Question i5-12400 or i7-12700 or extra RAM for non-gaming but resource intensive work ?

[GmMMM]

Hi, have my motherboard msi b660m mag mortar, 32 gb ddr4 ram and now I am choosing between the i5 12400 and the 12700, ony 2 choices in my country the i5 is 230 euro and the i7 is 399 euro. This will be used for video editing although light, 1080p short 3-5 minute clips, php and basic web programming, photoshop and openstreetmap stuff, this is where I run java programs on very large files to extract data (upto 20gb in size) and then dump data into a MySql database, on my current PC (i5 4460 and 8gb ram) this takes hours or sometimes days on this setup, one file took 5 days. Basically not sure if the extra pcu speed and cores will benefit me more or the extra 32 gb of ram. Long shot but anyone know what I should go for?

 

[Why_Me]

Hi, have my motherboard msi b660m mag mortar, 32 gb ddr4 ram and now I am choosing between the i5 12400 and the 12700, ony 2 choices in my country the i5 is 230 euro and the i7 is 399 euro. This will be used for video editing although light, 1080p short 3-5 minute clips, php and basic web programming, photoshop and openstreetmap stuff, this is where I run java programs on very large files to extract data (upto 20gb in size) and then dump data into a MySql database, on my current PC (i5 4460 and 8gb ram) this takes hours or sometimes days on this setup, one file took 5 days. Basically not sure if the extra pcu speed and cores will benefit me more or the extra 32 gb of ram. Long shot but anyone know what I should go for?

Get the i7 for now and add more RAM at a later date.

 

[Ralston18]

The decision depends a great deal on the software being used. You mentioned Photoshop and OpenStreetMap.

Most software manufacturer's provide some listing of the required hardware and software specs necessary to support their product(s).

The list is generally in the form of "minimal", "recommended", and "best". You do not want "minimal" and you do want as much "best" as you can afford.

For example if any given app only needs or uses 16 GB of RAM then additional RAM may not prove beneficial.

Depending on the app there may or may not be some meaningful difference in performance between the two CPU's being considered. If the performance can be measured and compared in some manner - all other things being equal.

Overall, process will only go as fast as the slowest link in the process. A faster CPU will require more power and if the PSU cannot keep up then all will go slower.

My suggestion is to start by observing how your system is currently using its' resources while video editing and running the java programs.

You can use Task Manager, Resource Monitor, and Process Explorer (Microsoft, free) to do so. Get a sense of what resources are being used, to what extent (%), and what is using any given resource. Use all three tools but only one tool at a time.

The objective being to determine what, if anything is holding the system back: i.e., a "bottleneck".

If a file takes 5 days to process then my question would be, and is, what is the system doing? What part of the process is being slow. Could be inefficient code, lack of disk space/virtual memory, interruptions by background tasks doing updates, backups, or simply "phoning home". Maybe network issues if working with networked drives hosting the SQL database.

You may or may not be able to resolve whatever bottleneck, if any, that exists. Key is to look first and identify some specific issue or problem.

 

[GmMMM]

The decision depends a great deal on the software being used. You mentioned Photoshop and OpenStreetMap.

Most software manufacturer's provide some listing of the required hardware and software specs necessary to support their product(s).

The list is generally in the form of "minimal", "recommended", and "best". You do not want "minimal" and you do want as much "best" as you can afford.

For example if any given app only needs or uses 16 GB of RAM then additional RAM may not prove beneficial.

Depending on the app there may or may not be some meaningful difference in performance between the two CPU's being considered. If the performance can be measured and compared in some manner - all other things being equal.

Overall, process will only go as fast as the slowest link in the process. A faster CPU will require more power and if the PSU cannot keep up then all will go slower.

My suggestion is to start by observing how your system is currently using its' resources while video editing and running the java programs.

You can use Task Manager, Resource Monitor, and Process Explorer (Microsoft, free) to do so. Get a sense of what resources are being used, to what extent (%), and what is using any given resource. Use all three tools but only one tool at a time.

The objective being to determine what, if anything is holding the system back: i.e., a "bottleneck".

If a file takes 5 days to process then my question would be, and is, what is the system doing? What part of the process is being slow. Could be inefficient code, lack of disk space/virtual memory, interruptions by background tasks doing updates, backups, or simply "phoning home". Maybe network issues if working with networked drives hosting the SQL database.

You may or may not be able to resolve whatever bottleneck, if any, that exists. Key is to look first and identify some specific issue or problem.

Yes you are right, just check on a 5gb file and on my current PC and it is HDD which is 100 percent, old hard drive, so old that it is IDE only. Tested on my daughters PC which has a sata SSD, 16 gb ram and a ryzen 3400g, SSD was the bottle neck as well although took a fraction of the time to complete. Guess I won't be able to tell until I run it on my m.2 pcie 4.0 drive but I am guessing it will be the drive speed as well, RAM and CPU were both fairly low but RAM would have been next if the drive was unlimited speed. I think the other poster is right, can always add more RAM at another date.

 

[Ar558]

Hi, have my motherboard msi b660m mag mortar, 32 gb ddr4 ram and now I am choosing between the i5 12400 and the 12700, ony 2 choices in my country the i5 is 230 euro and the i7 is 399 euro. This will be used for video editing although light, 1080p short 3-5 minute clips, php and basic web programming, photoshop and openstreetmap stuff, this is where I run java programs on very large files to extract data (upto 20gb in size) and then dump data into a MySql database, on my current PC (i5 4460 and 8gb ram) this takes hours or sometimes days on this setup, one file took 5 days. Basically not sure if the extra pcu speed and cores will benefit me more or the extra 32 gb of ram. Long shot but anyone know what I should go for?

Personally it's pretty hard to tell without understanding the process exactly to know whether it's more CPU or Memory reliant. My instinct is that is RAM and 32GB extra will make a big difference. Given you are going with a 12400 if you take the larger RAM I think that will likely yield the most performance but it is just a guess. You can always move to a 13600K later when you have the money that is available to you.