Need help on CPU

monke · 25 Jul 2023 at 20:43

Hi all,
I have been playing on an old PC handed down to me which has:
CPU - Intel i5-3570k
GPU - GTX 1070
RAM - 16GB DDR3
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H
Power Supply - Unsure which one but outputs either 650 or 750 watts (will check if necessary in future)

I wanted to get a better CPU but I am conscious that I may need to buy new other parts (e.g. powers supply, ram or motherboard)
I also heard that my CPU is a good one to overclock and was wondering if it was a better idea or to get a new one as well as some other parts instead. (and if to overclock, how to do it.)
Thanks

Tetras · 25 Jul 2023 at 21:10

What kind of games are you playing and which ones are running too slow for you?

What resolution do you play at?

Do you have a budget for the upgrade?

monke · 25 Jul 2023 at 21:30

Tetras said:
What kind of games are you playing and which ones are running too slow for you?

What resolution do you play at?

Do you have a budget for the upgrade?

I mainly play Valorant which happens to be CPU heavy which costs me some decent frames. I also play some minecraft which is also quite CPU heavy.
I play at 1920 x 1080 180hz
My budget is somewhere between £200-£250 and i can go a bit above or below.

Tetras · 25 Jul 2023 at 21:53

Can't Valorant run on a potato?

There's a video here:

Intel Core i3 10100 vs i5 3570 | 10th gen i3 vs 3rd gen i5

Intel Core i3 10100 vs i5 3570 | 10th gen i3 vs 3rd gen i5______/More Comparison Videos\________ I3 2120 vs I5 2400 ► https://youtu.be/QChrYuKZmDki5 3470 vs ...

www.youtube.com

It seems to gain lots of fps between a i5-3570 and i3-10100 (on low settings), which suggests it is single-thread oriented and doesn't care that much about the GPU (since they're using a 1650 which is slower than your card)?

In a high-fps game like Siege, the 12100 is faster still (than the 10100), so my guess is that this would be an even bigger increase, though higher than your budget:

Intel I3 12100 with Laminar RM1 12100 vs 10100 vs 10400 vs 11400 with DDR4 3600 and 3060 Ti

Left --- I3 10100Middle Left --- I5 10400Middle Right --- I3 12100Right --- I5 11400---------12100 is cpu similar to 10400. Similar multicore a...

www.youtube.com

My basket at OcUK:

1 x Intel Core i3-12100 3.30GHz (Alder Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-6AK-IN) = £119.99
1 x Gigabyte B660 DS3H AX - Intel B660 DDR4 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-5AN-GI) = £124.99
1 x Lexar Hades 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C18 3600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (SKU: MY-019-LE) = £37.99

Total: £290.96 (includes delivery: £7.99)

The 12100F is cheaper, but has no integrated graphics.

monke · 26 Jul 2023 at 00:06

Tetras said:
Can't Valorant run on a potato?

There's a video here:

Intel Core i3 10100 vs i5 3570 | 10th gen i3 vs 3rd gen i5

Intel Core i3 10100 vs i5 3570 | 10th gen i3 vs 3rd gen i5______/More Comparison Videos\________ I3 2120 vs I5 2400 ► https://youtu.be/QChrYuKZmDki5 3470 vs ...

www.youtube.com

It seems to gain lots of fps between a i5-3570 and i3-10100 (on low settings), which suggests it is single-thread oriented and doesn't care that much about the GPU (since they're using a 1650 which is slower than your card)?

In a high-fps game like Siege, the 12100 is faster still (than the 10100), so my guess is that this would be an even bigger increase, though higher than your budget:

Intel I3 12100 with Laminar RM1 12100 vs 10100 vs 10400 vs 11400 with DDR4 3600 and 3060 Ti

Left --- I3 10100Middle Left --- I5 10400Middle Right --- I3 12100Right --- I5 11400---------12100 is cpu similar to 10400. Similar multicore a...

www.youtube.com

My basket at OcUK:

1 x Intel Core i3-12100 3.30GHz (Alder Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-6AK-IN) = £119.99

1 x Gigabyte B660 DS3H AX - Intel B660 DDR4 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-5AN-GI) = £124.99

1 x Lexar Hades 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C18 3600MHz Dual/Quad Channel Kit (SKU: MY-019-LE) = £37.99

Total: £290.96 (includes delivery: £7.99)

The 12100F is cheaper, but has no integrated graphics.

Thanks for the help, I will most likely buy these then. If my power supply is 650 watts will it still be able to support this?
And also what is the difference between my 16gb DDR3 and the new 16GB DDR4?
Will getting the i3-12100F affect my performance since I already have a graphics card?

