Associate
Cool - I'm not sure, but I suspect OP may be more interested in 'scratching the upgrade itch' than any actual performance improvement; so a side grade with a +1 higher (and therefore better) number might be fine?
Component Advice please
- Thread starter Sabahl
- Start date
-
- Tags
- build advice
Soldato
I'd distinctly say that isn't future proofing though. Look at socket AM4, if you bought a top of the line 1800X in 2017 on an X370, you can drop in a 5950X or a 5800X3D now 5 years later. Having DDR5 although nice, isn't future proofing either as you are only going to see marginal gains since your board and IMC in your CPU has to support those faster speeds, and since there is PCI-E 5.0 on the DDR4 boards then that is also a moot point.
I get people asking for daft systems a lot, and you are correct in saying sometimes they just want a higher number, but they don't know why or what that will offer over what they have now. Some people also just like to say I spent £3,000 on a PC, for no other reason than they think more outlay = better, and that's also fine, but I'd say offering an opinion on why things could be done differently also is worthwhile.
Associate
I agree with everything you say here.
I'd only add that I believe happiness is more important than performance.
So - if DDR5 makes someone happy because it's 1 more than DDR4, and the proportion of happiness it buys them is value for money, then performance is somewhat of a secondary consideration.
This might be a bit philosophical for the Hardware section however. Maybe we should start a thread in GD
Maybe my definition of future proofing is different from yours. I meant that the system would be capable of doing what it's designed to do for many years into the future, much like my last system has been. Do not confuse this with upgradablity. Sure, being able to add swankier, speedier components would be effective but why bother if they add only iterative increases in performance. I would much rather build something using high grade components now and have the system usable for its intended purpose for years to come, even if it doesn't remain cutting edge.
My experience in doing this has taught me that going for the n-1 tier components (where 'n' is top tier) gives me the sweet spot between my own level of affordability and the performance I require (e.g. 2070 super, not a 2080. 4770K not 4790K etc). If a component's price means that I can go higher than that without bweaking the bank then great, but I am not that fussed unless there is a distinct possibility it will give benefits later down the line. So for instance, I wasn't sure between the I7-12700 or the I9-12900 but I can afford the latter so why the heck not. If I do change components I'm most likely to change GPUs, storage, and memory in the system to keep it current so DDR5 may only offer marginal benefits now but later down the line it's more likely to count for something.
That's my thinking anyway. Feel free to tell me why I am a complete idiot because of it but do give reasons, please.
My experience in doing this has taught me that going for the n-1 tier components (where 'n' is top tier) gives me the sweet spot between my own level of affordability and the performance I require (e.g. 2070 super, not a 2080. 4770K not 4790K etc). If a component's price means that I can go higher than that without bweaking the bank then great, but I am not that fussed unless there is a distinct possibility it will give benefits later down the line. So for instance, I wasn't sure between the I7-12700 or the I9-12900 but I can afford the latter so why the heck not. If I do change components I'm most likely to change GPUs, storage, and memory in the system to keep it current so DDR5 may only offer marginal benefits now but later down the line it's more likely to count for something.
That's my thinking anyway. Feel free to tell me why I am a complete idiot because of it but do give reasons, please.
Soldato
You can buy whatever you like, and no one has called you names for it, far from it in fact. You are comparing past experiences with future unknowns, how do you know that the 12900K or 12700K will last as long as you want it to? Hence the suggestion that buying something that offers nothing extra to you now, and spending the same total overall but in two stages makes way more sense.
As you say though its your money, you can do what you like with it and as said above if having a 5 in place of 4 at the end of the DDR makes you happy then go for it, same for having an OTT motherboard, if it makes you happy to buy something that will offer no extra performance but will make you feel good then go for it.
If you come on a forum asking for advice then you are going to get some of it you don't like or agree with, I mean I could ask why you'd buy an out dated Samsung 970 EVO Plus vs a quality PCI-E 4.0 offering that will offer much faster speeds and keep your system running better for longer, but why would I do that if you've already made your mind up about that component?
