Need to upgrade my i5-2500K to something up to date

[Golf1.6]

Hi

I'm not a gamer of up to date games. I play just civ5 and I use my computer as my entertainment & work computer. Videos, streaming content and doing a lot of batch processes in photoshop and looking into doing some entry level video edititing (for my ecommerce business - making youtube videos).

the i5-2500k seems a bit sluggish these days, it freezes during civ5 sometimes late game when cpu resources are much heavier and it has to draw the entire map in visible mode.

I'm not looking for anything brand new, looking to buy used off auction, maybe buy the ram brand new from ocuk as used/new prices for ram seem to be similar.

What configuration would be best. I have ddr3 on my system so will need a ram +cpu+mobo combo

 

[Journey]

New and used prices (for older CPUs) are very similar for the most part, especially if buying at auction, unless you get lucky. The new parts will offer much better performance per £ spent though.

If you shop around a bit you can get an Intel i5 11400F for under £100, and a reasonable B560 board for £80, you might be able to source some cheap DDR4 at auction, but 16GB new is only about £50. Buy a £20 cooler, and as long as the rest of your PC is half decent then you should be fine. Sell the current board/CPU/RAM for £100 on Faceache or auction etc.

 

[Tetras]

It depends exactly what you're doing and the software used, but the best used buy for productivity might be a 3900X for sub £200, with one of the £60 B450 Tomahawk Max II boards brand new, if you can find one still in stock (they were £60 for ages, but seem to have gone up).

 

[MartinPrince]

As you are doing a fair amount of video work then most definitely what @Tetras just stated as you can take full advantage of those 12 cores and 24 threads.

You can even get the original B450 Tomahawk board. The later MAX boards had better bios' but from your perspective, functionally you shouldn't notice much difference.

It's best to get some decent DDR4 like Crucial Ballistic 3200 C16 or even better but maybe more costly Samsung B die 3200 C14 (3600 C16). With Ryzen 3000 series it's best to run the FCLK at 1:1 and run as close to the maximum 3800 that your CPU/DDR4/Motherboard will allow you.
Getting to 3600 1:1 should be the aim as the vast majority of CPU/Motherboards could do that easily.

 

[Journey]

Thing is the OP said some entry level video editing, so as much as the 3900x would be great for that, if you look at Photoshop a 12400 is as fast or faster, and would cost the less and have a full warranty and can be bought any day of the week without having to wait for an auction to pop up at the right price. Yes you'd be looking at £95 for the board but the CPU is £172 (non-F) and the best priced 3900x are £200+ used. So that would offset the board cost.

 

[MartinPrince]

In particular for batch processing (which can use all cores and threads) which the OP mentioned, a 3900X can be quite a bit faster than a 12400. Also as his ecommerce business is "making youtube videos" then it is a no brainer to go with a 3900X over a 12400. The faster single core performance of the 12400 can not overcome the double amount of cores and threads that the 3900X gives you.

If I was only using Photoshop or Lightroom where a good amount of my tasks and workflow are single threaded then yes, I'd probably go with the 12400 but as soon as you bring video into the equation, and batch processing where he will continually take advantage of all cores and threads then the 3900X will be a time saver.

 

[Journey]

I'd suggest the OP ready this article and makes his own mind up.

Adobe Photoshop: 12th Gen Intel Core vs AMD Ryzen 5000 Series

Intel has launched their new 12th Gen Intel Core desktop processors (code-named "Alder Lake") featuring support for DDR5, PCIe 5.0, as well as a completely new hybrid architecture using a mix of Performance and Efficient-cores. Photoshop is largely single-threaded which may diminish the value of...

www.pugetsystems.com

Also this for encoding.

Intel Core i5-12400F Review - The AMD Challenger

The Intel Core i5-12400F comes at an extremely attractive price point, yet offers performance comparable to AMD's Ryzen 5 5600X. While Intel introduced a Hybrid core design with Alder Lake, the 12400F is a P-core only design, which helps avoid potential compatibility issues with E-cores.

www.techpowerup.com

The issue is sourcing the parts for a reputable seller, if going used. You could end up with a lemon, and spend days or weeks messing around to get it sorted. If the OP has MM access then it might be different. There are huge benefits to buying used, but there are also risks.

