Which Alderlake CPU for new build?

[_Jimlad_]

Hey chaps,

i only buy and build a new pc every 4 years now, and that time has come, i am think the i7 is my best bet, somewhere in the middle ?

gamer and use for pc for work, so nothing to hardcore

 

[Minstadave]

12700K seems the best pick. The extra cores would be worth it for longevity.

 

[JediFragger]

12700k or the 12600k if the budget doesn't allow, both will serve you well over 4-5 years imo.

Went 12700k myself.

 

[_Jimlad_]

Cheers guys

 

[jigger]

Maybe hold off until Zen 3D. Literally weeks away from launch.

 

[g67575]

The i7 12700 (8 P-cores) will be out soon. On stock settings, this will have perform nearly as well as the 12700K and 12900K, but cost a lot less. So in my view it will be the sweet spot.

The i7 12700K might perform 5% better, if overclocked to 5Ghz on all cores, but can reach 90 degrees under these conditions (you could use a beefy cooler though to reduce the load temps). The overclocked 12700K was just 1% faster in games than the 12700K at stock settings, according to this review:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i7-12700k-alder-lake-12th-gen/23.html

You can see that at 4K resolution in games, the performance difference was negligible.

I wouldn't advise buying the i9 12900K, since it can hit 90 degrees on stock settings, or higher if overclocked.

If you wanna go balls to the wall, I'd expect the i9 12900 to perform well, due to having the same L3 cache as the 12900K, but with limited clocks.

The main thing to know about the Alder Lake series, is that the 'E-cores' don't appear to make much difference in most real world applications or games. I think the designers hit a limit on the number of higher power (performance) cores (apparently just 8), so they opted to add 4-8 lower power cores instead.

Another possible explanation for the 'E-cores' is that Intel wanted to win multithreaded benchmarks on desktop and laptop CPUs... They are also more scalable in terms of power, which is useful for mobile CPUs.

 

[_Jimlad_]

The i7 12700 (8 P-cores) will be out soon. On stock settings, this will have perform nearly as well as the 12700K and 12900K, but cost a lot less. So in my view it will be the sweet spot.

The i7 12700K might perform 5% better, if overclocked to 5Ghz on all cores, but can reach 90 degrees under these conditions (you could use a beefy cooler though to reduce the load temps). The overclocked 12700K was just 1% faster in games than the 12700K at stock settings, according to this review:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i7-12700k-alder-lake-12th-gen/23.html

You can see that at 4K resolution in games, the performance difference was negligible.

I wouldn't advise buying the i9 12900K, since it can hit 90 degrees on stock settings, or higher if overclocked.

If you wanna go balls to the wall, I'd expect the i9 12900 to perform well, due to having the same L3 cache as the 12900K, but with limited clocks.

The main thing to know about the Alder Lake series, is that the 'E-cores' don't appear to make much difference in most real world applications or games. I think the designers hit a limit on the number of higher power (performance) cores (apparently just 8), so they opted to add 4-8 lower power cores instead.

Another possible explanation for the 'E-cores' is that Intel wanted to win multithreaded benchmarks on desktop and laptop CPUs... They are also more scalable in terms of power, which is useful for mobile CPUs.

Thanks for taking the time to write that up, some information I did not know. I will have a look at those links, but yes I do not want to be stressing about temps