Core I5 12700K (125W) vs Core i7 12700 (65W)

[Burgerman]

You might beat my 16900 single thread performance. I am still figuring that out. I think I can get a little more. Theres a lot of possible single core tuning possible in this ASUS bios.

[steves1977uk]

That's why I like ASUS boards BM, lots of configuration options!

Steve

[Burgerman]

Benchmarking all 32 threads (245 watts) and running furmark to stress the GPU (almost 400 watts) simultaniously makes the fans spin and the rear of the PC feel like a hairdyer.

Its dumping 645 watts of heat plus pump, motherboard, fans, lights etc so around 750 watts? Thats mental.

[steves1977uk]

Wait for the 4090 from NVidia, it's gonna need a beefy PSU since it will pull up to 900w alone. That's insane! Imagine the heat it'll produce.

Steve

[snaker]

The cold war was over, we do not need another arm race

[Burgerman]

One of the reasons I went with the AMD 5950X is that its a 105 watt part.Its only competion is the new intel 12900KS. And the dynamic overclock switching capability on the asus dark hero board along with the normally turned off auto overclock means that it can beat the latest intel competion. While drawing less power/heat.

Its only competion is the new intel 12900KS. It still uses a thicker 10nm die compared to the AMD 7nm process. Intel therefore still takes more power and produces more heat. So the only way they can compete on paper was to have some weaker cores, that do not allow hyperthreading. So only 8 of its 16 cores are fully capable. This is the only way they could compete against the AMD 16 core 32 thread 5950X.

And because as stock the INTEL has its overclocking already turned ON by default, and so sucks 250 watts because of it instead of 105. So it looks like the better performer in becnhmarks on the face of it. Because every youtube influencer and website wants affiliate sales, so they never mention this. Once you turn on the AMDs auto overclock, (performance boost overdrive) and on the asus dark hero the dynamic, overclock switching capability, which is OFF by default and set the base frequency to 4.75 instead of 3.4ghz the AMD cpu wins on multithreaded capability by a large margin. And almost matches on single core only benchmarks. Which in reality never happens as theres always 2 or more in use. It wins on 2, 3 and up threads. Getting better as thread count increases.

It does this on lower watts.

So if all you ever do is game and only on low resolution at or below 1080 at super high refresh rates, get the intel 12900KS. You will get better frame rates by 3 to 5%.
And for HD gaming, 4K gaming and general heavy use on a workstation or server get the AMD 5950X. As it will be limited only by the graphics card capability. And performs better in every task.

These are the two top performing chips. VERY closely matched. Except that the intel one eats much more power. And cant realistically be overclocked as it already is. And keeping temps low even with custom water loops is impossible. At best you get a 5% overclocking boost and a room heater.

I looked at all this very closely when that new CPU turned up before buying the AMD 5950X instead. 32K plus in R23? Without the heat problem of clocking the intel chip to almost match it. That CPU takes 380 watts and still fails as it throttles regardless of cooling.

[Burgerman]

Yes snaker no coldwar, this is semantics. Arms races are good. It means more competition. Both these top CPUs are really good. Inc the 12700 too. I was just interested in the details because it was my ££££. And I was studying the best performance per dollar as ell as wasted power and heat. And both of these far, far outperform my requirements (other than my 4k flight sim need). And the silly high power watts is not a problem in reality as these CPUs spend much of their time idle. So that means around 5 watts. The high watts figures are just when heavily loaded/all cores.

The 16 core 32 thread AMD has dropped in price. To the point where it, and its cheaper boards and memory due to many suitable budget boards already available can be a competitor to your lower end 12600 or 12700 CPUs on cost, with much superior multithread capability that you wanted.

So if I were spending YOUR cash I would definitely price up the AMD chip and 3200/3600 memory instead (or at least as well). It will out perform intel multi-threaded use by a large margin and less power at the same total $$££ cost in multithread application I think. At least here at uk pricing.

And it can use 10 ltsc too...

[snaker]

If you were in VN, you had to pay more for a AMD PC than Intel (for the same number of cores/threads). Not yet, even if you have a huge budget and want to build an AMD monster, you cannot do it here. As a reference, the most 'luxury' instock AMD mainboard is Asus x570 tuf wifi. We must be realistic and choose the best available, not the best unavailable.

