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[Agent_4Seven]

Seriously! JFC

Last time I upgraded my PC was in 2019 from 1150 / Z97 / 4790K (lasted me for 4 years) to 1151-v2 / Z390 / 8700K. Now I'm looking to upgrade again to a modern platform and.... it's effin' $500+(!!!) and more for the same level of mobo (I've Z390 Aorus Master) and like the icing on the cake - high speed DDR5 support is beyond awfull for every modern mobo and CPU, cuz 4 DIMM slots on high-end mobos are 100% useless - you can't run fast RAM in 4 DIMM slots and forced to downgrade RAM speed to DDR4 level (4000MHz) for it to even boot!

Just look at this modern BS and compare to what my Z390 capable off when it comes to memory support for 4 DIMMs (4200MHz is x2 times faster than the base level 2133 MHz from which DDR4 started from - modern DDR5 mobos can't even do 5200 using 4 DIMMs!):

Z790 Master: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/Z790-AORUS-MASTER-rev-10/support#support-memsup
Z690 Master: https://www.gigabyte.ru/products/page/mb/z690_aorus_master/support#support-memory
Z390 Master: https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Memory/mb_memory_z390-aorus-master_191113.pdf

What an effin' difference, isn't it? And that's not even the latest mobo and platform with DDR4 support! So, what's even the point in 4 DIMM slots on modern high-end mobos if DDR5 becomes needless at 4000MHz and not even the fastest DDR4 speed level? What's even the point in DDR5 and 4 DIMM slots on high-end mobos if YOU'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO USED THEM for x4 high speed RAM sticks on current hardware? Why are we forced to play for stuff we will never be able to use? And I mean - never, cuz that's exactly what will happen with any high-end mobo currently available on the market and for sure Z890 next year. And again, that's for $500+ and even more when it comes to CPU. I bought my Z390 for $145 brand new and even at $290 MSR it's almost x2 times cheaper that any mobo of the same level right now and it has almost 100% supports for x4 DIMM slots.

I guess someone can and will say - Well, bro, just don't use 4 DIMMs then and install 2 sticks of RAM, what's the problem? To which I say - why the fuck are we forced to do that and pay extra for something which simply can't be used on a high-end mobo meant and built for OC and pay x2 times more? Why 7000-8000MHz DDR5 RAM even exists right now, for what reason, purpose and most importantly - for which hardware? Why aren't all current mobos using only high speed DDR4 with much better compatiblity and stability? I thought that now is the right time to upgrade to a 13700K after skipping 4 generation of CPUs like I did last time, damn. I mean, yeah, there won't be any difference between 8700K and 13700K at 4K when it comes to FPS (cuz at 4K and beyond you will always be GPU limited), but 8700K is just not and won't be good enought for any modern games going forward with very high requirements for decompression, shader compilation and other I/O related stuff which all modern AAA games will need, as soon as only current gen development will go full force and game start releasing.

I mean, most of us troll and laughing at NVIDIA for selling overpriced and BS GPUs made on purpose with as less VRAM as possible etc. to make our experience poitiful and miserable (knowing full well that x2 amount of VRAM could esily fix this), but I think mobo manufactures over the last 2-3 years become even worse, much worse, and it needs to be stopped cuz otherwise we can start seeing very basic level mobos for $500+ in 2 years time if not less.

PC Master Race my effin' ass, FFS

 

[RoboFu]

The market was down because of covid and no one buys desktops anymore. The already niche gamer market has become more niche manufacturing wise.
Some are guessing prices may come down in 2024 but I don’t know.

 

[Gamezone]

The market was down because of covid and no one buys desktops anymore. The already niche gamer market has become more niche manufacturing wise.
Some are guessing prices may come down in 2024 but I don’t know.

So the huge PC gaming growth is because of laptops?

 

[b0uncyfr0]

DDR5 is still new, aint it?

Give it another 6 months - for the kinks to be ironed out.

 

[kruis]

We could be in for even higher prices. Nvidia is selling less graphics cards than five years ago, so in order to compensate for potential lost revenues they up the prices. So the more PC gamers drop out, the more prices will go up. Good times ahead!

 

[RoboFu]

So the huge PC gaming growth is because of laptops?

Actually yes.


But pc sales dropped tremendously last year. Way down in the 4th quarter.

 

[Miles708]

PC Master Race are mostly hardware whales that need to get exploited as much as possible.
I wouldn't even mind if these shenanigans wouldn't be coming up in the console space too.
And people are even thankful for that.

 

[Sakura]

Aren't those just the numbers when XMP is not enabled?

 

[Agent_4Seven]

Aren't those just the numbers when XMP is not enabled?

Memory bandwidth actually matters as well as latency, it's just at one point it matters less for games and more for production, say... 3600MHz DDR4 is more than enough for games and beyond that there's no reason to go for more (unless you also doing production work and using your PC as a workstation).

Also, it's not enough to just enable XMP, memory controller in the CPU actually needs to be able to handle it and... it just can't in modern CPUs, at least when it comes to x4 high speed RAM sticks. Bandwidth and amount of RAM also matters for production work and you can't do anything if you need both while building modern PC - you'll be limited to just 4000MHz while paying extra for 4 DIMMs and DDR4 speed levels while having DDR5 mobo.

 

[Dexero]

You need to enable XMP for your memory to work at the rated capacity.

It’s obviously dependent on your CPU but there are 0 issues getting a 4 dimm system running at 7200mhz

 

[Chiggs]

Some are guessing prices may come down in 2024 but I don’t know.

Even those estimates are being revised. PC market is in a free-fall.

But pc sales dropped tremendously last year. Way down in the 4th quarter.

Yep, and the hidden story here is that, at least in the US, it started in the latter half of 2021.

 

[StereoVsn]

It's just more finicky it seems but with higher end CPUs you should be able to run say 6000 speed memory, depending on the board.

I will have to check my AM5 board (has whole different bucket of issues), but thought you could run in 4 DIMM config at that speed.

