Question Help me decide: A jump to Alder Lake or settle on Ryzen ?

[Adam1998]

About to do a mid-upgrade on my CPU (certainly not my GPU) as my i5 is starting to show it's limits with only 4 cores and no hyperthreading to speak of.

I've decided on all the other bits I'm getting but I'm not sure whether to spend more and jump into Alder Lake or stick with the tried, trusted and cheaper Ryzen series currently out.

Currently, I'm looking at the i7 12700kf + Gigabyte UD 1700 for a combined of £527 or the Ryzen 7 5800x + Asus MOBO for £100 less

I want a multi-purpose rig, if it was purely for gaming I'd stick with Ryzen but I also work with Premiere, DAW's and Unreal Engine (hence the want for a 7 series)

Note my main income is not from those applications, it's a split between freelance work and my own personal stuff so I don't demand the fastest for money wise but I want a system that's gonna keep up and serve me well.

Whilst it's not much extra in the grand scheme, I'm saving to move and wanted to do this upgrade before I did, so saving money where I can is helpful. In this situation, what would your go to be?

 

[Hellfire13]

If you ask me, 12700k is not a direct comparison to 5800x as they both have 16 performance threads but the 12700k has 4 extra efficiency threads as well. I am talking about the K and not the KF because the Quick Sync feature can be handy for your work and also gives you debugging leverage. Even if you go with the KF it still gives you more than 16 threads. Also, since your workload is performance oriented, I would avoid the budget line boards with low insufficient VRM.

Regardless of which CPU you choose they are all winners and more than capable of doing the job with ease. Basically comes down to your budget.

 

[cdrkf]

About to do a mid-upgrade on my CPU (certainly not my GPU) as my i5 is starting to show it's limits with only 4 cores and no hyperthreading to speak of.

I've decided on all the other bits I'm getting but I'm not sure whether to spend more and jump into Alder Lake or stick with the tried, trusted and cheaper Ryzen series currently out.

Currently, I'm looking at the i7 12700kf + Gigabyte UD 1700 for a combined of £527 or the Ryzen 7 5800x + Asus MOBO for £100 less

I want a multi-purpose rig, if it was purely for gaming I'd stick with Ryzen but I also work with Premiere, DAW's and Unreal Engine (hence the want for a 7 series)

Note my main income is not from those applications, it's a split between freelance work and my own personal stuff so I don't demand the fastest for money wise but I want a system that's gonna keep up and serve me well.

Whilst it's not much extra in the grand scheme, I'm saving to move and wanted to do this upgrade before I did, so saving money where I can is helpful. In this situation, what would your go to be?

I think either processor would be a big jump in performance from a 4 thread i5. The i7 is the faster of the two, and you should see a decent boost in your productivity applications thanks to the additional threads and high IPC. In terms of gaming, I'm guessing you'll have a slightly older gpu in which case they two will perform the same. I guess it comes down to if the extra performance of the i7 is worth the extra £100 or not.

 

[Nighthawk117]

About to do a mid-upgrade on my CPU (certainly not my GPU) as my i5 is starting to show it's limits with only 4 cores and no hyperthreading to speak of.

I've decided on all the other bits I'm getting but I'm not sure whether to spend more and jump into Alder Lake or stick with the tried, trusted and cheaper Ryzen series currently out.

Currently, I'm looking at the i7 12700kf + Gigabyte UD 1700 for a combined of £527 or the Ryzen 7 5800x + Asus MOBO for £100 less

I want a multi-purpose rig, if it was purely for gaming I'd stick with Ryzen but I also work with Premiere, DAW's and Unreal Engine (hence the want for a 7 series)

Note my main income is not from those applications, it's a split between freelance work and my own personal stuff so I don't demand the fastest for money wise but I want a system that's gonna keep up and serve me well.

Whilst it's not much extra in the grand scheme, I'm saving to move and wanted to do this upgrade before I did, so saving money where I can is helpful. In this situation, what would your go to be?

Both are absolutely vast improvements over a 4C/4T i5, they are both good CPU's but I'd go with the 12700KF or the 5900X if it was me. The 12700KF will be faster in most games but the latter has the benefit of 12 identical cores and slightly lower temps. If you buy too much it just means it will last you longer.

 

[Bob.B]

About to do a mid-upgrade on my CPU (certainly not my GPU) as my i5 is starting to show it's limits with only 4 cores and no hyperthreading to speak of.

I've decided on all the other bits I'm getting but I'm not sure whether to spend more and jump into Alder Lake or stick with the tried, trusted and cheaper Ryzen series currently out.

Currently, I'm looking at the i7 12700kf + Gigabyte UD 1700 for a combined of £527 or the Ryzen 7 5800x + Asus MOBO for £100 less

I want a multi-purpose rig, if it was purely for gaming I'd stick with Ryzen but I also work with Premiere, DAW's and Unreal Engine (hence the want for a 7 series)

Note my main income is not from those applications, it's a split between freelance work and my own personal stuff so I don't demand the fastest for money wise but I want a system that's gonna keep up and serve me well.