[Burgerman]

That sounds very odd. But fair enough. Why is that?

[snaker]

Maybe that's because AMD does not care about VN market. Even if they care and want to jump in, they would have to work hard to make (old) people here forget terrible experience of their chips in the past. In laptop, I starts seeing more AMD laptops. But in desktop, especially in server, AMD chips are still unpopular.

[Burgerman]

In a free market all products are sold anywhere possible to maximise profit. Not by AMD but by middlemen, PC parts suppliers, exporters and importers. AMD dont care where they are sold and the more they sell the better as they see things. So it must be something to do with vietnam rather than AMD. But whatever. In recet years AMD has changed and become real competition for intel and beating them. The only reason that those 12 series intel chips with more cores even exist today is because AMD CPUs were simply better. Competition, capitalism at work. Intel had nothing close to compete. They still cannot do the 7nm process that AMD have and so couldnt get down to the low heat high efficiency of the AMD chips. So they cheated by using their best 10nm process and reduced power P cores to make up the core count number. And compensated for the lower performance by having fatory overclocking enabled on all their vendors motherboards by default. So that they looked better in comparison testing compared to AMD. But at a price. Not much overclocking headroom, and high heat and high watts.

When you enable the motherboards built is overclocking for the AMDs cpu, then intel still lose out. But now current draw (watts) is almost as high as the intel chips. But not as bad. Due to the 7nm lithographic wafer process. Intel have a way to go yet.

Dont get me wrong. Todays CPUs are a long way ahead of what they were 3 years ago and you wont be disapointed with either! Both are good. Both offer high efficiency and low power consumption as they throttle well. When not loaded up. Competition is good! Both companies were driven by it to give us cpu's that are far better for the same money than in the past.

[steves1977uk]

Here's my fastest yet CB R23 score on my 11900KF CPU...

This was using the ASUS AI Optimized setting. The generic 3200MHz RAM 64GB (2x32GB) has a CL of 22 which is poor, might try getting some better quality sticks soon.

Steve

[Burgerman]

Dont think its a memory issue. Mines only 3600. Although cas 16 18, 18, something. I set it to 3800 16, 16, 16 and upped the volts to 1.4200V and its error free. Which with four sticks is about as good as anyone will get. First try. Passes all burn in tests. Thats micron memory on the 4 sticks, 64GB Corsair Ballistics 2x 32GB sets. Which is good. But setting to NON overclock, stock 2666 speeds and 1.2V has little real effect on the scores. Still get 31500 ish.

Its having 16/32 full performance cores at 4.75ghz and no throttling (no low performance P cores) that does it! Even the latest 12900KS limited edition binned factory overclocked intel, only barely cracks 30,000 if the rumours are even true. Seems that intel still have a way to go to match the 5950X which is not what all the youtubers are saying. But they are not testing like for like. They are testing intels with the default overclock on, and the 5950X with it off. As thats their respective default settings. Its good for (their affiliate) sales on the newest intel chips that way! So they dont mention it. For those that fall for their trickery. Things are not how they are made to seem. Ever wondered why? $$$

Still even the 11 generation CPU you are using is way more than you or I actually need at home. A multicore score of 15000 is a huge score compared to even 3 or 4 years ago. So 32000 is rediculous!

Whats more important right now is graphics performance. Every new decent screen is either 4 or 8K. And games like cyberpunk or MS Flight sim NEED a 3080Ti or better, to do any kind of usable frame rate at native resolution on those. And those GPU cards are STILL at £1300 or more each. I paid 1400 4 months ago. They have begun to fall. Slightly. A 3080 is relatively cheap, but it caNnot sensibly do MS Flight sim. Really you need a 3080Ti or 3090 minimum, and theres literally 2% to 4% difference in frame rate. And about £500 extra...

[steves1977uk]

An interesting comparison for CB R23 scores... https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-list/cinebench-scores Take with a pinch of salt!

My ASUS SP Score is 45 for my CPU, which means it's a badly binned chip. Anything past 5.1GHz requires 1.4v+

Steve

[Burgerman]

Those are stock scores.
The Ryzen 5950X scores 25k on that. Because unlike all the Intel CPUs, it draws 105W TDP because its DEFAULT setting for overclock is OFF. So it doesent compare apples with apples.