 

[Agent_4Seven]

It’s obviously dependent on your CPU

Not CPU, more like memory controller within it.

there are 0 issues getting a 4 dimm system running at 7200mhz

12900K:



Nothing has changed for 13th gen since then, which clearly can be seen in RAM QVLs I've posted above.

 

[Unknown?]

Seriously! JFC

Last time I upgraded my PC was in 2019 from 1150 / Z97 / 4790K (lasted me for 4 years) to 1151-v2 / Z390 / 8700K. Now I'm looking to upgrade again to a modern platform and.... it's effin' $500+(!!!) and more for the same level of mobo (I've Z390 Aorus Master) and like the icing on the cake - high speed DDR5 support is beyond awfull for every modern mobo and CPU, cuz 4 DIMM slots on high-end mobos are 100% useless - you can't run fast RAM in 4 DIMM slots and forced to downgrade RAM speed to DDR4 level (4000MHz) for it to even boot!

Just look at this modern BS and compare to what my Z390 capable off when it comes to memory support for 4 DIMMs (4200MHz is x2 times faster than the base level 2133 MHz from which DDR4 started from - modern DDR5 mobos can't even do 5200 using 4 DIMMs!):

Z790 Master: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/Z790-AORUS-MASTER-rev-10/support#support-memsup
Z690 Master: https://www.gigabyte.ru/products/page/mb/z690_aorus_master/support#support-memory
Z390 Master: https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Memory/mb_memory_z390-aorus-master_191113.pdf

What an effin' difference, isn't it? And that's not even the latest mobo and platform with DDR4 support! So, what's even the point in 4 DIMM slots on modern high-end mobos if DDR5 becomes needless at 4000MHz and not even the fastest DDR4 speed level? What's even the point in DDR5 and 4 DIMM slots on high-end mobos if YOU'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO USED THEM for x4 high speed RAM sticks on current hardware? Why are we forced to play for stuff we will never be able to use? And I mean - never, cuz that's exactly what will happen with any high-end mobo currently available on the market and for sure Z890 next year. And again, that's for $500+ and even more when it comes to CPU. I bought my Z390 for $145 brand new and even at $290 MSR it's almost x2 times cheaper that any mobo of the same level right now and it has almost 100% supports for x4 DIMM slots.

I guess someone can and will say - Well, bro, just don't use 4 DIMMs then and install 2 sticks of RAM, what's the problem? To which I say - why the fuck are we forced to do that and pay extra for something which simply can't be used on a high-end mobo meant and built for OC and pay x2 times more? Why 7000-8000MHz DDR5 RAM even exists right now, for what reason, purpose and most importantly - for which hardware? Why aren't all current mobos using only high speed DDR4 with much better compatiblity and stability? I thought that now is the right time to upgrade to a 13700K after skipping 4 generation of CPUs like I did last time, damn. I mean, yeah, there won't be any difference between 8700K and 13700K at 4K when it comes to FPS (cuz at 4K and beyond you will always be GPU limited), but 8700K is just not and won't be good enought for any modern games going forward with very high requirements for decompression, shader compilation and other I/O related stuff which all modern AAA games will need, as soon as only current gen development will go full force and game start releasing.

I mean, most of us troll and laughing at NVIDIA for selling overpriced and BS GPUs made on purpose with as less VRAM as possible etc. to make our experience poitiful and miserable (knowing full well that x2 amount of VRAM could esily fix this), but I think mobo manufactures over the last 2-3 years become even worse, much worse, and it needs to be stopped cuz otherwise we can start seeing very basic level mobos for $500+ in 2 years time if not less.

PC Master Race my effin' ass, FFS

New to PC gaming? Upgrade your shit!

 

[Black_Stride]

Being on the bleeding edge will do that.
DDR5 still has teething issues.
Maybe MeteorLake and ArrowLake will be able to easily run it at high speed with 4 DIMMs.
Hell i still get paranoid every time I build a DDR5 system because of the long initial boot.

As for motherboard prices.....no excuses there, these new chipsets are far too expensive and motherboard manufacturers are heavily segmenting their lineups for no logical reason.

Just get a Z690/Z790 MSI Pro-A.....its a bottom of the barrel DDR5 motherboard that costs ~200 dollars but it does everything that those higher tier motherboards do......of course it doesnt come with QCode debug LEDs were for 200 dollars you would think would be standard.
Either the Pro-A or Asus TUF Gaming, paying any more for a motherboard in this day and age is pointless considering how little you get vs the lower tier motherboards.


P.S I wouldnt even buy Z motherboards cuz realistically you would be fine with a B motherboard and one of the RaptorLake refreshes or a 137 non-K

 

[Agent_4Seven]

I will have to check my AM5 board (has whole different bucket of issues), but thought you could run in 4 DIMM config at that speed.

I'll continue skipping AM5 until and if it'll become a rock-solid paltform just like intel. AM4 is dead and AM5 is not good enough still + recent news about 7800X3D and X670 mobos simply do not inspire any confidence for the future (let alone for now) to say the least.

It's just more finicky it seems but with higher end CPUs you should be able to run say 6000 speed memory, depending on the board.

There's no problems with x2 DIMM configuration, 6200MHz works fine, maybe even more - I didn't check since 6000-6200MHz is more than enough of an upgrade from DDR4 3600MHz for me.

Maybe MeteorLake and ArrowLake will be able to easily run it at high speed with 4 DIMMs.

I hightly doubt it + there's rumors that 14th gen will be limited to 6 cores and only 15th gen will have more, so it's at least half a year to a year of more waiting. And given what's going on in my country and the whole world in general right now, prices could skyrocket x2-3 times if new hardware will even be available for me to buy.

Just get a Z690/Z790 MSI Pro-A.....its a bottom of the barrel DDR5 motherboard that costs ~200 dollars but it does everything that those higher tier motherboards do......of course it doesnt come with QCode debug LEDs were for 200 dollars you would think would be standard.
Either the Pro-A or Asus TUF Gaming, paying any more for a motherboard in this day and age is pointless considering how little you get vs the lower tier motherboards.

