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Help with choosing a CPU (12700 vs 12700K)

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8 May 2022
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I'm looking to upgrade my PC so that it can handle 4k@60Hz video playback, video editing, internet browsing, MS365 applications and enable an upgrade to Windows 11. (I don't do any gaming at all).

I'm going with the ASUS PRIME Z690M-PLUS D4 LGA1700 Micro-ATX Motherboard but can't decide which Intel CPU to go for. I've ruled out the i9 range as it's probably overkill for my needs, so am looking at the i7 range.

Is it worth paying the extra for the 12700K over the 12700, or not if I don't intend to do any gaming or overclocking? I've found lots of benchmarking sites but as a layman, the numbers on those sites don't really make much sense to me!

I currently have an i7 4790S CPU, so will whichever one I go for be a noticeable improvement on what I have now? Video editing in particular is challenging with my current build.

I need a low profile cooler to fit in the case, so am going with the Noctua NH-L9i-17xx Intel LGA1700 Low Profile Quiet CPU Cooler which is the LGA1700 equivalent of what I currently have. I've read that the cooler can impact the performance of the CPU and therefore does choosing this particular cooler make one of these i7 CPUs a better option than the other?

Any thoughts and suggestions would be welcomed.

Thanks
 
If you want a low profile cooler there is no point getting the K sku of the cpu.

But you are getting a Z series motherboard, so might as well pay the extra and not overclock it until you wish to start gaming or so on
 
It is certainly not sensible to get a K SKU chip with that cooler. I would not recommend a 12700 at all with that cooler tbh and you should rethink your plan. Alderlake cpus use sensible amounts of power when gaming but as soon as you try to video edit on it then it will try to use a lot of power and you will massively thermally throttle.

I would suggest you think about AMD 5600 if you really want to use a low profile cooler and small case and still be able to video edit
 
Is it worth paying the extra for the 12700K over the 12700, or not if I don't intend to do any gaming or overclocking? I've found lots of benchmarking sites but as a layman, the numbers on those sites don't really make much sense to me!

I haven't seen any reviews for the 12700, but techpowerup reviewed the 12600 non-k and the 10700 non-k, so I suspect the conclusions will be similar. To summarise: if you unlock the power limits on the motherboard, then I'd expect it to perform practically the same as the K, but in some scenarios it will lead to a big increase in power consumption and temperatures, which particularly for long-term tasks will make it more difficult to keep cool. This behaviour is dependent on the motherboard and how it is set up (they can be quite different, out of the box).

An AMD 5900X may be a better choice for your use case (though you'd lose quicksync, if you use that and have to buy a GPU), but I'd check some benchmarks for the programs you use for your editing.
 
As above, for a low profile build AMD would be better temp wise. 5900X especially undervolted will work very well and it's a similar price, and video editing loves the extra threads.

But a good shout from @Tetras though, if it's a build that relies on the IGP then maybe settle for the lower 12600K, it still gives reasonable video editing performance and temps are more sensible with multi-threaded workloads.
 
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