Whilst it's not much extra in the grand scheme, I'm saving to move and wanted to do this upgrade before I did, so saving money where I can is helpful. In this situation, what would your go to be?

You might want to sit tight the 12400/500/600 non-k and the mid priced mobo's are in the pipe.

Perhaps you can save a buck.

 

[geofelt]

Run the cpu-Z benchmark on your I5 and look at the single thread performance.
That is what makes a pc quick in desktop use.

The 12700K will score about 852 and the 5800X will score about 650:
https://valid.x86.fr/bench/f8003w/1

In terms of capability when all available threads are fully utilized, the 12700K will have a passmark rating of 32642:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-12700K&id=4609
The 5800X, is reasonably close at 28447:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Ryzen+7+5800X&id=3869

These new processors are so wickedly strong that I really doubt you have a workload that can fully load one.

I have found, over the years that while the initial lower price of the lesser product was sweet, I kept having regrets wondering if I did the right thing.
The bitterness of the higher price for the best did not last long.

Also, the slightly lower price of a F variant is attractive to some, but I have found that having integrated graphics helps in initial testing, and in the event of a graphics card failure, you can still keep running. The extra $25 or so for the non F processor has been worth it to me.

 

[punkncat]

Personally, would NOT consider (and didn't) the F skew in relation to the Intel CPUs. This is a direct result of the GPU market.
If your possibly aging hand me down GPU from a system built some years ago fails on an F skew or (most) Ryzen then you essentially are stuck at the mercy of market forces which will demand you spend 100+% of your build budget on one item, IF you can find one to purchase.

 

[larkspur]

The 12700k/f competes with the 5900x. The 5800x doesn't even come close to the threaded performance of the 12700k/f.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i7-12700k-review/6

The 12700K's performance in applications is just as impressive. In lightly-threaded apps, the 12700K is ~17% faster than the 5800X and 5900X. In threaded work, the Core i7-12700K is 2.5% faster than the Ryzen 9 5900X, though the 5900X does carve out a few wins in heavily-threaded apps. The competition isn't even close with the Ryzen 7 5800X — the 12700K is 40% faster in threaded work.

One thing to also consider is the 12700 (non-k). Find a nice B660 or H670 board and you'll save some money:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydgN4W97Esk


I also second the motion that the f-series isn't necessarily worth the savings. Having an iGPU for backup and quicksync has never been more important.

 

[Nighthawk117]

Personally, would NOT consider (and didn't) the F skew in relation to the Intel CPUs. This is a direct result of the GPU market.
If your possibly aging hand me down GPU from a system built some years ago fails on an F skew or (most) Ryzen then you essentially are stuck at the mercy of market forces which will demand you spend 100+% of your build budget on one item, IF you can find one to purchase.

This is true, it's helpful as a backup even if your not likely to need it. Looking at prices and the 12700K is around the same price as the 12700KF:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/inte...m2NeXOOxcxnZ6EKlha27Xyg9uDKQtROhoCRAQQAvD_BwE

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/inte...Azhuq0rcf4PReW2T-yJXGLUo5zAgRl7xoCPh8QAvD_BwE

Adobe Premier also has optimisations for the Intel iGPU and you have the Quick Sync video encoder which can be useful for video encoding.

 

[Nighthawk117]

The standard SKU's are normally around 5-6% more than the F SKU's for the top end chips, the % saving is much more significant at the budget end.

 

[Adam1998]

A lot of good answers here! And a fair bit to consider too but it's all helpful in deciding!

 

[Karadjgne]

Ryzen are wonderful cpus, amd has made massive strides, leaps even, considering their last attempt with the FX. Kudos to amd for that. However, to actually get the most out of a Ryzen (which none of those benchmarks or reviews show in the slightest) requires manual input. You gotta tinker around in the bios. Tweak timings, drop voltages, lower working temps to @ 60°C and a Ryzen really performs well, 20-30% better than the reviews show.

Intel is plug and play. Drop it in, set xmp and forget about anything else, doesn't need tinkering. Just cooling. Tinkering, even with a K sku and OC and you'd be looking at maybe 5% more. Not really worth the effort in 12th Gen. Intel OC currently has 1 foot in the grave. Just not necessary.

Can you get a 5800x to approach 12700k levels? Yep, close enough not to really mean anything. Just be prepared to play with apps like Dram Calculator and Clocktuner2 etc and spend several hours doing nothing but watch numbers roll by.

That's what the extra £100 gets you.

 

[Nighthawk117]

I would just get the 5900X if your going AMD, it run's cooler than the 5800X because two cores on each chiplet are disabled.

 

[larkspur]

Tinkering, even with a K sku and OC and you'd be looking at maybe 5% more. Not really worth the effort in 12th Gen. Intel OC currently has 1 foot in the grave. Just not necessary.