You know, after all this BS I've seen, found and researched, the most logical decision for me now would be to try as hard as I can and stick to Z390 and 8700K until at least 1851 release next year, to see whether it is a much better platform and if x4 DIMM high speed memory support is way better.

Also, I'm not paying $200 for what needs and must be $79-85 mobo just out of principle. I need Wi-Fi 6, I need QCode debug and debug LEDs, I need the best audio codec + DAC, I need x2 USB 3.2 and x1 USB Type-C port on the mobo and I need not to worry about VRM and CPU / RAM OC for at least 4 years. $200 can't and won't offer me all these things, hense $200 market simply doesn't exist for me.

P.S I wouldnt even buy Z motherboards cuz realistically you would be fine with a B motherboard and one of the RaptorLake refreshes or a 137 non-K

DDR5 of B mobos are not available in my country, also it's either OC ready CPU or not. I've OC-d my 8700K to 4800GHz @ 1.25V on all cores out of the box and it works great to this day without issues, XMP also works flawlessly. You know, it's very easy to get used to good things and not wanting to go back to lesser ones, even if it makes sense financially.

 

[Gamezone]

Actually yes.


But pc sales dropped tremendously last year. Way down in the 4th quarter.

Could be, but users on Steam keeps growing.

 

[Black_Stride]

I hightly doubt it + there's rumors that 14th gen will be limited to 6 cores and only 15th gen will have more, so it's at least half a year to a year of more waiting. And given what's going on in my country and the whole world in general right now, prices could skyrocket x2-3 times if new hardware will even be available for me to buy.


You know, after all this BS I've seen, found and researched, the most logical decision for me now would be to try as hard as I can and stick to Z390 and 8700K until at least 1851 release next year, to see whether it is a much better platform and if x4 DIMM high speed memory support is way better.

Also, I'm not paying $200 for what needs and must be $79-85 mobo just out of principle. I need Wi-Fi 6, I need QCode debug and debug LEDs, I need the best audio codec + DAC, I need x2 USB 3.2 and x1 USB Type-C port on the mobo and I need not to worry about VRM and CPU / RAM OC for at least 4 years. $200 can't and won't offer me all these things, hense $200 market simply doesn't exist for me.

14th gen is the RaptorLake refresh.
15th gen is MeteorLake and ArrowLake....MeteorLake up to the i5 and ArrowLake up to i9.

I dont buy anything above an i5 anyway so im okay going with MeteorLake though if im honest I aint upgrading from LGA1700 any time soon.....my MB still has atleast another 4 years in it if I upgrade from my 12400 to a 14600K or 14500 if its the same architecture.

As for your wishlist for motherboards.....you might be right, just stick with your 8700K cuz you arent getting QCodes for ~200 dollars.
The Z790/Z690 Pro-A does fit all the other criteria though.
Wifi 6E
Debug LEDs
USB 3.2
Type-C
Overkill VRMs
Excellent RAM OC (who OC's CPUs these days, but you can if you really want to)

 

[winjer]

Seriously! JFC

Last time I upgraded my PC was in 2019 from 1150 / Z97 / 4790K (lasted me for 4 years) to 1151-v2 / Z390 / 8700K. Now I'm looking to upgrade again to a modern platform and.... it's effin' $500+(!!!) and more for the same level of mobo (I've Z390 Aorus Master) and like the icing on the cake - high speed DDR5 support is beyond awfull for every modern mobo and CPU, cuz 4 DIMM slots on high-end mobos are 100% useless - you can't run fast RAM in 4 DIMM slots and forced to downgrade RAM speed to DDR4 level (4000MHz) for it to even boot!

Just look at this modern BS and compare to what my Z390 capable off when it comes to memory support for 4 DIMMs (4200MHz is x2 times faster than the base level 2133 MHz from which DDR4 started from - modern DDR5 mobos can't even do 5200 using 4 DIMMs!):

Z790 Master: https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/Z790-AORUS-MASTER-rev-10/support#support-memsup
Z690 Master: https://www.gigabyte.ru/products/page/mb/z690_aorus_master/support#support-memory
Z390 Master: https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Memory/mb_memory_z390-aorus-master_191113.pdf

What an effin' difference, isn't it? And that's not even the latest mobo and platform with DDR4 support! So, what's even the point in 4 DIMM slots on modern high-end mobos if DDR5 becomes needless at 4000MHz and not even the fastest DDR4 speed level? What's even the point in DDR5 and 4 DIMM slots on high-end mobos if YOU'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO USED THEM for x4 high speed RAM sticks on current hardware? Why are we forced to play for stuff we will never be able to use? And I mean - never, cuz that's exactly what will happen with any high-end mobo currently available on the market and for sure Z890 next year. And again, that's for $500+ and even more when it comes to CPU. I bought my Z390 for $145 brand new and even at $290 MSR it's almost x2 times cheaper that any mobo of the same level right now and it has almost 100% supports for x4 DIMM slots.

I guess someone can and will say - Well, bro, just don't use 4 DIMMs then and install 2 sticks of RAM, what's the problem? To which I say - why the fuck are we forced to do that and pay extra for something which simply can't be used on a high-end mobo meant and built for OC and pay x2 times more? Why 7000-8000MHz DDR5 RAM even exists right now, for what reason, purpose and most importantly - for which hardware? Why aren't all current mobos using only high speed DDR4 with much better compatiblity and stability? I thought that now is the right time to upgrade to a 13700K after skipping 4 generation of CPUs like I did last time, damn. I mean, yeah, there won't be any difference between 8700K and 13700K at 4K when it comes to FPS (cuz at 4K and beyond you will always be GPU limited), but 8700K is just not and won't be good enought for any modern games going forward with very high requirements for decompression, shader compilation and other I/O related stuff which all modern AAA games will need, as soon as only current gen development will go full force and game start releasing.

I mean, most of us troll and laughing at NVIDIA for selling overpriced and BS GPUs made on purpose with as less VRAM as possible etc. to make our experience poitiful and miserable (knowing full well that x2 amount of VRAM could esily fix this), but I think mobo manufactures over the last 2-3 years become even worse, much worse, and it needs to be stopped cuz otherwise we can start seeing very basic level mobos for $500+ in 2 years time if not less.