Tetras · 26 Jul 2023 at 00:25

monke said:
If my power supply is 650 watts will it still be able to support this?

Shouldn't be any meaningful difference to your power supply from any of those options. You will likely need an 8 pin EPS12v cable, but I assume your PSU has one of those.

monke said:
And also what is the difference between my 16gb DDR3 and the new 16GB DDR4?

I'm afraid there's no benefit to buying 16GB when you already have 16GB, aside from it being faster. I was already over budget, so 32GB wasn't possible. You could buy a H610 board, then buy 32GB with the £30-£40 saved. You might lose an M.2 slot, 2 RAM slots and WIFI.

monke said:
Will getting the i3-12100F affect my performance since I already have a graphics card?

Relative to the 12100? No, they're otherwise identical.

monke · 26 Jul 2023 at 00:51

Tetras said:
You

Tetras said:
Shouldn't be any meaningful difference to your power supply from any of those options. You will likely need an 8 pin EPS12v cable, but I assume your PSU has one of those.

I'm afraid there's no benefit to buying 16GB when you already have 16GB, aside from it being faster. I was already over budget, so 32GB wasn't possible. You could buy a H610 board, then buy 32GB with the £30-£40 saved. You might lose an M.2 slot, 2 RAM slots and WIFI.

Relative to the 12100? No, they're otherwise identical.

What do you think I should do,
I would like whatever setup provides the best performance.

Tetras · 26 Jul 2023 at 01:10

monke said:
What do you think I should do,
I would like whatever setup provides the best performance.

It is hard for me to answer confidently, because of two reasons:
1. Your requirements are based on one game (well, two, if I include Minecraft), which I only have a few YouTube videos to judge the potential improvements from.
2. My assumption is that you're looking for maximum-fps (since you have a 1080p, high refresh monitor and these games should already run on your PC), which is not my forte.

So, from the videos, my best guess is that you are more CPU-bottlenecked than GPU-bottlenecked and that those games need single-thread performance more than multi-thread performance.

An i3-12100 / 12100F with 3200 (or higher) memory is a big upgrade in single-thread performance (see here) and should give you a decent boost, whenever you're CPU bottlenecked.

Worst case, if I'm wrong: you don't notice any benefit in your current games, but you have a CPU that can handle any new game and a GPU upgrade.
Best case, if I'm right: you have mega top-end FPS and frag everybody aided by your 500 FPS.

in regards to: H610 or B660 and 16GB v 32GB.

The memory first: I would not buy 16GB from 16GB, for two reasons: 1. games are starting to use more than 16GB and 2. 8GB sticks of DDR4 are liable to be high density (16Gbit) and you suffer a performance penalty for this.
The board: I would buy the B660 board, because you get 4 ram slots, 2 m.2 slots and wifi. H610 is a big compromise and for the small saving, I don't think it is worth it. That said, would I choose 16GB and B660 over 32GB and H610? No. I would not, I'd get the 32GB.

monke · 26 Jul 2023 at 08:39

Tetras said:
It is hard for me to answer confidently, because of two reasons:
1. Your requirements are based on one game (well, two, if I include Minecraft), which I only have a few YouTube videos to judge the potential improvements from.
2. My assumption is that you're looking for maximum-fps (since you have a 1080p, high refresh monitor and these games should already run on your PC), which is not my forte.

So, from the videos, my best guess is that you are more CPU-bottlenecked than GPU-bottlenecked and that those games need single-thread performance more than multi-thread performance.

An i3-12100 / 12100F with 3200 (or higher) memory is a big upgrade in single-thread performance (see here) and should give you a decent boost, whenever you're CPU bottlenecked.

Worst case, if I'm wrong: you don't notice any benefit in your current games, but you have a CPU that can handle any new game and a GPU upgrade.
Best case, if I'm right: you have mega top-end FPS and frag everybody aided by your 500 FPS.

in regards to: H610 or B660 and 16GB v 32GB.

The memory first: I would not buy 16GB from 16GB, for two reasons: 1. games are starting to use more than 16GB and 2. 8GB sticks of DDR4 are liable to be high density (16Gbit) and you suffer a performance penalty for this.
The board: I would buy the B660 board, because you get 4 ram slots, 2 m.2 slots and wifi. H610 is a big compromise and for the small saving, I don't think it is worth it. That said, would I choose 16GB and B660 over 32GB and H610? No. I would not, I'd get the 32GB.