As you say though its your money, you can do what you like with it and as said above if having a 5 in place of 4 at the end of the DDR makes you happy then go for it, same for having an OTT motherboard, if it makes you happy to buy something that will offer no extra performance but will make you feel good then go for it.
If you come on a forum asking for advice then you are going to get some of it you don't like or agree with, I mean I could ask why you'd buy an out dated Samsung 970 EVO Plus vs a quality PCI-E 4.0 offering that will offer much faster speeds and keep your system running better for longer, but why would I do that if you've already made your mind up about that component?
Maybe my definition of future proofing is different from yours. I meant that the system would be capable of doing what it's designed to do for many years into the future, much like my last system has been. Do not confuse this with upgradablity. Sure, being able to add swankier, speedier components would be effective but why bother if they add only iterative increases in performance. I would much rather build something using high grade components now and have the system usable for its intended purpose for years to come, even if it doesn't remain cutting edge.
My experience in doing this has taught me that going for the n-1 tier components (where 'n' is top tier) gives me the sweet spot between my own level of affordability and the performance I require (e.g. 2070 super, not a 2080. 4770K not 4790K etc). If a component's price means that I can go higher than that without bweaking the bank then great, but I am not that fussed unless there is a distinct possibility it will give benefits later down the line. So for instance, I wasn't sure between the I7-12700 or the I9-12900 but I can afford the latter so why the heck not. If I do change components I'm most likely to change GPUs, storage, and memory in the system to keep it current so DDR5 may only offer marginal benefits now but later down the line it's more likely to count for something.
That's my thinking anyway. Feel free to tell me why I am a complete idiot because of it but do give reasons, please.
My comments would be:
- 12900 v 12700, you get 4 extra E (efficiency) cores. compared to the 12700 and unless you do production work, they're pointless. There's no performance benefit in games and the 8 P (performance) cores present in both CPUs will be enough for a very long time. I don't think those E cores will benefit gaming for the life of the system (say, 5 years) and you get 4 on the 12700 for e.g. offloading background tasks and that's plenty. In the long-term, I think you'll see the differences between the CPUs shrink even further, rather than widen. At the current rate of progress, you'll just want 8 significantly faster cores in a few years, not 4 extra crappy ones.
- DDR5, it won't give you better performance in the future, because it appears the increased latency of DDR5 is not sufficient to provide a performance benefit from the higher bandwidth and there's no guarantee current boards and CPUs will support significantly faster DDR5 speeds. Frankly, 12th gen memory controllers don't seem to be very good, though it is possible future stepping and BIOS updates will improve things. The only potential benefit I can see is if DDR5 availability increases and price drops substantially, to the point that it is a better buy than DDR4 and your future 128GB upgrade is now a bargain, but I don't think that will happen within the life of the system.
For your next upgrade DDR5 will undoubtedly make more sense. You could say that DDR5 is an investment and can be re-used in the next system, which is a possibility, but by that time DDR5 may be a lot faster and a lot cheaper, so paying double to get it now may still offer you no tangible benefit. For example: early adopters of DDR4 got speeds in the region of 2133, 2400 and 2666, which isn't really fast enough for e.g. modern Ryzen systems and you lose a fair chunk of performance even on Intel systems.
You last got a PC during the Intel stagnation era and as Journey has said already, things are moving VERY fast in CPUs right now, the competition is intense and they're getting a lot faster every generation and it just doesn't make sense to buy premium gear right now. When Intel were offering < 10% improvement each gen and no new cores, it was perhaps more worthwhile to spend a bit more. Sometimes buy cheap, buy twice holds true (as a warning), but I think you'll find you get a better PC at the end of it.
