New Build -12900K vs 13700k, 12th gen cheaper

[endlesszeal]

As the title indicates, I’m able to grab the 12900k for $50 cheaper.

From what ive read, 13th gen better imc for better memory over clocking and 4 slots of ddr5 @ good speeds. Regarding ipc, it’s almost negligible with 2-5% max at same speeds for my workload.

I’m not going to overclock anything and not concerned over ipc loss because I’m heat/power constrained anyway. So leaning towards 12900k but have fmo for better imc on 13700k.

Thoughts?

 

[GotNoRice]

Picking the correct CPU is all about matching your CPU with what you are going to use it for. You didn't tell us anything useful about what you are actually going to be doing with your PC. What is your "workload"? What do you mean when you say that you are "heat/power constrained"?

If your goal is gaming, and to get the most for the money, you could get an AMD 5800X3D (cheaper than any of the Intel CPUs you mentioned) with a cheap B450 or B550 board and some cheap DDR4. The 5800X3D can't overclock and only has 8 cores so the motherboard is basically irrelevant (not going to be pushing the VRMs). It has so much L3 cache that using DDR4, even slower/cheaper DDR4, results in almost no performance penalty. The 5800X3D beats the 12900K in almost all games and is even faster than the 13900k in many. Keeping in mind that even the mighty 13900k still only has 8 relevant performance cores.

If your "workload" is such that you can actually put the slow e-cores in the Intel chips to use, or your main game simply prefers Intel for whatever reason, then that is different.

 

[endlesszeal]

sorry, you went on a huge rant and did not even answer my question.

I’ve been building for over 20 years and am very up to date on hardware. As for what I mean by power/heat limitations, it’s exactly as said.

I’ll be building an itx system and I’m acutely aware of how much power and heat either processor chip will produce and dump. I will limit my pl1 and pl2.

anyway, the question remains and I will NOT be choosing any other processor; 12900k or 13700k with the 12900k being $50 cheaper.

 

[deaedius]

Is the $50 worth it to you? If so then buy it.
You are going to get a ton of responses in favor or other opinions and such. The question really stands, does 2-5% mean much to you? If it does, then go with the 13 series. If not, then go with saving 50 dollars and enjoy the 12 series.

 

[XoR_]

If you are power limited then why not get yourself 13600K?
Two less cores to generate heat and price much better than 12900K.
Other than specialized multi-threaded applications nothing can use so many cores. I also recommend disabling Hyper Threading - no matter the CPU you get.

Raptor Lake gets stable at much lower clocks vs Alder Lake meaning it is more power efficient architecture, even if that is not reflected by stock settings.
In fact Raptor Lake undervolting can do wonders. ~5GHz can be had at ~1.1V.

 

[endlesszeal]

Unfortunately, only 12900k and 13700k is offered to me and I’m getting either one for less than 13600k if I buy through retail channels. 😉

Yes, depending on my thermals I may have to disable cores or hyper threading. But based on some articles, either one @ 125w limit does incredibly well still. But I wasn’t aware that RKL undervolts better. Thanks!

 

[chameleoneel]

Unfortunately, only 12900k and 13700k is offered to me and I’m getting either one for less than 13600k if I buy through retail channels. 😉

Yes, depending on my thermals I may have to disable cores or hyper threading. But based on some articles, either one @ 125w limit does incredibly well still. But I wasn’t aware that RKL undervolts better. Thanks!

13700k is better than 12900k in every scenario. IMO, its worth paying an extra $50.

 

[daglesj]

$50 difference for over how many years?

 

[E4g1e]

endlesszeal,

If your Intel motherboard is going to be running DDR4 RAM rather than the newer DDR5 RAM, then the difference in performance between the i9-12900K and the i7-13700K will not be great enough to justify the price difference, especially since the higher-end 13th-Gen CPUs will be significantly bottlenecked by such lower memory throughput. But if you're going straight to DDR5 RAM, then the choice of the newer 13th-Gen CPU is a no-brainer.

