Discussion Is it worth upgrading to the 12900K from the 3700X?

[QwerkyPengwen]

Sup folks, simple enough question.

I currently rock the 3700x and it is by no means a weak CPU, but I've started toying with the idea of a small but perhaps meaningful upgrade rather than just sitting on what I have for the next however many years.

Just in case you can't see my CPU-Z link on this post, the specs I have are:
3700x
ASUS Prime X470-Pro
32GB (2x16GB) Trident Z NEO at 3600MHz

I am looking at the 12900K bundle from Micro Center for $420 that comes with:
12900K
ASUS Z790-V
32GB (2x16GB) Ripjaws 6000MT/s

And lastly I would be probably selling my current hardware for I would hope about $250 second hand making the out of pocket investment before any taxes $170 for this small upgrade.

So with that knowledge, what are your thoughts and opinions on the possible upgrade knowing how much it would cost in the end with what kind of upgrade it would be in regards to performance.
You think it might be worth it as sort of small system refresh upgrade or you think I should hold out for another few years to see if things get better and cheaper?

I would be sacrificing that sweet RGB RAM but it's not like I couldn't just save a little bit of money and buy fancy RAM if I really felt I needed it lol.

Another thing to note is the use case of this system.
I don't really do super heavy hitting productivity stuff, more like gaming and emulation/VM hobby stuff like of course playing games, but also running some emulation stuff like 86Box and the occasional VM and general multitasking like running Firefox while also listening to music, having Discord open, some other background app/tasks, etc. while I game.

As it stands I am aware that what I have would be considered "just fine" and more than enough for pretty much all of these things with the exception of 86Box since I have already discovered the IPC of the 3700X can't handle much more than a Pentium MMX at 233MHz and like at most I think a VooDoo 2 so in regards to immediate improvements that I know I could see using this newer chip that would be the only one, but I still want to know your thoughts about these two in comparison to each other.

I would maybe switch back over to AMD in the longer future again when they mature the X3D stuff more.

I have also marked this as a discussion rather than a question because there isn't necessarily a question that needs a definitive answer and instead I am just trying to get some public feedback so I can come up with my own answer in the end.

 

[Lafong]

Will your current cooler, case/airflow, and power supply be adequate on the new hardware?

Superficially...it looks worthwhile for 170 dollars. Single thread improvement on Passmark benchmark about 58 percent. Multi thread improvement about 84 percent..........

But I have no idea how important that might be in your day-to-day PC life. Is your PC under a high load 8 percent of the time or 80 percent? What are your expectations? What would disappoint you? Do you admit to upgrade-itis?

 

[CountMike]

Sup folks, simple enough question.

I currently rock the 3700x and it is by no means a weak CPU, but I've started toying with the idea of a small but perhaps meaningful upgrade rather than just sitting on what I have for the next however many years.

Just in case you can't see my CPU-Z link on this post, the specs I have are:
3700x
ASUS Prime X470-Pro
32GB (2x16GB) Trident Z NEO at 3600MHz

I am looking at the 12900K bundle from Micro Center for $420 that comes with:
12900K
ASUS Z790-V
32GB (2x16GB) Ripjaws 6000MT/s

And lastly I would be probably selling my current hardware for I would hope about $250 second hand making the out of pocket investment before any taxes $170 for this small upgrade.

So with that knowledge, what are your thoughts and opinions on the possible upgrade knowing how much it would cost in the end with what kind of upgrade it would be in regards to performance.
You think it might be worth it as sort of small system refresh upgrade or you think I should hold out for another few years to see if things get better and cheaper?

I would be sacrificing that sweet RGB RAM but it's not like I couldn't just save a little bit of money and buy fancy RAM if I really felt I needed it lol.

Another thing to note is the use case of this system.
I don't really do super heavy hitting productivity stuff, more like gaming and emulation/VM hobby stuff like of course playing games, but also running some emulation stuff like 86Box and the occasional VM and general multitasking like running Firefox while also listening to music, having Discord open, some other background app/tasks, etc. while I game.