@Tetras Ahha ok this is info I was not aware of (fast changing hardware etc). And that does change my outlook somewhat. If it makes more sense right now to go for cheaper components that can be ditched faster, as you say, then I am not totally locked into the items I first listed. How much more %age improvements are we now seeing between CPU generations, and is it likely to last?
Maybe I was asking the wrong question originally, in that case. (Especialluy with me waffling on about GPU generations when you guys were talking about CPU)
If I wanted to spec out a system I could use and fully exploit my existing monitor and graphics card on, which would probably take up to series 40 Nvidia GPUs when they become available, and for which I had a budget of around £1250 (if I am not going full whack right now) what would you gents suggest?
Maybe I was asking the wrong question originally, in that case. (Especialluy with me waffling on about GPU generations when you guys were talking about CPU)
If I wanted to spec out a system I could use and fully exploit my existing monitor and graphics card on, which would probably take up to series 40 Nvidia GPUs when they become available, and for which I had a budget of around £1250 (if I am not going full whack right now) what would you gents suggest?
The best value right now is a 12400F and B660, something like the MSI B660M-A with 16GB of DDR4 (around 3200). That will be plenty for a 2070 Super and should be fine for the next upgrade (depending on what resolution and refresh you play at). In around 3 - 4 years I expect you'd want to ditch the system and go DDR5. Going for a 12700 and 32GB would be the hopeful option to get a few more years out of it.
Intel 12th gen is about 40% faster than 10th gen. As an example: the i3-12100 (4 cores, £115) performs similarly in games to the i5-10600 (6 cores, £200).
For AMD, have a watch of this, shows you how much faster Zen 3 is in games in just a few years (with a high-end graphics card: enormously): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTwnybMF8hs
About the future, we don't know, but I don't see any reason for it to slow down while the market is so competitive. Intel have plenty of room to improve on 12th gen and AMD aren't making any smaller claims for Zen 4 and Zen 5.
Associate
I think this is unlikely without a mobo upgrade; you'll be limited by the support for faster memory on the current platform.
Processor improvements are also running a lot faster than they have been for a while. A 2700k to a 7700k represents about half the performance improvement from an 1800x to a 5800X3D.
This then lends itself to the argument of shorter and cheaper upgrade cycles.
But it's your money. If you want to buy a much more expensive processor for minimal gains, which very likely will be overtaken by a new budget processor in 12-24 months rather than upgrading more often then that's your perogative.
Soldato
Excellent future proofing on the PSU, good SSD, case and cooler. Meaning swapping out the board/CPU and RAM is simple and you keep the rest of the high quality parts. It's also a really simple stealthy black aesthetic, so will look very nice when completed, whilst being almost silent in use.
CPU: Intel Core i7-12700K 3.6 GHz 12-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 360 56.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Motherboard: MSI PRO Z690-A DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard
Memory: Kingston FURY Renegade 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory
Storage: Crucial P5 Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
Case: NZXT H7 Flow ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair RMx (2021) 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
Total: ~£1105
Swap out the CPU to a 12400F/B660 motherboard, and it comes to ~£870.
CPU: Intel Core i7-12700K 3.6 GHz 12-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 360 56.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Motherboard: MSI PRO Z690-A DDR4 ATX LGA1700 Motherboard
Memory: Kingston FURY Renegade 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16 Memory
Storage: Crucial P5 Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
Case: NZXT H7 Flow ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair RMx (2021) 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
Total: ~£1105
Swap out the CPU to a 12400F/B660 motherboard, and it comes to ~£870.
Soldato
- Joined
- 6 Jan 2012
- Posts
- 5,504
Instant gaming performance uplift is your bottom option - sell 2070S - buy £530 3070. Noice.