Can you get a 5800x to approach 12700k levels? Yep, close enough not to really mean anything. Just be prepared to play with apps like Dram Calculator and Clocktuner2 etc and spend several hours doing nothing but watch numbers roll by.

That's what the extra £100 gets you.

The 12600k actually has some room for a decent OC. Just make sure you have a really good cooler. From Tom's review (The % they refer to is performance gains):

Meanwhile, the Core i5-12600K jumped 15%, which is more than we would expect from the gains we see with new chip generations. In fact, it's been a long time since we've seen double-digit overclocking performance gains in gaming from easily-attainable frequencies.

A 5800X will not match a 12700k in heavily multithreaded tasks no matter how well you tune it. Gaming-wise, sure, but you could also tune the 12700k a bit too.

In Premier Pro (which relies more heavily on single thread performance), Alder Lake dominates:

Here we can see that Adobe's Premiere Pro clearly prizes the increased memory throughput from DDR5. For example, in the Adobe Premiere Pro video editing workload, the Core i7-12700K leads the Ryzen 9 5900X by 11.7% with DDR4 but is 22.8% faster with DDR5 memory.

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i7-12700k-review/5

 

[Karadjgne]

In Premier Pro (which relies more heavily on single thread performance), Alder Lake dominates:

That's today's version. If you use/used the last version, none of the Adobe programs scaled well at all over 8 threads, so Intel dominated. Then came the latest version and it does scale well over 8 threads and a 5600x was beating the pants off an i9-9900k easily. Now Alder-lake has regained the lead with its higher core, higher efficiency, higher IPC.

Until tomorrow when AM5 and Zen4 is dropped and Alder-lake again takes a back seat.

This is going to continue. The results only being relevant according to whatever is used today. Before 12th Gen I'd not even consider recommending anything supposedly better than a 10900 from Intel. Gains to remain in 2nd place simply not worth the price.

Op is upgrading, and it's a solidly meaningful upgrade, 4c/4t i5 to a 5800x/5900x/12700/k is insane, the differences in performance between the newer cpus really isn't worth the quibble.

Ferrari, Lamborghini who really cares, doesn't make a difference when it's the upgrade from a Yugo.

 

[Adam1998]

That's today's version. If you use/used the last version, none of the Adobe programs scaled well at all over 8 threads, so Intel dominated. Then came the latest version and it does scale well over 8 threads and a 5600x was beating the pants off an i9-9900k easily. Now Alder-lake has regained the lead with its higher core, higher efficiency, higher IPC.

Until tomorrow when AM5 and Zen4 is dropped and Alder-lake again takes a back seat.

This is going to continue. The results only being relevant according to whatever is used today. Before 12th Gen I'd not even consider recommending anything supposedly better than a 10900 from Intel. Gains to remain in 2nd place simply not worth the price.

Op is upgrading, and it's a solidly meaningful upgrade, 4c/4t i5 to a 5800x/5900x/12700/k is insane, the differences in performance between the newer cpus really isn't worth the quibble.

Ferrari, Lamborghini who really cares, doesn't make a difference when it's the upgrade from a Yugo.

That's a good way of thinking about it, as trusty as this i5 has been I'm going to have a huge upgrade regardless and I doubt the difference in performance between the upgrade CPUs will be noticeable to me when I'm actually using the PC, it will only be faster to me having been on an aging i5 for so long

 

[Karadjgne]

'Faster' is a somewhat understated expression. If it took 1 hr to do a render on your i5, that same render will take about 8-10 minutes at most.

On second thought, totally inadequate is a better terminology to describe 'faster' lol. 🤣

Gotta say though, definitely got your money's worth out of that i5, and you'll probably get it again with any modern cpu choice. Can't go wrong either way. Since DDR4 will be replaced over the next year or 2 by DDR5, and speeds will naturally climb as the memory matures, I'd consider both 12th gen and AM4 as dead ends, even 13th Gen is looking to use 6000+ MHz, so whichever you decide, it's it, there really won't be any worthwhile upgrades.

That might tip the scales in favor of Intels slightly better performance overall, but that'll be balanced by the budget. Right now, that's a hard spoonful to swallow, the extra £100 for the Intel, but that's today, it might just payoff tomorrow.

 

[DRagor]

Just my two cents - considering current GPU situation, and the chance that it is not going to change for the better in any near future, I would not consider any CPU without integrated graphic. Peace of mind you have knowing that no matter what happens to your GPU you will be able to run your PC each and every day is definitely worth the extra cost.

 

[Karadjgne]

^ totally agree on that. F sku Intel might be ok for the 'cash in hand' budget crowd, but as any Ryzen owner with gpu 'no signal' issues will tell you, an igpu is then worth its weight in gold x10. The extra £10 savings doesn't really get you anything extra in a pc.

Better to have something and never need it, than need it and not have it.