PC Master Race my effin' ass, FFS

4 Dimms has always been harder to drive than 2 Dimms.
Dual Rank memory with 4 ranks is very difficult to drive.
Daisy Chain trace configurations are harder to drive with 4 Dimms at high speeds.

So if you want to use 4 Dimms, buy kits with single rank and a motherboard with T-Topology.
And preferably Hynix. Better yet, M-Die.

 

[Diseased Yak]

Well damn, I am about to build a new PC and was just going to go with AMD this time, but you all are scaring me about the AM5 boards.

I had pretty much settled on the Asus ROG STRIX X670E-A board and a 7800X3D. Maybe I should hold of a few months...

 

[YeulEmeralda]

So the huge PC gaming growth is because of laptops?

We know 1080p is the most used resolution. So no not all PC gamers are on the high end.

 

[MikeM]

This is why I bought the mature AM4 platform for my build six months ago. Basically all issues have been fixed.

I’ll go AM5 in maybe another year once they iron out most of the issues. Being an early platform adopter can be expensive beta testing.

 

[Agent_4Seven]

14th gen is the RaptorLake refresh.
15th gen is MeteorLake and ArrowLake....MeteorLake up to the i5 and ArrowLake up to i9.

I dont buy anything above an i5 anyway so im okay going with MeteorLake though if im honest I aint upgrading from LGA1700 any time soon.....my MB still has atleast another 4 years in it if I upgrade from my 12400 to a 14600K or 14500 if its the same architecture.

I'd like for my PC to last longer, have better OC support and also emulation performance, so I go for at least an i7 and more cores.

As for your wishlist for motherboards.....you might be right, just stick with your 8700K cuz you arent getting QCodes for ~200 dollars.
The Z790/Z690 Pro-A does fit all the other criteria though.
Wifi 6E
Debug LEDs
USB 3.2
Type-C
Overkill VRMs
Excellent RAM OC (who OC's CPUs these days, but you can if you really want to)

When it comes to USB - not every mobo has x2 USB 3.2 and even less so x1 Type-C connection on the mobos PCB - not I/O shield which is a given. Only high-end boards (I mean Aorus Master / Aorus Pro level, not chipset) have top of the line audio codecs with DACs.

Also, you can't OC RAM without also OC CPU and OC CPU is the best way to get better and most stable performance, cuz all your cores are always at the same frequency all the time and they're not eating max TDP while idle so there's no downside to OC at all, only positives, provided you've hardware for that and CPU has good memory controller inside.

So if you want to use 4 Dimms, buy kits with single rank and a motherboard with T-Topology.

That's what I did with my current Z390 setup and there's no way I can do that for Z690 and Z790 without downgrading DDR5 to DDR4 level which is stupid and pointless.

And preferably Hynix. Better yet, M-Die.

I currently have Samsung B-Die.

Well damn, I am about to build a new PC and was just going to go with AMD this time, but you all are scaring me about the AM5 boards.

I had pretty much settled on the Asus ROG STRIX X670E-A board and a 7800X3D. Maybe I should hold of a few months...

Just wait, I would't go after 7000 series at all even if there wasn't any problems with them and X670 mobos, they're just worse than 13th gen from Intel. But you might have to wait at least a year if not more cuz first they'll release new APU about which nobody cares.

 

[Black_Stride]

I'd like for my PC to last longer, have better OC support and also emulation performance, so I go for at least an i7 and more cores.

Better OC support than what?
Every MSI board will OC to the same level and 12 and 13th gen Intels only gain from OC when you do all core OC for heavily multithreaded workloads.
Otherwise their stock boost profiles are not dissimilar to their non-K variants.

When it comes to USB - not every mobo has x2 USB 3.2 and even less so x1 Type-C connection on the mobos PCB - not I/O shield which is a given. Only high-end boards (I mean Aorus Master / Aorus Pro level, not chipset) have top of the line audio codecs with DACs.

Also, you can't OC RAM without also OC CPU and OC CPU is the best way to get better and most stable performance, cuz all your cores are always at the same frequency all the time and they're not eating max TDP while idle so there's no downside to OC at all, only positives, provided you've hardware for that and CPU has good memory controller inside.

As I said MSIs bottom of the barrel motherboard has 3 USB 3 10G and a USBC 20G.
It has internal USBC.
The Aorus Master comes with the ALC1220 which is analogous to the ALC4080 used in the Pro-A.

Why do you need to OC the CPU to OC the RAM?
We are talking Intel not AMD, with Intel you can OC the RAM and not go out of sync.
Even if you use an all core OC your CPU will park cores its not using, so the OC only matters when the cores are fully loaded.
And the only tweaking on a 12 or 13th gen you should be doing is undervolting.....all core OC is practically pointless you are gaining so little for so much more heat.

A 2% gain in all core and a less than one percent in gaming.......overclocking 12th and 13th gen CPUs is pointless till you get to actual extreme overclocking.
Its why i stopped overclocking, Intel basically ships these chips already at their limits.
Gone are the days of 3.3Ghz stock -> 5Ghz OC.

 

[lyan]

Could be, but users on Steam keeps growing.

Looking at their hardware survey the 4GB vram crowd saw 5% growth, my guess is those are 3050m.

 

[HTK]

I built my PC exactly a year ago:

• Intel Core i7-12700K
• NZXT Kraken X63 AIO
• MSI MPG Z690 EDGE WIFI DDR4
• G.Skill TridentZ 32GB CL14 - 3866Mhz
• WD Black SN850 2 TB M.2
• EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti FTW3
• NZXT H510 Flow
• Corsair HX Platinum 1000W 80+ Platinum

I avoided DDR5 and went with the fastest DDR4 I could find. Got the TridentZ with the Samsung B-Die with timings: CL14-14-14-34. I'm glad I went with Intel because I was thinking about waiting for AM5 but I figured it would have issues most new platforms do. I'm good for awhile hopefully and I'm happy with the performance my system gets. I still think DDR5 is unnecessary cost.