As it stands I am aware that what I have would be considered "just fine" and more than enough for pretty much all of these things with the exception of 86Box since I have already discovered the IPC of the 3700X can't handle much more than a Pentium MMX at 233MHz and like at most I think a VooDoo 2 so in regards to immediate improvements that I know I could see using this newer chip that would be the only one, but I still want to know your thoughts about these two in comparison to each other.

I would maybe switch back over to AMD in the longer future again when they mature the X3D stuff more.

I have also marked this as a discussion rather than a question because there isn't necessarily a question that needs a definitive answer and instead I am just trying to get some public feedback so I can come up with my own answer in the end.

Financially wise, it's just and only up to you. No idea how could you even think of comparing that with 20+ years old system in any way.
Yes, that other would bring you substantial improvement for multitasking because of core numbers but little for gaming and would also bring you up to newer platform with DDR5 and PCIe v4.0 and that would also depend on your GPU (for gaming).
There's nothing left for x3D to "mature" , it's simply more cache added to base CPU, no secrets or magic about it and it's up to software/games to take advantage of it. Only "problem" was with Ryzen x3D with 2 chiplets in Windows 11 but even that was fixed with latest 23H2 and future 24H2 updates. You could simply drop in Ryzen 5800x3D and get better overall performance and even greater game performance in applicable games than with 12900k. At best, you could drop in R9 5900x3D/5950x3D witch would run circles around that Intel in any which way imaginable.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

Financially wise, it's just and only up to you. No idea how could you even think of comparing that with 20+ years old system in any way.
Yes, that other would bring you substantial improvement for multitasking because of core numbers but little for gaming and would also bring you up to newer platform with DDR5 and PCIe v4.0 and that would also depend on your GPU (for gaming).
There's nothing left for x3D to "mature" , it's simply more cache added to base CPU, no secrets or magic about it and it's up to software/games to take advantage of it. Only "problem" was with Ryzen x3D with 2 chiplets in Windows 11 but even that was fixed with latest 23H2 and future 24H2 updates. You could simply drop in Ryzen 5800x3D and get better overall performance and even greater game performance in applicable games than with 12900k. At best, you could drop in R9 5900x3D/5950x3D witch would run circles around that Intel in any which way imaginable.

not sure why you think I am comparing to 20+ year old hardware? I don't even know why you bring that up...

 

[CountMike]

not sure why you think I am comparing to 20+ year old hardware? I don't even know why you bring that up...

"As it stands I am aware that what I have would be considered "just fine" and more than enough for pretty much all of these things with the exception of 86Box since I have already discovered the IPC of the 3700X can't handle much more than a Pentium MMX at 233MHz and like at most I think a VooDoo 2 so in regards to immediate improvements that I know I could see using this newer chip that would be the only one, but I still want to know your thoughts about these two in comparison to each other."

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

"As it stands I am aware that what I have would be considered "just fine" and more than enough for pretty much all of these things with the exception of 86Box since I have already discovered the IPC of the 3700X can't handle much more than a Pentium MMX at 233MHz and like at most I think a VooDoo 2 so in regards to immediate improvements that I know I could see using this newer chip that would be the only one, but I still want to know your thoughts about these two in comparison to each other."

Perhaps there's a language barrier here that is keeping you from understanding what I said so I'll say it differently.

I use an emulation project called 86Box.
This project is a fork of the PCem project.
This project aims to emulate old PC hardware.
As it currently stands, the IPC of the 3700X can only manage to emulate a Pentium MMX running at 233MHz and a VooDoo 2 card. Trying to do any better hardware sees considerable slowdown on the emulation speed.

Then I finished it off by saying "So in regards to immediate improvements that I know (for a fact beforehand) I could see using the newer chip (i.e. the 12900K), that would be the only one, but I still want to know your thoughts"

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

I appreciate the other bits of input though from both of you so far

In regards to other hardware I do have my CPU-Z link but I have an RTX 3080.

