12100 + RTX3060 - upgrade to what?

qbazdz

qbazdz

qbazdz

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Hi,

My friend is looking to upgrade his son's PC and trying to get some info from them (games he plays) that would help spec this up is not going to happen.

I wonder what people would feel and actually have noticeable difference of experience with games when moving from 12100+3060 gpu?
From other use cases I'd go by 10% improvement minimum, but 10% on 20FPS is not really going to make it more enjoyable experience lol

This could take a form of CPU only (non K), or GPU only, or both if funds allow.

Personally I'd not consider going more than 13400 + 5060, but I don't game much these days. I can't see why simple CPU upgrade would not be enough either?

Ps. Assume for now, the rest of the build supports newer components already but up to 13gen only
 
qbazdz said:
I wonder what people would feel and actually have noticeable difference of experience with games when moving from 12100+3060 gpu?
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The minimum I'd go, would be a 14400F or 12600K/KF and a 9060 XT 16GB or 5060 Ti 16GB.

qbazdz said:
I can't see why simple CPU upgrade would not be enough either?
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It depends on the card and the resolution/games played (very hard to make decent recommendations without that), but I'd say the level of bottleneck is probably very small with that combination (both ways).

qbazdz said:
My friend is looking to upgrade his son's PC and trying to get some info from them (games he plays) that would help spec this up is not going to happen.
Click to expand...
I'd be very reluctant to get involved here.

For example: they might be playing at 4K and you suggest a 12600K and they tell you it was a waste of money.

Or alternative, they're playing esports at 720p/low settings and you say "get a 5070" and again, they notice nothing.

Worse still, it could be some kind of prebuild with a crappy PSU/case that blows up and they'll blame you.
 
Its only a FHD setup but yeah, I understand your thinking and quite agree - hard to suggest something with little detail.
 
qbazdz said:
Hi,

My friend is looking to upgrade his son's PC and trying to get some info from them (games he plays) that would help spec this up is not going to happen.

I wonder what people would feel and actually have noticeable difference of experience with games when moving from 12100+3060 gpu?
From other use cases I'd go by 10% improvement minimum, but 10% on 20FPS is not really going to make it more enjoyable experience lol

This could take a form of CPU only (non K), or GPU only, or both if funds allow.

Personally I'd not consider going more than 13400 + 5060, but I don't game much these days. I can't see why simple CPU upgrade would not be enough either?

Ps. Assume for now, the rest of the build supports newer components already but up to 13gen only
Click to expand...


well a 9060xt 16gb to from a 3060 will net a 53% uplift for £300..could sell the 3060 to offset that a little..5060ti 16gb 65% uplift for £380
they be the 2 cards I'd look at for an upgrade now, if funds allow

if it's for your friends son, then depending on age, it's all about gaming so i'd concentrate more on the gpu to start..most expensive part of the rig, so put the cash there
 
Craig_d1 said:
well a 9060xt 16gb to from a 3060 will net a 53% uplift for £300..could sell the 3060 to offset that a little..5060ti 16gb 65% uplift for £380
they be the 2 cards I'd look at for an upgrade now, if funds allow

if it's for your friends son, then depending on age, it's all about gaming so i'd concentrate more on the gpu to start..most expensive part of the rig, so put the cash there
Click to expand...
Wouldn't 12100 be a bottleneck for the better GPUs?
 
qbazdz said:
Wouldn't 12100 be a bottleneck for the better GPUs?
Click to expand...

The chip definitely be a problem for Nvidia cards at this resolution. The driver overhead is really high and a lot of the Nvidia features offload work to the CPU. AMD have much less of overhead and seem to process more on the GPU. That said I’ve not used the latest RDNA architecture.
 
Without knowing the games played, the resolution they are played at and the FPS desired, it’s hard to say anything other than at present the CPU is not going to be limiting the GPU in most cases. I would start with that, and the good news is it’s likely the cheap option, also check they have 16GB of RAM, 8 wasn’t that uncommon back then.
 
Resurrecting this from the depths as some info came through
16GB DDR4 RAM, B660 mobo and solid PSU.
It seems that is AI tools and games so cpu feels like the main blocker now, as he mainly plays Robolox, Minecraft, Valorant and the likes.
And most definitely only 1080p screen.
 
qbazdz said:
It seems that is AI tools and games so cpu feels like the main blocker now, as he mainly plays Robolox, Minecraft, Valorant and the likes.
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AI can mean anything really and the demanding AI stuff is usually GPU-oriented (so far as I know). Are those games really games that need more than 4 cores?

The problem with the 12400/13400/14400 is that they're really the same CPU underneath, just with more cores (and E-Cores, in the case of the 13400 and 14400). For a meaningful uplift in gaming performance, you want a real raptor lake CPU like the 14600K.

Don't think I've ever seen a board that can only support 13th gen by the way, if it supports 13th it should support 14th, subject to BIOS update.
 
Tetras said:
AI can mean anything really and the demanding AI stuff is usually GPU-oriented (so far as I know). Are those games really games that need more than 4 cores?

The problem with the 12400/13400/14400 is that they're really the same CPU underneath, just with more cores (and E-Cores, in the case of the 13400 and 14400). For a meaningful uplift in gaming performance, you want a real raptor lake CPU like the 14600K.

Don't think I've ever seen a board that can only support 13th gen by the way, if it supports 13th it should support 14th, subject to BIOS update.
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I checked the mobo and it has a bios that supports 14gen so 14600k could be doable.
I can't quite get details on the AI stuff, I'll see if I can remote into the machine to dive into it.
 
tamzzy said:
does that mean that they live far away from you? if so i'd steer 180 and avoid "helping" lol
would provide advice, but nothing more, this could all go pear shaped if something happens, or they break something whilst upgrading
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No, luckily not quite. Just busy with my own stuff and don't want to loose time driving around
I can always have it dropped by or pick it up to do the actual work
 
qbazdz said:
No, luckily not quite. Just busy with my own stuff and don't want to loose time driving around
I can always have it dropped by or pick it up to do the actual work
Click to expand...
If you do decide on the 14600k before purchasing I would update to bios to make sure there's no problems , many bios updates have bricked motherboards.

Check if he has a compatable bios already.
 
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