 

[Agent_4Seven]

As I said MSIs bottom of the barrel motherboard has 3 USB 3 10G and a USBC 20G.
It has internal USBC.
The Aorus Master comes with the ALC1220 which is analogous to the ALC4080 used in the Pro-A.

I don't like MSI as a brand overall and never did.

A 2% gain in all core and a less than one percent in gaming.......overclocking 12th and 13th gen CPUs is pointless till you get to actual extreme overclocking.
Its why i stopped overclocking, Intel basically ships these chips already at their limits.
Gone are the days of 3.3Ghz stock -> 5Ghz OC.

I'll still go for more cores though, which is i7. As for OC... when it comes to 8700K it actually matters if you OC it to almost if not to 5GHz.
I also don't trust mobo and CPU to do it auto, moreover, you should never allow mobos to do stuff auto especially when it comes to voltages. And you won't get a lot of heat after doing all core OC especially if you undervolt CPU which what I did, it'll only get hot under 100% load on all cores and if your CPU cooling is not good enough. To each their own I guess, I'm not saying that i5 is bad CPU cuz it's not true, I'm saying that I prefer more cores and more high-end stuff

Why do you need to OC the CPU to OC the RAM?
We are talking Intel not AMD, with Intel you can OC the RAM and not go out of sync.
Even if you use an all core OC your CPU will park cores its not using, so the OC only matters when the cores are fully loaded.
And the only tweaking on a 12 or 13th gen you should be doing is undervolting.....all core OC is practically pointless you are gaining so little for so much more heat.

Idk how it is right now, but it used to be that to use XMP speeds you also had to OC your CPU. Maybe something has changed since 8-9th gen, Idk.

I built my PC exactly a year ago:

• Intel Core i7-12700K
• NZXT Kraken X63 AIO
• MSI MPG Z690 EDGE WIFI DDR4
• G.Skill TridentZ 32GB CL14 - 3866Mhz
• WD Black SN850 2 TB M.2
• EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti FTW3
• NZXT H510 Flow
• Corsair HX Platinum 1000W 80+ Platinum

I avoided DDR5 and went with the fastest DDR4 I could find. Got the TridentZ with the Samsung B-Die with timings: CL14-14-14-34. I'm glad I went with Intel because I was thinking about waiting for AM5 but I figured it would have issues most new platforms do. I'm good for awhile hopefully and I'm happy with the performance my system gets. I still think DDR5 is unnecessary cost.

If only it was easy to do so for me when it comes to 13th gen - high-end DDR4 Z790 mobos are not available in my country.

 

[Sakura]

Memory bandwidth actually matters as well as latency, it's just at one point it matters less for games and more for production, say... 3600MHz DDR4 is more than enough for games and beyond that there's no reason to go for more (unless you also doing production work and using your PC as a workstation).

Also, it's not enough to just enable XMP, memory controller in the CPU actually needs to be able to handle it and... it just can't in modern CPUs, at least when it comes to x4 high speed RAM sticks. Bandwidth and amount of RAM also matters for production work and you can't do anything if you need both while building modern PC - you'll be limited to just 4000MHz while paying extra for 4 DIMMs and DDR4 speed levels while having DDR5 mobo.

4 DIMMS will be slower than 2, sure. But you won't be limited to 4000MHz. You just need to use XMP.
Even if you buy say a 6000 or 7000MHz set of ram and are only running the 2 sticks, you will still need to use XMP to get those speeds.

 

[flying_sq]

Welcome to post COVID inflation and "due to unprecedented circumstances" pricing. It sucks, and will only ever get more expensive.

 

[Haint]

At this point if you're not buying one of AMD or Intel's firesell bundles, you're braindead. 7700X, B650, and 32GB DDR5 6000 CPU kits were $360 a couple days ago (currently $450), while 13700K, Z790, 32GB DDR5 6000 are $550 all in.

 

[Codeblew]

7700X, B650, and 32GB DDR5 6000 CPU kits were $360

Damn, I paid 865.81 for that combo back in January.

 

[SF Kosmo]

There are much cheaper motherboards out there with the same chipset and approximate features.

I'm building a new system presently (would have been today, but the case arrived smashed) and it's definitely the most expensive build I have ever done, but most of that added cost is the GPU. The rest isn't really THAT different.

 

[DenchDeckard]

I was very lucky with my pc and I hope it lasts for years. Just need better ports to come to it now.

 

[PaintTinJr]

Better OC support than what?
Every MSI board will OC to the same level and 12 and 13th gen Intels only gain from OC when you do all core OC for heavily multithreaded workloads.
Otherwise their stock boost profiles are not dissimilar to their non-K variants.



As I said MSIs bottom of the barrel motherboard has 3 USB 3 10G and a USBC 20G.
It has internal USBC.
The Aorus Master comes with the ALC1220 which is analogous to the ALC4080 used in the Pro-A.

Why do you need to OC the CPU to OC the RAM?
We are talking Intel not AMD, with Intel you can OC the RAM and not go out of sync.
Even if you use an all core OC your CPU will park cores its not using, so the OC only matters when the cores are fully loaded.
And the only tweaking on a 12 or 13th gen you should be doing is undervolting.....all core OC is practically pointless you are gaining so little for so much more heat.

A 2% gain in all core and a less than one percent in gaming.......overclocking 12th and 13th gen CPUs is pointless till you get to actual extreme overclocking.
Its why i stopped overclocking, Intel basically ships these chips already at their limits.
Gone are the days of 3.3Ghz stock -> 5Ghz OC.

That's interesting that the OC effectively does nothing.

I did a thread a few months back about a budget build and using the AVX2 ratio offset feature of the non-Z mobo to effectively downclock the AVX units to manipulate the SpeedStep system, with very little interest from gaf posters.