Update : So after thinking through the advice on this board and doing some further research here's my final spec :
CPU : Intel i7-12700K
Mobo : MSI PRO Z690-A DDR5 WiFi
Cooler : ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 360 ARGB
Storage : Samsung 980 Pro 1Tb
Memory : Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000Mhz C36 1.35v
Case : NZXT H7 Flow, Black
PSU : Corsair RM850x 80 PLUS Gold
My reasoning for going DDR5 after all the talk is that it's pretty obvious DDR4 is being phased out (more and more of the DDR4 components I was looking up were being marked as End Of Life) so the question was what's the price differential. The MSI Pro Z690-A is available in multiple configurations but, surprisingly, there is nearly no cost difference between the DDR4 and DDR5 versions. So the question was what's the difference in price between the actual memory. It came in at £150 if I went for the a higher spec than I'd originally planned which, given the savings on the other components versus my original costings, was completely accceptable. The DDR5 6000Mhz will give significant performance improvements over everything DDR4 can throw at it, and will have far better resale valuee if I decide to go for even better performing memory down the road.
Once I had taken some prices for all the above and spreadsheeted them the sum came to £1,337. I'm not superstitious but that has to be a good sign, right?
CPU : Intel i7-12700K
Mobo : MSI PRO Z690-A DDR5 WiFi
Cooler : ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 360 ARGB
Storage : Samsung 980 Pro 1Tb
Memory : Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000Mhz C36 1.35v
Case : NZXT H7 Flow, Black
PSU : Corsair RM850x 80 PLUS Gold
My reasoning for going DDR5 after all the talk is that it's pretty obvious DDR4 is being phased out (more and more of the DDR4 components I was looking up were being marked as End Of Life) so the question was what's the price differential. The MSI Pro Z690-A is available in multiple configurations but, surprisingly, there is nearly no cost difference between the DDR4 and DDR5 versions. So the question was what's the difference in price between the actual memory. It came in at £150 if I went for the a higher spec than I'd originally planned which, given the savings on the other components versus my original costings, was completely accceptable. The DDR5 6000Mhz will give significant performance improvements over everything DDR4 can throw at it, and will have far better resale valuee if I decide to go for even better performing memory down the road.
Once I had taken some prices for all the above and spreadsheeted them the sum came to £1,337. I'm not superstitious but that has to be a good sign, right?
Soldato
Update : So after thinking through the advice on this board and doing some further research here's my final spec :
CPU : Intel i7-12700K
Mobo : MSI PRO Z690-A DDR5 WiFi
Cooler : ARCTIC Liquid Freezer II 360 ARGB
Storage : Samsung 980 Pro 1Tb
Memory : Corsair Vengeance DDR5 6000Mhz C36 1.35v
Case : NZXT H7 Flow, Black
PSU : Corsair RM850x 80 PLUS Gold
My reasoning for going DDR5 after all the talk is that it's pretty obvious DDR4 is being phased out (more and more of the DDR4 components I was looking up were being marked as End Of Life) so the question was what's the price differential. The MSI Pro Z690-A is available in multiple configurations but, surprisingly, there is nearly no cost difference between the DDR4 and DDR5 versions. So the question was what's the difference in price between the actual memory. It came in at £150 if I went for the a higher spec than I'd originally planned which, given the savings on the other components versus my original costings, was completely accceptable. The DDR5 6000Mhz will give significant performance improvements over everything DDR4 can throw at it, and will have far better resale valuee if I decide to go for even better performing memory down the road.
Once I had taken some prices for all the above and spreadsheeted them the sum came to £1,337. I'm not superstitious but that has to be a good sign, right?
That's a really performance orientated build and the RAM should last you a good few years. If you definitely want a computer now, I can't argue with going for it.
DDR4 isn't being phased out so much as there is less demand for it right now and prices are the lowest in ages. Companies are probably phasing out certain DDR4 RAM to focus on DDR5 which has higher margins.
Just know that DDR5 will drop in price in a couple years and there are new AMD and Intel products coming. If you can live with that, go for it!
There will always be a new product in the works and new tech coming out. Sometimes, you just gotta go for it.