PCIe Gen 4 might be a nice improvement. I would also I think enjoy being able to run my second M.2 drive at full speed instead of 2x like I have to with my current board so there's potential incentive there.

 

[thestryker]

I'm not sure how threaded 86Box is, but the 12900K should be a fairly significant upgrade over what you have either way.

It might also be worth finding out whether or not it benefits from the additional cache provided by X3D parts. If it's one of those things that highly benefits from it a 5700X3D/5800X3D might be a better choice.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

Will your current cooler, case/airflow, and power supply be adequate on the new hardware?

Superficially...it looks worthwhile for 170 dollars. Single thread improvement on Passmark benchmark about 58 percent. Multi thread improvement about 84 percent..........

But I have no idea how important that might be in your day-to-day PC life. Is your PC under a high load 8 percent of the time or 80 percent? What are your expectations? What would disappoint you? Do you admit to upgrade-itis?

I wasn't factoring other things like getting a cooler into the mix since I'm already aware that I may need to get a new one if I can't get ahold of mounting hardware for my current AiO.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

I'm not sure how threaded 86Box is, but the 12900K should be a fairly significant upgrade over what you have either way.

It might also be worth finding out whether or not it benefits from the additional cache provided by X3D parts. If it's one of those things that highly benefits from it a 5700X3D/5800X3D might be a better choice.

it is very much a single threaded thing so the better your IPC the better and more powerful CPU's and GPU's of old you can run.
I think they do split things across different cores such as emulating the CPU on one and the GPU on another, but you still need fairly substantial IPC if you want to do anything more than the hardware I mentioned before. Otherwise you can't really run 3D games of the era like say the first Harry Potter game for PC which requires at least a Pentium II at 266MHz and a VooDoo 3 I think because it needs at least DirectX 8.0 which is just barely supported by the VooDoo 3 with a beta driver.

I think the VooDoo cards might possibly benefit from X3D, would need to clarify with the people in Discord for that.

 

[thestryker]

it is very much a single threaded thing so the better your IPC the better and more powerful CPU's and GPU's of old you can run.

I assumed it would be as most emulation type stuff is so in that case unless it can benefit from the cache on an X3D part the 12900K will be a really good upgrade.

 

[FAhentai]

No.
In fact changing to Intel is not an upgrading, it is like build a new computer. You need to install new windows, make all the programe back to work. Total pain.
However, your Motherboard and RAM are still decent. Why not go 5800X3D/5700X3D, install a new graphic. Trust me, if your monitor is 4K and you are gaming on 4K, your CPU will not be the bottleneck even if you are using 4090/7900xtx.

 

[geofelt]

My initial reaction was no way...
Changing from amd to Intel(or vice versa) is a pain.
If your current C drive can't boot, you can't get the needed drivers installed.
A clean windows install involves reinstalling apps and settings.
A pain, even if you can recall all you had before.

Then, you rarely get what you hope by selling used.

OTOH, if the prices were correct, you get a better boost than simply a 5800X upgrade.
Have you overclocked your 3700X?
What is your cpu cooler?
As a test, run the cpu-Z bench and look at the single thread results.
You should see a rating of about 528:
https://valid.x86.fr/bench/q7xhw8

 

[TheHerald]

The 3700x is still a very very capable for non gaming tasks, and for games it is still decent. I have one side side by with a 12900k.

For gaming performance assuming your card can keep up you are looking at more than 100% improvement in some games. In TLOU for example the 3700x was around the 80-85 fps , the 12900k was around 170-190.

 

[TechyInAZ]

Honestly I'd just buy a Ryzen 7 5800X3D, or even a Ryzen 9 5950X. Either way, that will be cheaper than buying an outright new system. Plus you won't have to worry about E-core scheduling.

I do a ton of multitasking on my 5800X3D, including running an occasional VM. Works great for my needs, i'm not lacking in CPU horsepower.

 

[logainofhades]

I also agree to just doing a drop in upgrade to your existing board.