The idea was the boost clock on a Core i5-10400F would hold longer in games giving higher performance, So rather than artificially maintaining the AVX2 clock at the SSE boost clock speed, which causes unnecessary power draw and heat limits to be reached prematurely, resulting in the SSE boost clock receding too early and lowering performance in most situations - despite a AVX2 being used only lightly in games,
The theory which the TimeSpy demo proved in synthetic testing was that single core SSE clockspeed is a more important and a common game bottle neck, rather than the AVX2 clockspeed, which is already delivering 3 instructions per clock, so could afford to run at a 3rd of the speed to free up thermal headroom.

Looking a those overclocks you showed doing virtually nothing, I suspect lowering the AVX2 clock in those tests and getting a higher all-core SSE overclock would be possible and yield far better results.

 

[Black_Stride]

I don't like MSI as a brand overall and never did.

Other than ASUS they are currently the best MB maker out there.......What brand of motherboard do you trust then, considering Gigabyte are notorious for bad bios, AsRock......are AsRock, EVGA dont have compelling offers, Biostar...never used them literally dont know anyone who has.

P.S I would be side eyeing ASUS too after the AM5 chips melting themselves debacle.

I'll still go for more cores though, which is i7. As for OC... when it comes to 8700K it actually matters if you OC it to almost if not to 5GHz.
I also don't trust mobo and CPU to do it auto, moreover, you should never allow mobos to do stuff auto especially when it comes to voltages. And you won't get a lot of heat after doing all core OC especially if you undervolt CPU which what I did, it'll only get hot under 100% load on all cores and if your CPU cooling is not good enough. To each their own I guess, I'm not saying that i5 is bad CPU cuz it's not true, I'm saying that I prefer more cores and more high-end stuff

I have no qualms with people who need more cores....im just one of those people that dont, ever since I switched to GPU rendering I havent seen much benefit to going for more cores considering near all my workloads have my cores parking themselves instead of actually working.....but I can respect people who need i7s and i9s....they exist for a reason after all.

As for undervolting, as I stated thats pretty much the only modification you should be doing in the BIOS, setting a manual multiplier and forcing high performance mode isnt particularly pointful and is downright wasteful having your cores running at ~5Ghz constantly.....Intels autoboost will handle that just fine, its not the old days where you really needed to dial things in.

Do you also boost lock your GPU?

idk how it is right now, but it used to be that to use XMP speeds you also had to OC your CPU. Maybe something has changed since 8-9th gen, Idk.

Its never been like that....atleast not since SandyBridge.
Ive still got a 2500K in my testrig/mediacenter thats running at stock clocks with an XMP profile set and running just fine.
7700K same thing, XMP set, CPU running at stock clocks.
My current rig, 12400 cant overclock it at all, XMP profile set, everything running as it should.
Are you sure you arent thinking about AMD?

That's interesting that the OC effectively does nothing.

I did a thread a few months back about a budget build and using the AVX2 ratio offset feature of the non-Z mobo to effectively downclock the AVX units to manipulate the SpeedStep system, with very little interest from gaf posters.

The idea was the boost clock on a Core i5-10400F would hold longer in games giving higher performance, So rather than artificially maintaining the AVX2 clock at the SSE boost clock speed, which causes unnecessary power draw and heat limits to be reached prematurely, resulting in the SSE boost clock receding too early and lowering performance in most situations - despite a AVX2 being used only lightly in games,
The theory which the TimeSpy demo proved in synthetic testing was that single core SSE clockspeed is a more important and a common game bottle neck, rather than the AVX2 clockspeed, which is already delivering 3 instructions per clock, so could afford to run at a 3rd of the speed to free up thermal headroom.

Looking a those overclocks you showed doing virtually nothing, I suspect lowering the AVX2 clock in those tests and getting a higher all-core SSE overclock would be possible and yield far better results.

Theres a reason people dont bother with AVX offsets.




Its literally easier....while a bit hotter to simply PL1 = PL2 and call it a day on non-K CPUs.

 

[PaintTinJr]

Other than ASUS they are currently the best MB maker out there.......What brand of motherboard do you trust then, considering Gigabyte are notorious for bad bios, AsRock......are AsRock, EVGA dont have compelling offers, Biostar...never used them literally dont know anyone who has.

P.S I would be side eyeing ASUS too after the AM5 chips melting themselves debacle.


I have no qualms with people who need more cores....im just one of those people that dont, ever since I switched to GPU rendering I havent seen much benefit to going for more cores considering near all my workloads have my cores parking themselves instead of actually working.....but I can respect people who need i7s and i9s....they exist for a reason after all.

As for undervolting, as I stated thats pretty much the only modification you should be doing in the BIOS, setting a manual multiplier and forcing high performance mode isnt particularly pointful and is downright wasteful having your cores running at ~5Ghz constantly.....Intels autoboost will handle that just fine, its not the old days where you really needed to dial things in.

Do you also boost lock your GPU?


Its never been like that....atleast not since SandyBridge.
Ive still got a 2500K in my testrig/mediacenter thats running at stock clocks with an XMP profile set and running just fine.
7700K same thing, XMP set, CPU running at stock clocks.
My current rig, 12400 cant overclock it at all, XMP profile set, everything running as it should.
Are you sure you arent thinking about AMD?


Theres a reason people dont bother with AVX offsets.




Its literally easier....while a bit hotter to simply PL1 = PL2 and call it a day on non-K CPUs.

That's a 16min video that doesn't renderer a game workload like the demo of 3D mark Timespy does, but I actually think the video observes the same as what I mentioned.

What I tried to convey - and struggled in my budget PC thread performance thread - was that the AVX2 being at or close to the traditional SSE CPU cores(P-core) clocks is a waste of the added power and thermal margin the PL2 delivers.
https://neogaf.com/threads/reducing...on-2-9ghz-4-3ghz-boost-core-i5-10400.1654498/

Taking the core-i5-13600K CPU in your example that isn't worth overclocking that way.

What if after setting the PL1 = PL2, you then took the P-core (SSE core) overclock value you are aiming for (eg unrealistic, but lets say 6Hz is the target) and then you divide that Boost clock value by 3 (because AVX2 does 3 instructions per clock (Fuse, Multiply, Add), so at 2Ghz, or in AVX2 ratio offset terms, a value of 40 because working in hundreds of Mhz, you need to subtract 40 00Mhz from 6Ghz to get 2Ghz.

