single thread than my old 5900X and that's probably why all my old games run AMAZING! Turn and load times feel like they have been cut in half.

Productivity in Affinity Publisher 2.0.3 with a 755 Page Full Color Star Wars RPG I created loads a LOT faster and goes instantly to fluid access with no issues. Could have a lot to do with what I experienced with Serif Page Plus X9 and Intel vs AMD. The old one was clearly optimized for Intel and I wonder if 99% of my application crashes over the last couple years weren't related to my processor of choice just being AMD rather than Intel.
1672639241609.png

I will continue testing when I have time and see if I can get some real benchmarks when I get a chance.

However, my ease of adoption here was like 200% better than anything I have experienced with AMD in the past couple years other than 500 Series Motherboards and 5000 Series CPUs. This is an amazing CPU!
 
So, Gear 1 introduced random instability to the system. Not sure why, system was hard locking after about 20 min. Switched back to gear 2 and all the problems disappeared. Maybe because I am running all 4 memory sockets on my old memory, not certain. Haven't had time to screw with it yet. I lose about 2% Single thread Performance when In Gear 2 vs Gear 1. I will see how things shake out with two 16 GB 4600 sticks when they come in. Even in Gear 2 it's 42% faster than my 5900X with all cores at 4.6...
 
So, Gear 1 introduced random instability to the system. Not sure why, system was hard locking after about 20 min. Switched back to gear 2 and all the problems disappeared. Maybe because I am running all 4 memory sockets on my old memory, not certain. Haven't had time to screw with it yet. I lose about 2% Single thread Performance when In Gear 2 vs Gear 1. I will see how things shake out with two 16 GB 4600 sticks when they come in. Even in Gear 2 it's 42% faster than my 5900X with all cores at 4.6...

Gear 2 just means that the memory controller isn't up to running 1:1 speeds with the memory like it would with Gear 1. Your memory controller is running half speed to your memory.

If you're going to spend money like that on DDR4 memory, you might as well just buy a DDR5 setup.

Which Tomahawk board do you have? Z690 or Z790? Supposedly the Z790 is a little better with memory compatibility. I can run a 1T/Gear 1 with DDR4 3600 on a Z790 Tomahawk which I could never do on any Z or B 6XX board with the same memory.
 
Gear 2 just means that the memory controller isn't up to running 1:1 speeds with the memory like it would with Gear 1. Your memory controller is running half speed to your memory.

If you're going to spend money like that on DDR4 memory, you might as well just buy a DDR5 setup.

Which Tomahawk board do you have? Z690 or Z790? Supposedly the Z790 is a little better with memory compatibility. I can run a 1T/Gear 1 with DDR4 3600 on a Z790 Tomahawk which I could never do on any Z or B 6XX board with the same memory.
I suspect I probably should have tweaked the RAM a bit and played with the voltages. Haven't had the time, too much family stuff going on now. It's old Team Group 3866 4 x 8 Gig. All four slots populated puts extra strain on getting your ram to run the way you want it to.

Allegedly you can get up to 4133 in Gear 1 on decent boards. So, I will have to play around with the settings when I have the time.

I have the Z790 Tom. Ordinarily I would agree with you on the RAM, other than the fact that I got the 2 x 16 GB DDR4 4600 CL19 Stuff for 139 Bucks. It went up in price right after I bought it.

I told a buddy of mine about it and he picked up 64 Gigs of DDR4 4400 for 198 bucks from the company.

I will let you guys know how stable the stuff is and what I get it to run at (Neo Forza, newish Taiwanese Memory company)

FYI - I appreciate your comments
 
I suspect I probably should have tweaked the RAM a bit and played with the voltages. Haven't had the time, too much family stuff going on now. It's old Team Group 3866 4 x 8 Gig. All four slots populated puts extra strain on getting your ram to run the way you want it to.

Allegedly you can get up to 4133 in Gear 1 on decent boards. So, I will have to play around with the settings when I have the time.

I have the Z790 Tom. Ordinarily I would agree with you on the RAM, other than the fact that I got the 2 x 16 GB DDR4 4600 CL19 Stuff for 139 Bucks. It went up in price right after I bought it.

I told a buddy of mine about it and he picked up 64 Gigs of DDR4 4400 for 198 bucks from the company.

