£350 budget - i5 12400f or Ryzen?

Cookeh

Cookeh

Cookeh

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Hi guys,

Researching a long overdue upgrade for my current PC, which is used almost exclusively for gaming at 1080p. I was wondering if, for a budget of £350, I was better off with the i5 12400f + B660 + 3600MHz DDR4, or if there was a better choice from AMD (Ryzen 7 5700?)? As I understand it the new 13th gen i5s are the same 1700 socket as 12th gen, and are compatible with current chipsets - so would this translate to better upgrade routes than AM4 (which cannot be interchanged for AM5?). Most reviews I've also seen put the i5 on top for this budget, is that anecdotal or generally the case?

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £360.47 (includes delivery: £10.50)​


Furthermore, is there any advantage to B660 over H610? I have no real desire to overclock at this stage, and whether or not it is advantageous for this chip when gaming seems to be a bit of a moot point in reviews to boot.

For wider context, I have a total budget of £650-750, and have earmarked £300-350 of this for a graphics card. I may also require a new PSU as my current one is only 530W and of quite a vintage. Very little of my current rig is salvageable, its an i5 3570 (@4.4GHz), 16GB DDR3 ram, and a ASRock Z77 Pro, paired with a GTX1060 3GB.

Thanks very much,
Cookeh
 
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Looking up techpowerups review the 5600x is a better chip at 1080p but only by about 1.4%

www.techpowerup.com

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 www.techpowerup.com

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £369.91 (includes delivery: £0.00)​



​

For the same money you can include a better cooler. If you go the the Gigabyte B550m DS3H (the amd version of the one you picked above)
www.gigabyte.com

B550M DS3H (rev. 1.0/1.1/1.2/1.3) Key Features | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global

Lasting Quality from GIGABYTE.GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ motherboards bring together a unique blend of features and technologies that offer users the absolute ultimate platform fo...
www.gigabyte.com www.gigabyte.com

It can be picked up for £88 saving another £40 on the price. The 5600x is only 200mhz faster than the 5600 non-x and im sure PBO auto-overclocking can make that deffecit up easily.

It looks like the B660 chipset has pcie 4 where the h610 doesnt is the main difference. (scroll down the review for a table of differences)

Intel H670, B660 and H610 Chipset Analysis and Motherboard Roundup

Budget motherboards for Alder Lake
www.tomshardware.com www.tomshardware.com
Something like this for the rest of the upgrade

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £426.94 (includes delivery: £0.00)​



​
 
dfour said:
It looks like the B660 chipset has pcie 4 where the h610 doesnt is the main difference. (scroll down the review for a table of differences)

Intel H670, B660 and H610 Chipset Analysis and Motherboard Roundup

Budget motherboards for Alder Lake
www.tomshardware.com www.tomshardware.com
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Just to elaborate on this a bit more, you still get PCI-E 4.0 for the graphics card (since it comes from the CPU), but there's limited lanes available (and zero PCI-E 4.0 from the H610 chipset), so usually H610 boards only have one PCI-E 3.0 M.2 slot (or a second at half speed).

They also don't support overclocking the memory, but since 12th gen supports 3200 it doesn't matter like it used to. The main reason I'd be careful buying one isn't actually the limitations of the chipset (though lack of M.2 is a big neg in my view), but that their VRMs are usually crap (at least, in comparison to the better B660 / Z690 boards). I think Buildzoid said in a roundup that it's best to stick with i3s or non-K 6-core CPUs for these kind of boards. I'd have no concern pairing e.g. Asus H610M-A with a 12400, but not too keen on going much further. THG has a review of this board:

"Performance across these three boards using a flagship-class processor was all over the place, depending on the test. For the most part, any long-running, heavily multi-threaded tests were generally slower than B660 and Z690, due to the memory configuration and BIOS limits (MSI limits power draw to 110W, for example) or the VRMs overheating during stress testing. Performance in our game testing was good, but the MSI board was a bit slower than the rest. The short of it is this: If you want 100% from your H610 system all the time, it’s best to use a CPU such as an i5-12600, which runs at a 65W base with 117W turbo (versus our chip that runs 125W/241W and throttles for various reasons), otherwise, in some capacity, these boards prevent full performance in certain situations."
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Cookeh said:
As I understand it the new 13th gen i5s are the same 1700 socket as 12th gen, and are compatible with current chipsets - so would this translate to better upgrade routes than AM4 (which cannot be interchanged for AM5?). Most reviews I've also seen put the i5 on top for this budget, is that anecdotal or generally the case?
Click to expand...

They're compatible if you have an updated BIOS, yes. I personally wouldn't consider 1700 having 13th gen (and possibly 13th gen refresh later this year) as a huge advantage to AM4, because the 5800X3D is pretty competitive with everything right now, so being able to get a 13700K, for example, wouldn't sway my decision for gaming. That said, if you're not in a hurry, then I'd wait for the lower-end AM5 and 13th gen CPUs to launch (it is supposed to be soon, in January) since CPUs like the 7600 non-X and 13400 (I believe it will perform very similar to a 12600K) are looking like they could be good options for midrange builds.
 
yeah I wouldn't run a 12400 on a h610 board...12100 yes, 12400 no
the idea is that you have VRMs that can support a continuous PL2 on boost so you don't loose performance...I don't think that the VRMs on any h610 board will handle 120w continuous
 
Excellent advice his, and thanks for the links. Much appreciated.