Soldato
I'd hardly say years, its currently falling of a cliff face in pricing terms, you can pick up 16GB DDR5 6000 modules for a shade over £100 now, and entry level 4800 stuff is ~£75 per 16GB. I follow the RAM market quite closely and mentioned this is one of the Zen 4 threads a month or so ago, that DDR5 was due to drop significantly. August looks to be the real lul month going by current predictions, with the sales volume of PC's not recovering well through 2022, and inflation now having an effect the predictions for the last quarter of '22 are pretty dire, and we are talking OEM where all the volume is for DDR5 right now, e.g. laptops and such.
Once I had taken some prices for all the above and spreadsheeted them the sum came to £1,337. I'm not superstitious but that has to be a good sign, right?
If you are happy, then go for it.
Personally I'd go 12400/B660/DDR4 for £500 less, and sell on those bits in 18-24 months time, and use my £500 plus the money from the sold parts to go with a mature DDR5 platform and a much better system over all, with the same or less spent.
Soldato
Holy wow that’s a big drop in price!!I'd hardly say years, its currently falling of a cliff face in pricing terms, you can pick up 16GB DDR5 6000 modules for a shade over £100 now, and entry level 4800 stuff is ~£75 per 16GB. I follow the RAM market quite closely and mentioned this is one of the Zen 4 threads a month or so ago, that DDR5 was due to drop significantly. August looks to be the real lul month going by current predictions, with the sales volume of PC's not recovering well through 2022, and inflation now having an effect the predictions for the last quarter of '22 are pretty dire, and we are talking OEM where all the volume is for DDR5 right now, e.g. laptops and such.
If you are happy, then go for it.
Personally I'd go 12400/B660/DDR4 for £500 less, and sell on those bits in 18-24 months time, and use my £500 plus the money from the sold parts to go with a mature DDR5 platform and a much better system over all, with the same or less spent.
I haven’t looked recently as I just assumed that it was largely the same price.
That makes a DDR5 build far more viable.
Soldato
Yeah, the current strong $ has curtailed the drops a bit, but I follow $ pricing mostly as that is how RMA is bought and sold. For consumers then you obviously need to look in local currencies with taxes etc. but as I said the premium price is wearing off pretty fast, with prices dropping week-on-week with no slow down presently.
Soldato
I think the global slow down in the economy is also impacting demand.
WHo wants to build a high end rig when they might not have enough money for their heating?
Soldato
Crucial 16GB (2X8GB) DDR5 PC5-38400C40 4800MHZ Dual Channel Kit
Crucial 16GB (2X8GB) DDR5 PC5-38400C40 4800MHZ Dual Channel Kit
Order Crucial 16GB (2X8GB) DDR5 PC5-38400C40 4800MHZ Dual Channel Kit now online and benefit from fast delivery.
www.overclockers.co.uk
Last edited:
Soldato
Crucial 16GB (2X8GB) DDR5 PC5-38400C40 4800MHZ Dual Channel Kit
That's really not the best RAM in the world but at £85 odd, it doesn't need to be. It saves you having to buy another motherboard if you go DDR4 and you can always get faster RAM down the road.Crucial 16GB (2X8GB) DDR5 PC5-38400C40 4800MHZ Dual Channel Kit
Order Crucial 16GB (2X8GB) DDR5 PC5-38400C40 4800MHZ Dual Channel Kit now online and benefit from fast delivery.
Yeah it's a pretty good argument now, we are approaching tipping point with DDR4/DDR5 if looking at a long term build and never really wanting to faff with anything major.
If you look at the benchmarks, that's just not the case, the higher number sounds great, but it means relatively little for gaming. Since the price of DDR5 is dropping pretty fast, I wouldn't want to guarantee the re-sale value will be much better either, if it reaches parity with DDR4 then you'll have still lost more than if you got DDR4 and sold it at half the used price. You'll almost always get more performance dumping the extra dosh into e.g. the CPU or GPU than the memory. Still, it is a relatively small cost relative to the whole system, so you do you