Question Is it a good time to upgrade to a new CPU ?

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knowledge2121

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Sep 5, 2013
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I want to upgrade my PC's CPU to either 12900K, 13900K or 14900K. I also need a good board.

Here are my PC specs and the parts I already have:

- Cougar MX410 Mesh PC case Brand NEW
- 6x Arctic P12 PWM case fans Brand NEW
- 2x Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB Brand NEW
- TeamGroup MP34 4TB Brand NEW
- 32GB Corsair DDR4 RAM Brand NEW
- be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 Brand NEW
- 2x SATA SSDs USED
- i7-7700K USED
- System Board USED
- EVGA 850w Bronze PSU USED ... I bought it in 2015 and been using it since then.
- GTX 1080
--------------------------------------------

I want to upgrade to a very good CPU ....

- Is it a good time to upgrade ? Will the 15900K and so on have 16 performance cores ?
- If not, Should I buy the 12900K, 13900K or 14900K ? there is a $250 CDN difference.
- Is my CPU cooler good enough ?
- Is my current PSU ok ? Does it have enough power ? Will it last ? or should I get a new one ?
- Should I buy new RAM sticks ? since 12gen and above use DDR5 ?
- What is a good System board to get ?
- I don't want to touch the GPU right now, Later I will upgrade though.
 
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IMO, if you are going to stick with Intel, the current value for money is in 12th gen. Any of the 12-14th gen Intel can be used with a DDR4 motherboard so you could continue using your current RAM if you wanted to save that money.

Your power supply is pretty old. IDK what the original manufacturer warranty was on that unit, if it was less than 10y it may not be a bad thing to consider replacement. If you don't now, def. before upgrading to a new graphics card. The 1080 has been a pretty legendary performer and is still of a level that competes with the lower end new cards of today.
 
Expect to see frowning over your 9 year old power supply.

People will probably try to talk you down to an i-7 unless you have a very unusual use case or are pretty much indifferent to the diminishing returns curve.

Should be plenty of 13th gen boards that accept DDR 4, but I'd use DDR 5 if I were building a new PC. Not sure why you bought the RAM already.

Air cooling on an i-9 might cause you some concern, but I don't know if you will be stressing it or if you are willing to de-tune it so air would be no problem.
 
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Why_Me said:
What will be the primary uses of your PC.
Click to expand...

Gaming, Office work, CPU intensive game emulators.

punkncat said:
IMO, if you are going to stick with Intel, the current value for money is in 12th gen. Any of the 12-14th gen Intel can be used with a DDR4 motherboard so you could continue using your current RAM if you wanted to save that money.
Click to expand...

Is there a big performance difference between DDR4 and DDR5 when paired with 12 13 14 900k CPUs ?

Also, What do you think of AMD CPUs .... would it be cheaper if I went with an AMD CPU ?

How about the cooler ? is it a good cooler ? Will I be able to do some OCing with it ?
 
If this is for gaming and only light or no productivity task are being done, I would do this:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i7-13700 2.1 GHz 16-Core Processor ($339.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 50.5 CFM CPU Cooler (Purchased For $0.00)
Motherboard: MSI MAG B760 TOMAHAWK WIFI DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard ($164.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory (Purchased For $0.00)
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive (Purchased For $0.00)
Storage: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive (Purchased For $0.00)
Storage: TEAMGROUP MP34 4 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive (Purchased For $0.00)
Video Card: NVIDIA Founders Edition GeForce GTX 1080 8 GB Video Card (Purchased For $0.00)
Case: Cougar MX410 Mesh ATX Mid Tower Case (Purchased For $0.00)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower GF A3 - TT Premium Edition 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Case Fan: ARCTIC P12 56.3 CFM 120 mm Fan (Purchased For $0.00)
Case Fan: ARCTIC P12 56.3 CFM 120 mm Fans 5-Pack (Purchased For $0.00)
Total: $594.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-02-16 12:44 EST-0500
 
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Lafong said:
People will probably try to talk you down to an i-7 unless you have a very unusual use case or are pretty much indifferent to the diminishing returns curve.
Click to expand...

I want the CPU to be powerful so I am going with an i9. Will Intel release a consumer level CPU with more than 8 performance cores anytime soon ? How about a more efficient lithography ?
 
knowledge2121 said:
Gaming, Office work, CPU intensive game emulators.



Is there a big performance difference between DDR4 and DDR5 when paired with 12 13 14 900k CPUs ?

