Question Can i comfortably upgrade to an i5-12600KF ?

[veeljko23]

I currently own an i3-12100F and my motherboard is an Asus H610M-A D4.
The cooler I'm using is ID Cooling SE-224-XTS and I would like to know if i can upgrade to an i5-12600KF without problems, all i do is gaming.

i plan on pairing it with a 3060 Ti / RX 6600 XT.

My PSU is Antec EA550G Pro

 

[helpstar]

yes
clean and repaste the thermal paste before installing the cooler again

 

[bill001g]

It likely is as simple as just swapping the CPU. I would just to be safe check your BIOS levels to be sure it supports the other cpu chip. It is likely to be fine, there also likely is a bios upgrade for support of the 14th gen stuff that you don't need yet.

12th gen cpu pricing has been rather strange lately maybe they are running out of these older chips. 13th gen stuff at times is cheaper. Note if you can get the non "K" variation of cpu for cheaper it would be a better choice your motherboard can't use the overclocking features of a K type cpu chip.

 

[Why_Me]

I currently own an i3-12100F and my motherboard is an Asus H610M-A D4.
The cooler I'm using is ID Cooling SE-224-XTS and I would like to know if i can upgrade to an i5-12600KF without problems, all i do is gaming.

i plan on pairing it with a 3060 Ti / RX 6600 XT.

My PSU is Antec EA550G Pro

That board has some pretty weak VRM's. You might think about the i5 12400 / 12400F.

 

[artk2219]

I currently own an i3-12100F and my motherboard is an Asus H610M-A D4.
The cooler I'm using is ID Cooling SE-224-XTS and I would like to know if i can upgrade to an i5-12600KF without problems, all i do is gaming.

i plan on pairing it with a 3060 Ti / RX 6600 XT.

My PSU is Antec EA550G Pro

It can, but an i5 13400 or 13500 may be a better pairing, same core count (slightly higher on the 13500, it gets 4 more efficiency cores), similar clock speeds, much lower power usage. An H610 motherboard wont let you overclock anyway so the K sku is wasted on it, either way make sure to update your bios before upgrading.

Compare Intel Core i5-12600K / Core i5-13400 / Core i5-13500

www.cpu-world.com

PRIME H610M-A D4｜Motherboards｜ASUS Global

PRIME H610M-A D4 Intel® H610 (LGA 1700) micro ATX motherboard features PCIe 4.0, 32Gbps M.2 slot, Intel® 1 Gb Ethernet, DisplayPort, HDMI, D-Sub, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A, SATA 6 Gbps, AURA Addressable Gen 2 headers, Aura Sync, FAN Xpert 2+, Armoury Crate, and 5X PROTECTION III. PRIME H610M-A D4...

www.asus.com

 

[veeljko23]

That board has some pretty weak VRM's. You might think about the i5 12400 / 12400F.

Not powerful enough for me, i dont think that cpu will come even close to that power usage when gaming though

 

[veeljko23]

yes
clean and repaste the thermal paste before installing the cooler again

Budget is higher now, what about 13600kf?

 

[bill001g]

Again you might save a bit by not buying the "K" model. Your motherboard will not allow overclocking and that is really the main reason you pay extra for K models.

It will likely work fine. If you check the list of cpu supported by your motherboard that chip is on the list.

Your cooler is starting to get a bit on the small side. I would run something like cinebench which will max load the cpu. Watch the tempature and if it is hitting 100 degrees you likely will want a better cooler. Since normal workloads do not max out the cpu you likely can use the old cooler until you get a new one. The CPU will reduce its clock speed when it hit the limit to prevent damage.

 

[helpstar]

overclock ability is not the only advantage of a k version cpu. its base clock is higher as well as cache. if the k version is not that much more expensive, it's ok to get one of these as well

 

[veeljko23]

overclock ability is not the only advantage of a k version cpu. its base clock is higher as well as cache. if the k version is not that much more expensive, it's ok to get one of these as well

I already ordered i5 12600kf which im sure ic could run, i think its gonna be enough for me and i dont want to spend $120 more on a 13600kf