 

[chameleoneel]

endlesszeal,

If your Intel motherboard is going to be running DDR4 RAM rather than the newer DDR5 RAM, then the difference in performance between the i9-12900K and the i7-13700K will not be great enough to justify the price difference, especially since the higher-end 13th-Gen CPUs will be significantly bottlenecked by such lower memory throughput. But if you're going straight to DDR5 RAM, then the choice of the newer 13th-Gen CPU is a no-brainer.

The 13700k is strictly better than the 12900k, in every situation. Its worth $50.

 

[pippenainteasy]

Picking the correct CPU is all about matching your CPU with what you are going to use it for. You didn't tell us anything useful about what you are actually going to be doing with your PC. What is your "workload"? What do you mean when you say that you are "heat/power constrained"?

If your goal is gaming, and to get the most for the money, you could get an AMD 5800X3D (cheaper than any of the Intel CPUs you mentioned) with a cheap B450 or B550 board and some cheap DDR4. The 5800X3D can't overclock and only has 8 cores so the motherboard is basically irrelevant (not going to be pushing the VRMs). It has so much L3 cache that using DDR4, even slower/cheaper DDR4, results in almost no performance penalty. The 5800X3D beats the 12900K in almost all games and is even faster than the 13900k in many. Keeping in mind that even the mighty 13900k still only has 8 relevant performance cores.

If your "workload" is such that you can actually put the slow e-cores in the Intel chips to use, or your main game simply prefers Intel for whatever reason, then that is different.

View attachment 534844

Intel is probably underselling their own product with their choice of games, on average the 13700K is ~17.4% faster than a 5800X3D with Techpowerup's much larger gaming sample and that's even with extremely poor latency RAM (6000MHz CL36). With faster RAM speeds (which Intel is not constrained by, unlike AMD with their Infinity Fabric), it's possible to see up an additional ~10% performance gain with the fastest DDR5 RAM. Which I suspect is what Intel platforms will have to rely on to compete with Zen 4X3D until LGA 1851 is ready.

 

[GotNoRice]

View attachment 537048

Intel is probably underselling their own product with their choice of games, on average the 13700K is ~17.4% faster than a 5800X3D with Techpowerup's much larger gaming sample and that's even with extremely poor latency RAM (6000MHz CL36). With faster RAM speeds (which Intel is not constrained by, unlike AMD with their Infinity Fabric)

I'm not sure I buy that Intel would willingly "undersell" their own products on a marketing slide, but interesting theory. Most of the reviews that I've seen show the 5800X3D in a much more favorable light. Some games really love the extra cache and in those cases the 5800X3D simply blows everything else away. In other games, it's usually not too far behind.

https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/intel_core_i9_13900k_review,23.html


https://www.techspot.com/review/2552-intel-core-i9-13900k/#Gaming_Benchmarks


https://www.anandtech.com/show/17601/intel-core-i9-13900k-and-i5-13600k-review/14




In addition, to judge it's competitiveness in the proper context, it's important to not forget that this is a "previous generation" CPU we are talking about. It's easily available for $300; half the cost of the 13900k. Because it's only 8 cores and can't overclock, you can literally toss it in a $50 B450 motherboard without worry about the VRMs, etc. Because of it's massive L3 cache, it's not nearly as RAM dependent as other Zen 3 chips, meaning dirt-cheap DDR4 3200, etc, is just fine. The end result would probably cost 1/3rd of a comparable Intel setup, not to mention the people who already have 3 generations of AM4 motherboards that this could drop right into. You might even be able to save enough money to buy a new monitor or something at the same time. I only mentioned it because OP seemed concerned about price/value, and in that context, it's hard to ignore such a competitive yet cheaper option sitting right there.

 

[M1ddleman]

Probably should get the 13700k, it can hit 5.4ghz all core easier than 12900k 5.3ghz all core.

 

[kirbyrj]

Probably should get the 13700k, it can hit 5.4ghz all core easier than 12900k 5.3ghz all core.

I don't know that the difference of 100-200 Mhz is worth $50 though.

 

[rhkcommander959]

13th gen all the way, 13700k.

The 12900K would only make sense versus a 13600K, which still beats it in a lot of scenarios so its not worth it

 

[D-EJ915]

13th gen the cache frequency is decoupled from the ecores too so you can increase it without disabling the ecores like you had to do on 12th gen.