When I set the Ryzen 5950X to auto overclock (same as the default setting which is switched ON on the intel CPUs motherboards) then things are a little different...
The score is then 29 thousand, and the multi thread speed goes from 3.4 to over 4ghz in a single step, a 20% boost, single threaded stuff goes from 4.7ghz to 5.25ghz. (by switching on PBO2) in bios. So when tested apples to apples intel loses. And theres much more overclock still left in it.

When I set a manual light overclock, up to similar 245w, to all core 3.75ghz I see 32,000+ score, leaving the latest intels in the dust! And they cant match that without exceeding 350+ watts. At which point regardless of cooling they throttle badly.

I looked at this carefully before I ordered. I even waited for the release test details before buying. Because things are not quite how it looks on paper. Mostly because the only way to let intel win was to have it overclocked (turned on) by default in the bios. And intel instructed the motherboard partners to do so.

[snaker]

I finally picked the mainboard Gigabyte B660 Aorus Master. The PC was assembled and it is running Ok.

But I get confused about the RAM speed. The RAM sticks I bought are 2x16G Gskill 3200MHz. As I know both i7 12700 and chipset B660 support RAM 3200MHz by default (non OC). So the RAM should be 3200MHz by default. But in the BIOS and also in OS (Task Manager) RAM speed is only 2666MHz.

Can anybody enlighten me why RAM speed is only 2666MHz by default?
Where does the number 2666MHz come from?
Is it normal? Or are RAM sticks faulty and they cannot run at 3200MHz?
In the BIOS's Tweaker tab there is the Memory Speed (Frequency?) parameter which allows to set RAM speed to various values lower and higher than 2666MHz (up to 8000MHz). Should I set it to 3200MHz?

[Burgerman]

Because all ram is advertised to run at its standardised XMP OVERCLOCKED speed. So you need to go into the bios and tell the computer to enable XMP settings.

Then your 3200mhz memory will run at its advertised speed. Yes I know you said you dont want to overclock.
But its even better if you do enable that. 3200 is achieved automatically by the motherboard increasing the voltage to the RAM. And increasing the clock speeds. All pre planned and tested.

I went further. When buying memory it pays to buy good chips. Such as Samsung B die, or in my case the latest micron chips used in the Crucial Ballistix 3600 RGB memory I bought.

Because those chips can not only be increased from the 2666 standard speed, to the advertised XMP overclock 3600mhx. But can have their stock timing (CL16, 18, 18, 36) decreased to 14, 16, 16, 34 as well. This gives a further increase in memory bandwidth at the same 3600 speed. And if memory voltage is increased further to 1.45V as well, then they can also be set to run at 3800mhz unofficially. With no errors when tested.

So your Advertised 3200mhz is an OVERCLOCK speed. Read about enabling this in your bios. Its designed to do this. One click.
But you may find that increasing the ram voltage some, they will run at 3600 too.

READ https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/what-are-xmp ... -use-them/

[steves1977uk]

I have a generic 3200MHz 128GB kit (4x32GB Micron chips) which doesn't come with any XMP profiles, but they can run at 4400MHz at 1.5v, but didn't leave it there for too long.

Steve

[snaker]

The RAM has a XMP profile, I enabled it then the memory speed is now 3200MHz
Thank you so much, BM

Another question, do you usually use drivers provided by mainboard manufacturers (e.g downloading from their servers) or leave Windows automatically download and update drivers?

[Burgerman]

As for drivers I can get them for my new board either from AMD or ASUS. AMD have the newest and most reliable source.
Bios updates, from ASUS though. Utilities such as the lighting and monitoring for my board also asus and many other companies.
Then I use the SDIO to update and keep up to date.

You will want to download a few benchmark programs to configure the setup in bios for best peformance, such as the most usefu CPU test which is R23 Cinebench. And other benchmarking software.

And test online with https://www.passmark.com/products/perfo ... wnload.php

And https://installer.maxon.net/cinebench/CinebenchR23.zip

And others, THIS is simple and allows you to compare settings and drivers. https://www.userbenchmark.com/resources ... chMark.exe

[steves1977uk]

Here's my benchmark of my main PC... https://www.passmark.com/baselines/V10/ ... 7988227258

Steve

[Burgerman]

https://www.passmark.com/baselines/V10/ ... 7990721310

Set to powersaviing and stock memory speed. CPU score still bonkers!