I will let you guys know how stable the stuff is and what I get it to run at (Neo Forza, newish Taiwanese Memory company)

FYI - I appreciate your comments
My friends built 2~3 ADL machine using B660 mobos.
They share their experiences and the summary:
1. ADL imc on ddr4 mostly limited to 3866 for Gear 1 (1:1).
2. On gear 2, one can go to 5333 c22 using Hynix DJR kit (you neo forza is DJR kit)

So expect your Neo Forza running 4400 xmp to be set to Gear 2.
But compared to Ryzen, Gear 2 on Intel doesn't give hefty performance penalty.
 
How do you feel about building an ADL rig on eve of announcement of X3D procs? Will you miss AMD gaming focused procs?

Of course assuming they perform great like the 5800 X3D.
 
How do you feel about building an ADL rig on eve of announcement of X3D procs? Will you miss AMD gaming focused procs?

Of course assuming they perform great like the 5800 X3D.
Alder Lake and Raptor Lake are incredible CPUs. I'm not worried about it :)
 
How do you feel about building an ADL rig on eve of announcement of X3D procs? Will you miss AMD gaming focused procs?

Of course assuming they perform great like the 5800 X3D.
I'm not batting an eye at that shit. I have long been a stalwart supporter of AMD but after getting my toes wet with a 7700X I'm less than impressed.

The performance for my use case is mindboggling. The single thread performance of my 13900K is 20% faster than the 7950X. 5800X3D parts were worse at Single Threading than their regular counterparts by a fair margin. So, since the 7000X3D parts are frequency hobbled on the Cached CCD, I have nothing to worry about (and I am well aware that the other CCD's on the 7900 and 7950 are not hobbled). The AMD chips have 50+ Watts less to play with for power, so unless the architecture has been radically evolved to be more efficient I can't see these chips doing all that well against their unconstrained counterparts in other tasks.

Gaming wise, we will have to see. However, the 13900K is an absolute beast at Gaming at 4K, outstripping everything AMD has by 10+ FPS in almost all games. It absolutely makes the 5800X3D look like Clown Shoes in that and most other regards.

The X3D parts are limited again on AM5. That's something AMD said wouldn't happen. They must enjoy getting caught in lies....

Other than that, I have to see if I have to send back my 7900XTX or not...

I'm on the same page with chameleoneel

There's still a refresh left on the Raptor lake architecture allegedly. Intel can and likely will punch back. If AMD has any hope this gen, if would be that their 7000X3D parts are untouchable. But I doubt it.

After a 14th Gen Raptor Lake Refresh (if it happens) AMD has a real opportunity as Intel is having some serious foundry issues again if rumors are true.
 
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42% faster in games?
It sure feels like it. Lets take HBS/Paradox Battletech for example. I load that bitch up with every Mod I can find on the planet and on my 5900X it chugged. Brutal Load times, choppy frame rates, especially with a Battallion of Mechs and armored vehicles on the screen / battlefield. Now, with the 13900K I'm looking at faster load times and the gameplay is fluid. It "feels" like everything just runs better. From my Applications like Affinity Publisher & Designer, to MechWarrior 5, BattleTech, etc. I will be firing up Cyberpunk 2077 coming up here and that will be the real test in 4K, at max settings.
 
Had some time... Have to delve into serious stability testing but I'm posting and in Windows 11 at damn near 6 Ghz with boost (only pops up to 5.97 for a few seconds here and there) and the new RAM is running at a 4,353.6 Mhz in GEAR 1, at the stock RAM loose timings of CL19. It doesn't like it when I tighten the timings. Tried damn near everything.

Pushed the bus to 101.(2)5

I'm coming in 6% faster in Single Thread than a 13900K and 25% faster than the 7950...

You can see for yourselves the awesomeness that this processor is. The MB isn't even top end but it's been a pleasure to tinker and OC with. I only had to reset the BIOS 1 time out of like 20 RAM and CPU tweaks over a period of 3+ Hours.
CPU-Z.jpg


Den PC Test 20.jpg


It's hot tub time!
 
Had some time... Have to delve into serious stability testing but I'm posting and in Windows 11 at damn near 6 Ghz with boost (only pops up to 5.97 for a few seconds here and there) and the new RAM is running at a 4,353.6 Mhz in GEAR 1, at the stock RAM loose timings of CL19. It doesn't like it when I tighten the timings. Tried damn near everything.

Pushed the bus to 101.(2)5
Wow congrats! It's quite impressive running 4,353.6mhz on GEAR1!!!
Quite a nice IMC you had there too.

And for stable daily use, you may try to test the kits using TM5 with absolute / extreme config.
 
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