Thinking about upgrading from I5 4440 to I5 12400

[MasserME262]

Hello all. Is that upgrade worth it?

 

Some years ago I started thinking about upgrading my 1050 to 1660ti. Years passed and I still have the 1050.

 

But some days ago I started thinking maybe it's better to build a new PC with a newer CPU, since upgrading the GPU would be useless (the CPU would bottleneck). So my plan now is to get a new PC with a modern CPU and use the 1050 until I can get something better (still looking at 1660 ti 6GB).

 

The thing is, what CPU to get? I'm thinking about the I5 12400, but is this a really good upgrade for IL2? 

 

Right now I'm playing a career, A3, in stalingrad. My PC will struggle and stutter during combat (6 A3s and some Ratas in air, plus 6-8 He111 being escorted; the PC really struggles).

 

I think it's important to mention I got 8gb of RAM, and I plan not only to upgrade my CPU but also to get 16GB of RAM (or maybe 32, not sure yet).

 

I then would keep my monitor, periferals, GPU and SSD (1 of 1tb and 1 of 240GB. No HDD), and add it to the new Mobo+CPU+RAM+power supply.

 

Any thoughts?

 

 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

[CosmiC10R]

i recently had to upgrade as my trusty 3930k fizzled out. That thing lasted 8 years OC'd to 4.1 ghz.

 

the 12000 series was out then and I went with an 11700k as I had to do Mobo, ram and cpu as well as AIO cooler because obviously the patterns changed on the mount.

 

I went 11000 series because they were all heavily discounted. I ended up getting the Aorus master mobo on at 50% off and the cpu for 349Cdn dollars.

Then I ended up with an NVME 4.0 ssd for the mobo because I read the read and write speeds of 6500/5500 mbs a sec.

 

I went with 32gb of 3200mhz ram. I did upgrade the vid card too too so its not really apples to apples but you will likely get better performance going to say an 11000 or 12000 series with 32gb of ram and then the vid card will throttle you a bit.

 

I just noticed a 6900xt for about 700cdn regular about 1600 on one site so you can do really well if you time the last gen clearout, pick what you want and stalk it everyday until it goes on sale. I typically do a bunch of research on pricepoints, figure out what I want and then slowly put those pieces together when they are on sale. If you were to go to 11000 series it might leave a bit to upgrade your vid card?

Edited November 6, 2022 by CosmiC10R

[blue_max]

the 12 series is a lot faster than the 11 series intel CPUs (the 11 series was basically a weird non-upgrade from the 10 series), so if you can afford it, definitely go for that just because it'll last you much longer down the road. But then you'd really need a new GPU because you'll max out that 1050 very easily.

[MasserME262]

31 minutes ago, CosmiC10R said:

If you were to go to 11000 series it might leave a bit to upgrade your vid card?

Thanks man. In my case, where I am from the 12*** are almost the same price than 11*** right now, so I guess I'm picking the 12***. Unfortunately, the graphics card have to wait for a couple of months, at least.

 

6 minutes ago, blue_max said:

the 12 series is a lot faster than the 11 series intel CPUs (the 11 series was basically a weird non-upgrade from the 10 series), so if you can afford it, definitely go for that just because it'll last you much longer down the road. But then you'd really need a new GPU because you'll max out that 1050 very easily.

Thanks. Yes, I think about the expected life of the CPU as well, so I guess 12400 will last more (I'm planning at least 7-8 years until next upgrade or entire rebuild).

[CosmiC10R]

for me it was a bit of economy as well. now that the 13000 series is outish im sure the 12000 is much cheaper. 

 

remember too that there is some scaling to this as well.

 

Coming off the old chips, memory and SSDs is an insane improvement vs the diff between 11000, 12000 and even 13000 likely. Not that its not better but you will notice the difference no matter which way you go.