I'd be doubtful just how important and of this is on an actual business level given the fact they are also still on a 2500K.

 

[MartinPrince]

I'd suggest the OP ready this article and makes his own mind up.

Adobe Photoshop: 12th Gen Intel Core vs AMD Ryzen 5000 Series

Intel has launched their new 12th Gen Intel Core desktop processors (code-named "Alder Lake") featuring support for DDR5, PCIe 5.0, as well as a completely new hybrid architecture using a mix of Performance and Efficient-cores. Photoshop is largely single-threaded which may diminish the value of...

www.pugetsystems.com

Also this for encoding.

Intel Core i5-12400F Review - The AMD Challenger

The Intel Core i5-12400F comes at an extremely attractive price point, yet offers performance comparable to AMD's Ryzen 5 5600X. While Intel introduced a Hybrid core design with Alder Lake, the 12400F is a P-core only design, which helps avoid potential compatibility issues with E-cores.

www.techpowerup.com

You're missing the detail of what the OP actually requires. He doesn't want something that is good in Photoshop generally so I'm not sure why you've linked that.

edit. Ah you added to your original post but still no comparison to a 3900X... I'll find something to prove my point...

 

[Journey]

You're missing the detail of what the OP actually requires. He doesn't want something that is good in Photoshop generally so I'm not sure why you've linked that.

edit. Ah you added to your original post but still no comparison to a 3900X... I'll find something to prove my point...

You must have replied, I did edit my response to add more depth.

I am not disagreeing that a 3900X is a better in a few ways, but it is worse in others, hence why I showed the benefit in encoding for it.

 

[MartinPrince]

OK, specifically for the 'batch processing' the OP mentioned. Here is a comparison of a 12400 and3900X. Notice that the overall scores for Lightroom are about the same though the 12400 is using a RTX3080 which is vastly superior to the 1050Ti of the 3900X system, though for batch processing which is what the 'Export 50X Jpegs' is using, then this will use all the available threads. Notice the difference in scores.

Here the 3900X is 47.4% better than the 12400. Onto the video encoding comparison...

 

[Journey]

Here the 3900X is 47.4% better than the 12400. Onto the video encoding comparison...

Lets wait for the OP to come back. I know the strengths and weaknesses of them all, but you missed my point in buying used its a lottery. Also in performance per £ my first choice was the 11400 at £99.

 

[MartinPrince]

For video we can simply use Cinebench and here the 3900X is 45.8% better than the 12400.

The fact is that for normal desktop task and much of using PS or LR folks would be hard pushed to notice the difference between any decent mid to top range CPU from the last 4 or so years. Though when it comes to video work, where projects can take many, many minutes then nearly 50% improvement can be the difference between waiting 30mins or 45mins.

As the OP has specially specified batch processing and video work, then Intel really has nothing that can compete with the 3900X for value for money which can be had fairly easily for ~£210.

 

[Journey]

For video we can simply use Cinebench and here the 3900X is 45.8% better than the 12400.

Why would you use a 3D rendering benchmark for Video.

Why not just link this article and be done?

Adobe Premiere Pro: 12th Gen Intel Core vs AMD Ryzen 5000 Series

Intel has launched their new 12th Gen Intel Core desktop processors (code-named "Alder Lake") with support for DDR5, PCIe 5.0, as well as a completely new hybrid architecture featuring a mix of Performance and Efficient-cores. This is a lot of new technologies in one product, so we are excited...

www.pugetsystems.com

Spending £210 on a used 3900X, (since we are now topping out and talking about running away with price/perf) then the £250 12600KF would decimate the 3900X. Just because someone wants to buy used doesn't mean they should. I always recommend it where possible, but it makes no-sense to spend that much a on used CPU with no warranty.

So do you want a balance of price/perf OP?