And then say you look at the e-core clocks and lower them fully - given they don't get used in gameplay - providing far more thermal and power headroom to the P-cores and their specific CPU cache, and running the AVX2 at 1/3 of the clock of the p-cores.

I couldn't test the theory on my nephew's budget PC because a z mobo is way too much, but I'm pretty sure using the methodology I've described above that core-i5-13600K can get better CPU performance for gaming than that nothing all-core overclock in your chart.

I doubt it can get all the p-cores stable at 6Ghz, as I used for simple maths, but I'm pretty sure it can get at least a 110% on that chart of stock, rather than 100.6%.

 

[Black_Stride]

That's a 16min video that doesn't renderer a game workload like the demo of 3D mark Timespy does, but I actually think the video observes the same as what I mentioned.

What I tried to convey - and struggled in my budget PC thread performance thread - was that the AVX2 being at or close to the traditional SSE CPU cores(P-core) clocks is a waste of the added power and thermal margin the PL2 delivers.
https://neogaf.com/threads/reducing...on-2-9ghz-4-3ghz-boost-core-i5-10400.1654498/

Taking the core-i5-13600K CPU in your example that isn't worth overclocking that way.

What if after setting the PL1 = PL2, you then took the P-core (SSE core) overclock value you are aiming for (eg unrealistic, but lets say 6Hz is the target) and then you divide that Boost clock value by 3 (because AVX2 does 3 instructions per clock (Fuse, Multiply, Add), so at 2Ghz, or in AVX2 ratio offset terms, a value of 40 because working in hundreds of Mhz, you need to subtract 40 00Mhz from 6Ghz to get 2Ghz.

And then say you look at the e-core clocks and lower them fully - given they don't get used in gameplay - providing far more thermal and power headroom to the P-cores and their specific CPU cache, and running the AVX2 at 1/3 of the clock of the p-cores.

I couldn't test the theory on my nephew's budget PC because a z mobo is way too much, but I'm pretty sure using the methodology I've described above that core-i5-13600K can get better CPU performance for gaming than that nothing all-core overclock in your chart.

I doubt it can get all the p-cores stable at 6Ghz, as I used for simple maths, but I'm pretty sure it can get at least a 110% on that chart of stock, rather than 100.6%.

Or and hear me out.

On a non-K chip set PL1 = PL2 and call it a day.
In gaming workloads with 12th and 13th gen you might never even need to do PL1 = PL2 cuz these chips are just that fast and eat through most games without ever fully loading their cores to need to switch PLs, but atleast in productivity you wont be gimped. (bad ports notwithstanding).
And needing to go back in the BIOS when you arent gaming or have any background tasks active so you can reactivate your e-cores seems like such a chore.

Your theory sounds interesting.
Ill give it go one of these days (no I wont) but it sounds like way too much work for very little return.

 

[PaintTinJr]

Or and hear me out.

On a non-K chip set PL1 = PL2 and call it a day.
In gaming workloads with 12th and 13th gen you might never even need to do PL1 = PL2 cuz these chips are just that fast and eat through most games without ever fully loading their cores to need to switch PLs, but atleast in productivity you wont be gimped. (bad ports notwithstanding).
And needing to go back in the BIOS when you arent gaming or have any background tasks active so you can reactivate your e-cores seems like such a chore.

Your theory sounds interesting.
Ill give it go one of these days (no I wont) but it sounds like way too much work for very little return.

You wouldn't need to go back into the bios, because when I say lower them fully, I mean to 1200Mhz or 1400Mhz - which is the lowest the AVX2 ratio offset allows for AVX2 clock too - which is essentially the optimal clock frequency to power use for a multi-core chip, which was where the core2 chips clocks began - and this is because of how power and capacitance works in parallel circuits IIRC.

 

[Agent_4Seven]

Other than ASUS they are currently the best MB maker out there.......What brand of motherboard do you trust then, considering Gigabyte are notorious for bad bios, AsRock......are AsRock, EVGA dont have compelling offers, Biostar...never used them literally dont know anyone who has.

Outside of BIOS profiles switching to difault like once per year (which can be easily fixed with USB stick) on my Z390, I never had any problems with any Gigabyte boards and ASUS can just FOFF, permanently, not because of AM5 stuff but just in general. So my choice is Gigabyte when it comes to mobos and GPUs. Granted, I've bought 3070 Master V2 with fixed thermalpad issues, so I did my research before buying like I always do.

As for undervolting, as I stated thats pretty much the only modification you should be doing in the BIOS, setting a manual multiplier and forcing high performance mode isnt particularly pointful and is downright wasteful having your cores running at ~5Ghz constantly.....Intels autoboost will handle that just fine, its not the old days where you really needed to dial things in.

I only trust myself when it comes to CPU OC / mobo tuning and doing everything manually, to make sure that voltages are always at safe levels when they need to be. That's why I'm buying high-end boards with max OC capabilities and overkill VRM (just in case).

Do you also boost lock your GPU?

I don't have to, there's always an option to enable max performance in NVIDIA control and increasing the power limit according to what GPU can realistically support based on its cooling system etc., which will always give you the most stable and max clocks 99% of time in games and in turn better performance (outside of BS PC ports and VRAM limit issues). It can be done with just a few clicks in OS and even less clicks when using saved profiles.

Are you sure you arent thinking about AMD?

I'm pretty sure it was like that for Intel when it comes to +2000-3000MHz RAM OC sticks beyond base level of set DDR version - memory controller whithin CPU must be able to handle extreme RAM OC way beyond JEDEC spec. Are you telling me that base level i3 and i5 can now run +2000-3000MHz RAM OC? I mean, is it not pointless to even do that and by extreme OCd RAM if you have low to mid range CPU?