Try this.

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/53184889

[Burgerman]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcafzHL8iBQ

Watch carefully. Why you don want 11. At least another reason.

[snaker]

Moving from spinning HDD to NVMe SSD is like stepping into a future world. Too fast, too dangerous

The new PC is working well, no bug/fault. Gigabyte softwares are a bit dumb but Ok. I am happy with the build except the case, it's a regret

I was misinformed about the case. It looks good until I look inside. All its 3 sides are covered by felt. I cannot understand how they could think out that stupid

Actually, the temperature of the case is only 8oC higher the room. So I leave it alone.

Fortunately, I chose using win10 ltsc instead of win11. That was a correct choice

[Burgerman]

All good. I never install the ASUS software. For the same reason. Tell me why do you think you need that motherboard software?
11 sucks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1wqOHo9Lb0


I have not had spinning rust for many years.

[snaker]

I only installed a Giga software called "SIV" to monitor mainboard live info while running (e.g temperature, watts, fan speeds). Due to a stupid Giga thing, I had to spend a half day to install it.

When idle, CPU power is only 2-5W, CPU temperature is 38oC. When the PC runs full load, CPU power jumps to 80W, CPU temperature is 73oC. Is it normal?

[Burgerman]

Yes.
As the CPU is loaded up, the more it ramps up in frequency. As frequency increases the voltage increases. As voltage/frequency and core count usage increases so does heat.

Run cinebench R23
https://www.maxon.net/en/downloads/cine ... -downloads
This is a common way to test heat maximum. ALL CORE working. Or single core.
1. Multicore, run continuously, for 10 mins, and watch the watts, and the heat (temperature). To see if its getting too hot and throttling. It stresses all cores. And is a universal benchmark used by everytone when comparing CPU settings and capability.
2. Go into settings and set timer to off for it to do a single run for a cinebench score. I get 32,000 plus.

How fast the CPU is is determined by the bios settings limits, and some microcode inside the CPU. The speed that it runs at is determined by heat, and motherboard Amp capability and settings. So if you have a really good cooler (like my watercooling?) then the CPU will run at a higher boost speed and may be able to do so continually too. Because its internal code will tell it it can. Provided your motherboard settings in bios allow enough volts, enough frequency limits, and you have enough cooling. For what its worth, the CPU I have is a 105W part. It reads 240W when its on all cores in Cinebench because the water cooling allows this without problem. Still below 80C. Thats with a FORTY % overclock in bios.

Dont use that terrible software. Use https://www.hwinfo.com/
Dont worry about watts. As long as its being cooled adequately so it stays below the point where it throttles.

[Burgerman]

Trust me that there is a LOT of bios setting, modification, fan speed, etc setting up to do. It took me 2 weeks to get it all perfect. And theres no fast way. And to get full performance from the PC you built will likely need a better high airflow case than you have now. Because even with no graphics card it will be well over 100 watts at full powr.

My CPU is 240watts plus the 400watts from the graphics card. Thats normal at max power today. So if not all water cooled would need a gale force airflow.

[Burgerman]

youtu.be/s1wqOHo9Lb0

[Bubbernator]

The resurrection of "Noblesse".

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/spring-case-madness,623-36.html

I bought the case about twenty years ago and built one of my first computers in it.
I believe the CPU was a Pentium III. It went through a few rebuilds and then languished in the back of a closet for a very long time.
The link is to the Tom'sHardware case review from 2003. The case had a list price of $150 (a fortune!) but it was pretty and had lots of room
for expansion cards and drives. Eventually I bought something new off the shelf and put it away.
I forgot about it while I suffered through a ten-year series of HP pre-builts.
Last autumn I was bored, tired of hearing about COVID and frustrated with an outdated Celeron-powered PC that would have been more useful as a doorstop.
So I started cleaning out a closet with the intention of dumping everything (to make more room for more shiny crap from Walmart).
I pulled out the case and was about to send it to the Land Of E-Waste when a brain cell sparked and a thought groaned to life.
"Wait......I can use this."

The photo is the inside of the case after I dragged it back from the abyss.