 

[MartinPrince]

Lets wait for the OP to come back. I know the strengths and weaknesses of them all, but you missed my point in buying used its a lottery. Also in performance per £ my first choice was the 11400 at £99.

Maybe as you work in the industry you can source a 11400f for £99 but for regular Joe's like us then OcUK sell them for £150 and on the auction site that the OP specifically says he uses then then they are over £100 and much less in supply then the 3900X.

Plus a 11400F is a false economy even if they could get it for £100 as it is 78.3% slower than a 3900X. It would be just a matter of short time before that extra cost would pay for itself - plus the Intel motherboard is more expensive.

 

[alec]

Zen2 should be ignored. Sure it could be on top in multithreaded benchmarks, but overall it will be slower across large range of tasks and gaming.
Choice should be between Zen3 and Alder Lake, and budget will decide.

 

[MartinPrince]

Why would you use a 3D rendering benchmark for Video.

Why not just link this article and be done?

Adobe Premiere Pro: 12th Gen Intel Core vs AMD Ryzen 5000 Series

Intel has launched their new 12th Gen Intel Core desktop processors (code-named "Alder Lake") with support for DDR5, PCIe 5.0, as well as a completely new hybrid architecture featuring a mix of Performance and Efficient-cores. This is a lot of new technologies in one product, so we are excited...

www.pugetsystems.com

Spending £210 on a used 3900X, (since we are now topping out and talking about running away with price/perf) then the £250 12600KF would decimate the 3900X. Just because someone wants to buy used doesn't mean they should. I always recommend it where possible, but it makes no-sense to spend that much a on used CPU with no warranty.

So do you want a balance of price/perf OP?

I've worked in video since the 90's (ran my own company). Cinebench has always been and still is a very good and reliable metric for demonstrating CPU ONLY transcoding or encoding. (I could have just as easily used Handbrakec, MeGUI etc...)
Adobe Premiere is not a good program to demonstrate CPU differences as it can and does use the GPU very effectively.

 

[Journey]

Adobe Premiere is not a good program to demonstrate CPU differences as it can and does use the GPU very effectively.

So ignore it if that is what the user is using? I am not sure that is how the real world works with applications, if they are using Photoshop, Premier and After Effects, then why would you not look at those benchmarks. If they were using Davinci, etc then you'd look at those. If they were doing 3D rending then you'd look at that. It's like saying I play CP:2077 so use a benchmark from F1 2021. Makes no sense at all.

 

[MartinPrince]

So ignore it if that is what the user is using?....

This is the crux of the issue. Where did the OP say he was using Premiere? He didn't.

We tend to totally ignore what the OP or whoever is asking for almost as if they don't know their situation or own mind.

He specifically said:
"I'm not looking for anything brand new, looking to buy used off auction"
"...doing a lot of batch processes..."
"...doing some entry level video edititing (for my ecommerce business - making youtube videos"

As I've shown with empirical data, the suggestion from @Tetras is the best CPU/Mobo combination for what he has specifically asked for. With the information and criteria he has supplied this is by far the best option. If and when the OP states which encoding software he uses then we can point to those specific benchmarks.

It only doesn't make sense if one don't want to appear to be in the wrong.
You pointed to a Premiere Pro benchmark that doesn't even mention any of the CPU's put forward in this thread (No 3900x/12400/11400f results). Surely you can see how that doesn't help in the least!

I've set the information out. I'll leave the OP to decide as some just seem bent on ignoring what he is asking for.

 

[Journey]

I've set the information out. I'll leave the OP to decide as some just seem bent on ignoring what he is asking for.

Suggested that about three weeks ago. Also didn't ignore at all, you are the one who started using Cinema 4D (Cinebench) as an example, so I point out that isn't anything like what they are using.

Also you might want to check the bit about video editing, "might look into" doesn't mean is doing it.

 

[Harlequin]

OP, just get something modern with 16gb ram, will be a lot faster than your 11 year old system. A nice nvme drive will make it almost instant boot from cold as well.