 

[Black_Stride]

Outside of BIOS profiles switching to difault like once per year (which can be easily fixed with USB stick) on my Z390, I never had any problems with any Gigabyte boards and ASUS can just FOFF, permanently, not because of AM5 stuff but just in general. So my choice is Gigabyte when it comes to mobos and GPUs. Granted, I've bought 3070 Master V2 with fixed thermalpad issues, so I did my research before buying like I always do.

I only trust myself when it comes to CPU OC / mobo tuning and doing everything manually, to make sure that voltages are always at safe levels when they need to be. That's why I'm buying high-end boards with max OC capabilities and overkill VRM (just in case).

I don't have to, there's always an option to enable max performance in NVIDIA control and increasing the power limit according to what GPU can realistically support based on its cooling system etc., which will always give you the most stable and max clocks 99% of time in games and in turn better performance (outside of BS PC ports and VRAM limit issues). It can be done with just a few clicks in OS and even less clicks when using saved profiles.

I'm pretty sure it was like that for Intel when it comes to +2000-3000MHz RAM OC sticks beyond base level of set DDR version - memory controller whithin CPU must be able to handle extreme RAM OC way beyond JEDEC spec. Are you telling me that base level i3 and i5 can now run +2000-3000MHz RAM OC? I mean, is it not pointless to even do that and by extreme OCd RAM if you have low to mid range CPU?

Gigabyte Motherboards.....:shuddder:
Ive had too many fail in too many builds ive sworn off them, having people send them back to me, then me needing to RMA them, is a chore.
Stick the vendors who have solid BIOS solid build quality....ASUS and MSI only, I used to trust AsRock but the disappointed me the last few generations.
Maybe Gigabyte makes a come back when they get someone competent in charge of BIOS.
Otherwise.
Never!


Memory OC has never been tied to CPU OC, I dont know where you even got that idea?
Cuz since Sandybridge well over 10 years ago you could OC RAM without OC'ing the CPU.
My low tier 12400 is tied to 6000CL30 memory, no issues what so ever
My 2500K at stock clocks was tied to 2133Mhz sticks.

As for whether its worth the price of admission.
You vastly underestimate non-K Alderlake CPUs......as I said you probably havent built a computer in a while so are slightly out of the loop.....but non-K and non-X chips are fire right now, give them faster memory and they fly almost like their X|K older siblings.

 

[Agent_4Seven]

Gigabyte Motherboards.....:shuddder:
Ive had too many fail in too many builds ive sworn off them, having people send them back to me, then me needing to RMA them, is a chore.
Stick the vendors who have solid BIOS solid build quality....ASUS and MSI only, I used to trust AsRock but the disappointed me the last few generations.
Maybe Gigabyte makes a come back when they get someone competent in charge of BIOS.
Otherwise.
Never!

See, for my current build I've done my research back in 2019, Z390 Master was the best mobo for the money, bought it and never had problems with it which could force me to switch mobo vendor for my next build. If for some reason say 1851 mobo won't be good enough, I'll look for something better... 100% not MSI though.

You vastly underestimate non-K Alderlake CPUs......as I said you probably havent built a computer in a while so are slightly out of the loop.....but non-K and non-X chips are fire right now, give them faster memory and they fly almost like their X|K older siblings.

Yup, all these years I only looked at benchmarks, saw that there's not a single reason to upgrade, laughed and moved on. But, everything changed during the last year or so - even though OC'd 8700K is still good enough when it comes to performance at 1440p and 4K, it's just not good enough anymore and especialy for needs of modern games to get stable and better performance not related to GPU at all. I mean, it'll change nothing if I'll buy 4090 for example, cuz my CPU won't be good enough to handle modern games when it comes to stability, minimum framerates, decompression etc. I can lock games to 30FPS and have ZERO problems with that, but it also won't change and is not changing anything - tested in multiple modern and heavy games.

So I did my research again and... I don't like what I see as I already stated in my first post. I mean, 13700K will for sure last me 4 years or more, that's not the problem, the problem is insane mobo prices and the fact that you can't even use all of their features while have to pay for them, and that's something I simply cannot say about Z390. Also, yeah, intel gave us an option to use at least two generations of CPUs on one socket, but they learned nothing from AMD which are not only a lot better at that and even though offering new mobos (the last gen of which was vastly better than the first one) for new CPUs, you can still use your old CPU on a new mobo 3 generation in which is a lot better. So looking at all the shit happening with LGA1700 I can't help but think that it was rushed af to the market and clearly could use 4-5 more years in the owen to iron out memory issues, stabilitly and comatiblity.

DDR4 is still good memory, people would've happily reused it for new builds and save money, but nope, fuck all that, we've other plans. I mean, they even offering DDR4 mobos (where they are available) for people to buy and all CPUs have support for it, so they clearly know full well that DDR5 support is total and absolute shit right now, not ready yet for the mass market and they don't even try to hide it, offering 4 DIMMs on mobos with DDR5 support only. Let's say they'll fix all this for 1851, but will you be able to pair 13600/700/900 CPUs with it to have better experience? Knowing intel, they won't allow us to do that. That's why I bought Z390 cuz it was better than Z370 and I also could upgrade to 9th if I wanted to, something I clearly haven't done cuz it's pointless after 4+ years.

Memory OC has never been tied to CPU OC, I dont know where you even got that idea?
Cuz since Sandybridge well over 10 years ago you could OC RAM without OC'ing the CPU.
My low tier 12400 is tied to 6000CL30 memory, no issues what so ever
My 2500K at stock clocks was tied to 2133Mhz sticks.

I can't say for sure cuz it was almost 10 years ago, but when I done my research back in 2014 for my first high-end build ever (Z97 and 4790K)... I'm pretty sure people recommended to OC CPU for best XMP stability with heavily OCd RAM. So... um, what can I say, he-he, it's just sticked with me all these years and just didn't check whether something has changed on that front

 

[intheinbetween]

I upgraded to an i9 13900k while keeping my "old" 96GB DDR4 since there are some Z790 motherboards that support DDR4, so I found it convenient despite the bottleneck it could generate, but I can live with that since I need that amount of ram memory.