Also, What do you think of AMD CPUs .... would it be cheaper if I went with an AMD CPU ?

How about the cooler ? is it a good cooler ? Will I be able to do some OCing with it ?
Click to expand...

I personally have no issue with AMD and long run, due to the promise of support for AM5 in line with how they handled AM4 would leave a nice upgrade path in a couple of years.

As to the DDR4 vs 5, honestly would just watch some YT reviews of the hardware you are interested in to see the difference. Cost wise, I think DDR5 has come down to a price more in line with DDR4.
 
knowledge2121 said:
Gaming, Office work, CPU intensive game emulators.



Is there a big performance difference between DDR4 and DDR5 when paired with 12 13 14 900k CPUs ?

Also, What do you think of AMD CPUs .... would it be cheaper if I went with an AMD CPU ?

How about the cooler ? is it a good cooler ? Will I be able to do some OCing with it ?
Click to expand...

I would recommend AM5, as you get an upgrade path. LGA1700 is a dead end now. We should still get at least 2 more generations of CPU's, from AMD.
 
knowledge2121 said:
Gaming, Office work, CPU intensive game emulators.
Click to expand...
See my above build.
knowledge2121 said:
Is there a big performance difference between DDR4 and DDR5 when paired with 12 13 14 900k CPUs ?
Click to expand...
Outside of some specific productivity tasks, no.
knowledge2121 said:
Also, What do you think of AMD CPUs .... would it be cheaper if I went with an AMD CPU ?
Click to expand...
There are some very good AMD CPU options but considering the parts you already bought you are going to most benefit from an Intel platform. It would be more expensive with your current parts to switch to AMD.
knowledge2121 said:
How about the cooler ? is it a good cooler ? Will I be able to do some OCing with it ?
Click to expand...
The cooler you have is a top of the line air cooler, but with Intel CPUs you will be thermally limited even before OCing, especially an i9 of any generation.
knowledge2121 said:
I want the CPU to be powerful so I am going with an i9. Will Intel release a consumer level CPU with more than 8 performance cores anytime soon ? How about a more efficient lithography ?
Click to expand...
None of the i9s or i7s have more than 8p cores. The i7s from intel are plenty of performance even with emulators, as most of them are very single threaded and the few that are multithreaded 8p cores and 4+e-cores are plenty of horse power.
 
I bought a 4-core i5-6500 in 2015 and shortly after 8700K was released which had 6 cores...I regretted buying the 6500...Now I am in the same situation, If I buy a 14900K, Will Intel release a newer CPU with more performance cores shortly after ?
 
knowledge2121 said:
So how many years before Intel releases a CPU with more than 8 performance cores ? (consumer level CPU in the same league as 12 13 14 900K)
Click to expand...

Who knows beyond the rankest speculation?

Would you wait till say late 2025? If not, how long? Nothing in sight as far as I can tell other than possibly deep insiders.

Intel is emphasizing Efficiency cores, but no one really knows what to expect from the next major upgrade/process. Yet.

Are you willing to go beyond standard high end consumer level stuff....totally different socket?
 
It would be more than a bit. HEDT is back from Intel and AMD, but not cheap at all.

Threadripper is achievable, but the motherboards are super expensive and the lowest end CPU isn't great. More for people who needs tons of PCIe lanes.
 
For practical purposes, recent Intel processors are over-clocked when you buy them. Full speed ahead to 100 degrees if the task requires it.

You can then de-tune them if you like to generate less heat.

But you may insist on over-clocking regardless for whatever reason.
 
So to sum it all up: I should buy the following parts:

14900K
DDR5 RAM
New PSU
Z790 System board
---------------------------------

And my cooler is good enough so no need to buy a new cooler....
 
knowledge2121 said:
So to sum it all up: I should buy the following parts:

14900K
DDR5 RAM
New PSU
Z790 System board
---------------------------------

And my cooler is good enough so no need to buy a new cooler....
Click to expand...

Are you the nervous type when it comes to temperatures?

Would you care if temps were consistently 80 plus?

If you would care, would you be unwilling to de-tune the CPU?
 
I would just let everything work without any modifications at first....and later decide if I want to OC the CPU.

One more question: I just realized that some batches of the Be Quiet dark rock pro 4 coolers don't come with LGA1700 mounting bracket, So I opened up mine to see if it is included, here are some photos:


Photo 1
Photo 2

Can you confirm that the 1700 bracket is included ?
 
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