Slightly off topic from the that title, but where does one draw the line for 1080p gaming? With RX6600XTs available for around £260 would the 6700 offer significant enough improvements in fos to be more beneficial than say upgrading to an M2 NVMe from my current SATA SSD?
 
Cookeh said:
Researching a long overdue upgrade for my current PC, which is used almost exclusively for gaming at 1080p. I was wondering if, for a budget of £350, I was better off with the i5 12400f + B660 + 3600MHz DDR4, or if there was a better choice from AMD (Ryzen 7 5700?)?
Click to expand...

Allegedly the 13400 is imminent - next week - so you might want to wait a little longer.
 
Cookeh said:
Slightly off topic from the that title, but where does one draw the line for 1080p gaming? With RX6600XTs available for around £260 would the 6700 offer significant enough improvements in fos to be more beneficial than say upgrading to an M2 NVMe from my current SATA SSD?
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At 1080p I don't think there's much difference right now between the 6600 XT and the 6700 non-XT, but at 1440p it starts to pull ahead (and sometimes by quite a bit). I suspect it will age better too, because it has a bigger bus, more VRAM and more than double the infinity cache (80MB vs 32MB). If you're going to keep the 6600 XT for a few years and then dump it, then I'd say £260 is decent value for a strong 1080p card and the £70 or so isn't worth it, but if you want to keep it as long as your 1060 (e.g. 5 odd years), then I'd get the 6700 non-XT.
 
Tetras said:
At 1080p I don't think there's much difference right now between the 6600 XT and the 6700 non-XT, but at 1440p it starts to pull ahead (and sometimes by quite a bit). I suspect it will age better too, because it has a bigger bus, more VRAM and more than double the infinity cache (80MB vs 32MB). If you're going to keep the 6600 XT for a few years and then dump it, then I'd say £260 is decent value for a strong 1080p card and the £70 or so isn't worth it, but if you want to keep it as long as your 1060 (e.g. 5 odd years), then I'd get the 6700 non-XT.
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I do apologise, I was mistaken. Its a RX6600 non-XT for £260. 6700 for £330 as you linked, then there's a 6700XT for £360. If I'm stepping up to a 6700 level card the 6700XT seems better value, being 20% faster for 10% more money, but its just a question as to whether or not there's something bigger or beter coming around in 2-3 years that's worth investing in. I never intended to keep the 1060 as long as I have (let alone the i5 3570!!), but certainly 2-3 years would be good.
 
Cookeh said:
its just a question as to whether or not there's something bigger or beter coming around in 2-3 years that's worth investing in. I never intended to keep the 1060 as long as I have (let alone the i5 3570!!), but certainly 2-3 years would be good.
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It's hard to say because right now they're just putting the newer, faster cards in at a higher price point, so I wouldn't bet on a great value midrange card (e.g. RTX 4050, RX 7600) any time soon. If you pick up a RX 6600, it's good for now (you can pre-order one for £220 from OCUK) and should comfortably last you a few years at 1080p. The 6700 XT @ £360 sounds well-priced and I do believe it will be viable for a fair bit longer than a 6600 non-XT (for the same reasons as the 6700 non-XT, bus, VRAM and cache.
 
The problem is you can wait for years for that one item to come around giving you all that you want at a price that suits.

The 6700xt is probably the best bet for the extra things it brings to the table and its extra gpu power will allow it to be a better option for longer as game engines and techniques improve and get more demanding. Also a potential better resale value when you upgrade (but then thats all relative) :)
 
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Just to update this, I had a look at reviews and fos comparisons between the 5600s and the new Ryzen 7s and i5 13600 and decided to go for the 5600. There is certainly performance gains to be had with the new ones, but price/performance still suited the 5600 best.

In the end, thanks to some sales, I managed to get a Ryzen 5 5600, B550 DS3H, 16GB 3600MHz CL17 ram, and a 500GB Sabrent NVMe for £299. Now kust need to sort cooler, gfx, and PSU!

Thanks again for all advice so far.
 
Yep, couldn't squeeze 13th gen Intel into budget. I also decided the cost/performance isn't there over the Ryzen 5, and managed to avoid the dreaded budget creep as a result! :D

Laat question, 80+ Gold 550W PSU - plenty for a 6650XT plus the Ryzen 5? Quick calculations seem to suggest that 550W would be around 70-75% load with such components so should be ok?
 
Cookeh said:
Laat question, 80+ Gold 550W PSU - plenty for a 6650XT plus the Ryzen 5? Quick calculations seem to suggest that 550W would be around 70-75% load with such components so should be ok?
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In gaming, 6650 XT is sub-200 (excluding spikes), 5600 is sub-100, so in theory a decent 550 Watt PSU is fine. Personally, I would buy at least 650, preferably 750, because the saving is relatively modest for a higher-tier PSU (often only £20 or so), which doesn't seem worth the sacrifice in usability/future utility and running it hotter/nosier than it needs to be.
 
I was looking at a Corsair TX550, prices seem to almost double when going to 650+, but I suppose you are right in that PSUs can typically happily last through 2-3 system upgrades with sufficient headroom and quality!
 
Cookeh said:
I was looking at a Corsair TX550, prices seem to almost double when going to 650+
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Ahh, yeah, they seem to be offering a meaningful discount on that model for some reason. I'd argue it's in a similar tier class to the Core GC-500/GC-650 (or Core GM, which is modular) which are generally a bit cheaper than models with higher build quality and longer warranty (like EVGA G6 & Toughpower GF1).
 
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