8700k to 12700k worth it or wait.

uksoldierboy · 26 Nov 2021 at 09:59

Hiya guys,
I've used my 8700k for what seems an eternity, certainly longer than i ever imagined i would, it's been brilliant in fairness in the Maximus X board, it's been overclocked to 4.8 all cores with no added voltage for about 2 years and i've not had an issue.
but i'm tempted by AlderLake and the 12600 or 12700k, new platform, features etc.

Anyone done a similar upgrade, how did you find it? i've ordered a 6900xt to replace my 2070 Super but i'm interested to see what sort of performance uplift i'll get from the CPU and platform change alone.

Cheers for any advice, experiences etc.

mickyflinn · 26 Nov 2021 at 10:40

Depends what resoloution your gaming if thats your main use.

uksoldierboy · 26 Nov 2021 at 11:35

Cheers Micky,
at 1440p, doesn't seem like there's much in it does it, maybe i'll wait out until next year, difficult to ignore the itch though.

Malesu · 26 Nov 2021 at 14:20

I've taken the plunge by upgrading from 8700k to 12600K. Just waiting for some DDR5 (to go with my Asus Z690-G M/B) to become available (Hopefully I'll have some Crucial 2x16 sticks, sourced elsewhere, delivered around the 10th Dec).

LePhuronn · 26 Nov 2021 at 14:48

uksoldierboy said:
difficult to ignore the itch though.

The upgrade itch will most likely turn into an upgrade rash if you jump on Alder Lake right now. Let the early adopters pay the premium for glorified beta testing and jump on in a year when when have decent DDR5 specs, Rocket Lake vs Zen 4 and a working Windows 11.

Your 6900XT upgrade alone will carry you for that year, especially since you won't have Nvidia's massive driver CPU overhead bogging down the 8700K. Much better card and more CPU available to run games, you'll be flying along.

Born_2_Kill_83 · 26 Nov 2021 at 17:27

I've just done this upgrade myself from a binned delidded 8700k @ 5.1g to a 12700kf. I game at 3840*1600 so nearly 4K.

After 4 years on the mighty 8700k I felt the 12700k was a good enough chip to warranty it. Very pleased so far, I get another 20fps in broken Battlefield 2042 just from upgrading my CPU alone even though I should be GPU limited and it overclocks with ease to 5g on all 8 performance cores with 3.8 on the e cores, not pushed any further yet.

MartinPrince · 26 Nov 2021 at 18:16

Born_2_Kill_83 said:
I've just done this upgrade myself from a binned delidded 8700k @ 5.1g to a 12700kf. I game at 3840*1600 so nearly 4K.

After 4 years on the mighty 8700k I felt the 12700k was a good enough chip to warranty it. Very pleased so far, I get another 20fps in broken Battlefield 2042 just from upgrading my CPU alone even though I should be GPU limited and it overclocks with ease to 5g on all 8 performance cores with 3.8 on the e cores, not pushed any further yet.

20fps by itself doesn't give much info. Better to say (or show) what your previous FPS was so a percentage improvement can be worked out. Also if were you running on exactly the same OS or did you do a fresh install of say Win11 etc.

Born_2_Kill_83 · 26 Nov 2021 at 18:38

Fresh install of w11, was on w11 before, it's just an average across 20fps across all maps I have noticed while looking, I wouldn't read to much into it tbh as the game isn't optimised anyway.

uksoldierboy · 26 Nov 2021 at 22:39

Born_2_Kill_83 said:
I've just done this upgrade myself from a binned delidded 8700k @ 5.1g to a 12700kf. I game at 3840*1600 so nearly 4K.

After 4 years on the mighty 8700k I felt the 12700k was a good enough chip to warranty it. Very pleased so far, I get another 20fps in broken Battlefield 2042 just from upgrading my CPU alone even though I should be GPU limited and it overclocks with ease to 5g on all 8 performance cores with 3.8 on the e cores, not pushed any further yet.

Appreciate this bud thank you, it's nice to see you've noticed an increase in the broken mess that is BF2042, although I will say I'm still enjoying playing it, just fingers crossed they really start patching the issues out and optimize more.
I think what I'm going to do is just go for it, I've already got the 6900xt strix LC on route which should be a nice upgrade from the 2070 super, I'll grab a Asus Strix Z690 A D4, the 12700kf and some faster ram, see how the land looks then come end of next year.

dave28 · 26 Nov 2021 at 22:43

best thing to do it to upgrade with the RAM and not when it first comes out.

so get the 13th Gen or the AMD competitors and by then the DDR5 will be faster and cheaper and the CPU`s will be more capable of handling their speeds.