Just to confirm,
I’m buying the:
i3-12100F
B660 board
32GB ram
But on the link to the ram you sent me previously it says 2 sticks of 8GB - total of 16GB, is this an error or am I reading something wrong.

mickyflinn · 26 Jul 2023 at 09:38

monke said:
Just to confirm,
I’m buying the:
i3-12100F
B660 board
32GB ram
But on the link to the ram you sent me previously it says 2 sticks of 8GB - total of 16GB, is this an error or am I reading something wrong.

That's 16gb of ram above not 32gb but you can always add another 16gb later unless you want 32gb .

monke · 26 Jul 2023 at 10:38

I can up my budget a bit more actually.
Would it be possible to get a better CPU?
For example I heard that Ryzen CPU’s are generally better for gaming than Intel. Would there be a better, slightly more expensive package (motherboard and cpu) that would be better?
My friend suggested a Ryzen 5….?

mickyflinn · 26 Jul 2023 at 11:02

monke said:
I can up my budget a bit more actually.
Would it be possible to get a better CPU?
For example I heard that Ryzen CPU’s are generally better for gaming than Intel. Would there be a better, slightly more expensive package (motherboard and cpu) that would be better?
My friend suggested a Ryzen 5….?

It about getting the best for your budget wether that be intel or AMD so what's your budget ?

You should also consider getting a m2 drive to take advantage of the latest tech, do you have an SSD?

monke · 26 Jul 2023 at 12:38

mickyflinn said:
It about getting the best for your budget wether that be intel or AMD so what's your budget ?

You should also consider getting a m2 drive to take advantage of the latest tech, do you have an SSD?

I can go around £300 now and can get better tech second hand with still decent quality from other websites. I have an SSD

mickyflinn · 26 Jul 2023 at 12:51

monke said:
I can go around £300 now and can get better tech second hand with still decent quality from other websites. I have an SSD

I would up the CPU from brother @Tetras build to a 12400f which is a 6 core CPU that will last longer or you could go AMD .

AMD build this would be my choice which should be just under £300

CPU Ryzen 5600
Motherboard MSI B550M PRO-VDH WIFI
Memory Corsair VENGEANCE LPX DDR4 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) 3200MHz

Tetras · 26 Jul 2023 at 14:03

monke said:
I can up my budget a bit more actually.
Would it be possible to get a better CPU?
For example I heard that Ryzen CPU’s are generally better for gaming than Intel. Would there be a better, slightly more expensive package (motherboard and cpu) that would be better?
My friend suggested a Ryzen 5….?

As mickyflinn said, it really depends on your budget. AMD do have the best gaming CPU (7800X3D), but at the lower-end, the 12100F is superior to AMD's options (though they are better for productivity), This has been fairly extensively tested, e.g. see here:

AMD's Greed: R5 5500 CPU vs. Intel i3-12100F | CPU Review & Benchmarks

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 CPU is too little, too late, launching about a year after when it should have. The R5 5500 can't compete with Intel's much cheaper i3-12...

www.youtube.com

With the Ryzen 5 5600 and Core i5-12400F, they perform very similar, I doubt you'd notice any difference. TPU had them within 1% at 1080p here.

I'd definitely recommend getting one of those CPUs instead, if you can afford it, since I think a 6 core CPU is going to last you longer.

Noughtboy · 26 Jul 2023 at 14:13

You colud probably even get the Ryzen 5500 for £99 saving £50. BNIB from OCUK with a Gigabyte B550 DS3H and the RAM would run you to £240. I would personally get the MSI board which takes it £270

mickyflinn · 26 Jul 2023 at 14:21

Noughtboy said:
You colud probably even get the Ryzen 5500 for £99 saving £50. BNIB from OCUK with a Gigabyte B550 DS3H and the RAM would run you to £240. I would personally get the MSI board which takes it £270

The 5500 while good value is a weaker CPU, it has less L3 cache which helps in gaming and is only pcie 3 compared to the 5600 .

BUDFORCE · 26 Jul 2023 at 14:28

Good, no Asus hardware being recommended. Standing down.

NoobCannon · 26 Jul 2023 at 14:51

Best and easiest/ cheapest option is to buy a 3770k, drop it straight into your board. I did the sane thing with the exact same board when k went to dual GPUS as the hyperthreading was a massive performance boost.

Gray2233 · 26 Jul 2023 at 16:02

NoobCannon said:
Best and easiest/ cheapest option is to buy a 3770k, drop it straight into your board. I did the sane thing with the exact same board when k went to dual GPUS as the hyperthreading was a massive performance boost.

Completely pointless in an instance where the games he's playing are heavily single threaded.