Question I5 13600k and Noctua NH- D15

[Selynelar]

Hi All,

I would like to ask for your help and advice. My motherboard is dying and I decided, i will change it, but right now what I have found z490 boards are almost same price as a new z790 motherboard.

So i decide to change CPU gen.

I was thinking between I7 12700K and I5 13600k.


From my build I would like to move my beast airCooler the NH-D15.
After many searches I have read that the 12700k likes to be very hot and might be undervolting. Honestly i dont really expert in that. So i would like to use the pc without touching the bios. But also the 13th generation CPU can be hot as well.

My questions
Do you think that my air cooler can handle both CPU without any issue?
Which CPU do you think is better? And can handle 3080 without bottleneck?

Mostly I am gaming, and doing full stack developer course.
Some of my current pc specs:

These are going to be in my new build as well.

CASE: BE QUIET PURE BASE 500DX
PSU: SEASONIC PX 850W
GPU:RTX 3080 GAMING Z TRIO
3 ADDITIONAL BE QUIET SILENT WINGS PWM FANS
RAM: I AM GOING TO UPDATE TO DDR5 RAM
SSD:1tb 970 evo nvme
HDD:2tb WD black



MOTHERBOARD PICKED
FOR 12700K

ASUS ROG STRIX Z690-F GAMING WIFI​

MOTHERBOARD PICKED
FOR 13600K

MSI MPG Z790 CARBON WIFI​

or

ROG STRIX Z790-F GAMING WIFI ​

Or either if you have any other suggestion I will take a look on it.

Thanks for your help and advise.

 

[Lafong]

The D15 can handle either of the 12700K or 13600K. Performance similar, but I'd lean toward the 13600K.

You would need the Noctua adapter to mount it on a socket 1700 board. Available free from Noctua or for about 9 dollars on Amazon.

 

[sonofjesse]

cooler is great!! No worries on cooling .

 

[geofelt]

NH-D15 is perfect.
Noctua will send you a LGA 1700 adapter for free.
You send them proof of your lga1700 motherboard.
The 13600K is slightly stronger in single thread performance which is what you want for games:

CPU-Z Benchmark for Intel Core i5-13600K (1T) - CPU-Z VALIDATOR

Best CPU performance - 64-bit - August 2025

valid.x86.fr

With 13th gen the i3/i5/i7/i9 designations no longer mean what they used to.
Namely how many cores and hyperthreading or not.
It is now a more general capability designation.

Any of the current gen processors are built to tolerate heat and to test the 100c. thermal limit for best performance.
In gaming, you will not use all of the available threads like you might in batch apps.

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

 

[Selynelar]

Thanks for everyone's answer! I have ordered already 13600k with Asus Rog Strix Z790-F gaming wifi.