thats is how i look at it anyway, i have a 8700K also with fast DDR4

BananaDunka · 27 Nov 2021 at 00:47

The minimum FPS will be greatly helped by the 12th gens vs your old i7. I had the 6700K, and even with a 2070 Super the 1% lows and oevrall smoothness with minimum fps is considerably better in heavy games like Cyberpunk

flux64 · 28 Nov 2021 at 02:41

i would wait a little before making the plunge to let new adopters work out all the issues with DDR5

Born_2_Kill_83 · 28 Nov 2021 at 14:15

Or just stick to the DDR4 you've probably already got, just as fast for now.

jwilliamson47 · 2 Dec 2021 at 19:04

I'm in a similar situation. Got an 8700K and looking to secure a new high-end graphics card. Running a 3440x1440 144hz monitor. At this resolution, is it worth the platform change to Alder Lake? I'm looking at the 6900XT or 3080/3080Ti as upgrade options.

uksoldierboy · 3 Dec 2021 at 01:10

jwilliamson47 said:
I'm in a similar situation. Got an 8700K and looking to secure a new high-end graphics card. Running a 3440x1440 144hz monitor. At this resolution, is it worth the platform change to Alder Lake? I'm looking at the 6900XT or 3080/3080Ti as upgrade options.

For what it's worth, I moved from using a 2070super to a toxic limited edition 6900xt, the performance increase with just that has been huge, although it's definitely highlighted the need to upgrade the cpu too, which is what I'm struggling with, I either wait out for AMDs new stuff, or jump on the Alderlake wagon with either a 12600kf or 12700kf, I'm tempted to use the ddr4 I have now, sell my 8700k and Asus formula board, claim the cashback deal that asus are running, and the upgrade should only cost me £150-250 by the end.

JediFragger · 3 Dec 2021 at 07:30

uksoldierboy said:
6900xt

I've got a 6900XT coming today m8 so should pair well with my clocked 12700k. If anything you need to know just ask

Also the Asus cashback ended on the 30th

I got the Z690-A Strix Gaming D4 which means I got it for £235 w/cashback which isn't too bad for pretty much the best DDR4 board out there.

mickyflinn · 3 Dec 2021 at 07:45

JediFragger said:
I've got a 6900XT coming today m8 so should pair well with my clocked 12700k. If anything you need to know just ask

Also the Asus cashback ended on the 30th I got the Z690-A Strix Gaming D4 which means I got it for £235 w/cashback which isn't too bad for pretty much the best DDR4 board out there.

Looks like Asus cashback mite be extended to the 19th December.

https://promotion.asus.com/en/uk/intel-z690

Promotion Period: October 27th 2021 - December 19th 2021

JediFragger · 3 Dec 2021 at 08:00

Great news!

Vimes · 3 Dec 2021 at 08:41

I changed from a 9900k at 5.1Ghz to a 12700k and with the cheapest DDR4 board I could find at the time, the MSI Z690 Pro non WiFi. I had already seen a few vids about that board and it did seem good to go.

I have only just finished building it up, the 12700k is still at stock and will probably remain so for some time.

For me and my needs I was focussing more on CPU types of games where it can be somewhat difficult to measure an improvement.

As a rough guide I saw.........

This is with my 9900k running at 5.1 Ghz..........

38 FPS.

If I dropped from 1440p to 1080p the performance would be exactly the same. The game is more orientated around IPS and does not use multi cores very well.

This is directly after my build and with zero overclock.....................

so from 38 to 52 FPS and around a 33% increase, not good at Maths tho.

The game is Workers and Resources Soviet Republic. Whilst that is only one, not very exact, measurement I am hoping that Cities Skylines, Civ type games and the campaign maps of Total War games, turn based, will improve.

I just would not have thought that I would have seen such an improvement from a 9900k overclocked to 5.1Ghz to a stock 12700k.

The E cores do get used in other games..................Civ VI......

I'm happy enough with my early findings - of course I'm always happy after a build when the PC goes through POST...................!

The Windows 11 install from my Z390 was used for the Z690 build, installing the chipset drivers just before the change. All seems well once reactivated.

uksoldierboy · 3 Dec 2021 at 09:16

JediFragger said:
I've got a 6900XT coming today m8 so should pair well with my clocked 12700k. If anything you need to know just ask

Also the Asus cashback ended on the 30th I got the Z690-A Strix Gaming D4 which means I got it for £235 w/cashback which isn't too bad for pretty much the best DDR4 board out there.

Ah nice one, what 6900xt did you go with Jedi? I've also been looking at the Strx D4 with either the 12600kf or the 12700kf, i'd defintely be interested in your thoughts bud that would be great.