 

Ive got it maxed out at 3840x1200 with AA at 8x and i get a solid 100fps at all times. Night and day to my old pc vs say the extra 10-30 fps you get over 140 with a brand new chipset. I tried not to get too hamstrung on the last 10-30 fps considering my budget and the fact i ended up replacing everything in the end and adding 2tb of nvme SSDs to the mobo because its so insanely fast.

Edited November 6, 2022 by CosmiC10R

[CosmiC10R]

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-11700K-vs-Intel-Core-i5-12400F/4107vs4121

 

The only benefit I see from the 12400 is the TDP, slightly better cache and ram scalability

 

Its rated at a lower clock speed and cant be OC. the 11700k boosts to 4.9ghz with no OC.

 

If you can I would go with a K series so if you want to go 12000 series get the 12700k which apparently is a very good gaming chip.

 

12700k

 

• Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 Frequency ^‡5.00 GHz
• Performance-core Max Turbo Frequency4.90 GHz
• Efficient-core Max Turbo Frequency3.80 GHz

 

11700k

 

• Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 Frequency ^‡5.00 GHz
• Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 Frequency^‡4.90 GHz
• Processor Base Frequency3.60 GHz

 

12400f

• Max Turbo Frequency4.40 GHz
• Performance-core Max Turbo Frequency4.40 GHz
• Performance-core Base Frequency2.50 GHz

[Sokol1]

i5-13600K + good B660 mobo + DDR4 3600Mhz have a good price/performance ratio, performance similar to the more costly AM5 Ryzen 7700X, 7950X with DDR5.

 

 

 

Edited November 7, 2022 by Sokol1

[CosmiC10R]

A member reminded me that userbenchmark is heavily biased so if you are using it, its pretty much only good for raw data comparison.

[Dallas88B]

I upgraded my rig with i5 12600k a few months ago. I chose this based on performance, heat output, power draw. 

 

A new motherboard MSI Z690 EDGE and compatible (much faster than I previously had) DDR4 RAM Kingston Fury Renegade 32GB 3600MHz CL16. (I ignored DDR 5 - it was out but was very expensive with no performance improvement)

 

I reused my Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360 cooler.  

 

I had previously upgraded the power supply to a SilverStone 1000W Strider 80+ Platinum PSU when the old PSU died. 

 

I don't play with VR. I play Il2 and DCS and a few other non sim games. Reckon this will keep me going years.

 

I had kept the Motherboard box so I sold the old board, Ram and cpu on ebay for a few hundred dollars and that helped offset the cost.

Edited November 7, 2022 by Dallas88B

[1Sascha]

i5 4400 to anything 12th gen (non-laptop) will be worth it.

 

I'd recommend what I'm using:

 

i5-12600K (or KF if you don't need internal graphics and if you can get the KF cheaper)

16 GB of DDR4 3600 (again: don't really need the faster 3600 RAM, but it's only a little more expensive than slower sticks) - unless you plan on hosting DCS maps or do lots of memory intensive work on your PC, 16 GB is plenty. I wouldn't recommend going with 8GB. Windows 10/11's requirements alone make 16 GB pretty much the minimum these days.

 

CPU: Unless you're on a really tight budget, I'd avoid anything smaller than the 12600 - it's pretty much all the CPU you'll ever need for gaming. And I would go with the K or KF if budget allows it, since those CPUs are just faster than all the other 12600s and certainly than any 12400 or 12500.

 

And price difference isn't that bad, not even over here where 12th gen hasn't really started to drop in price:

Cheapest non-suffix 12400 I can find is €210 at the moment while the 12600 KF is €266 and the K is €313. IMO 50 Euro/USD on top is a bargain when you consider the difference in performance. Passmark's rating for the plain 12400 is ~19000, non-suffix 12600 is ~21000 while the 12600 K and KF achieve ~27500.

 

Get a good, solid DDR4 motherboard (again: no need to grab a more expensive Z-chipset mobo if you don't plan on OCing). I would recommend MSI which seem to be the top choice these days for motherboards. MSI Pro B660 or H670 Tomahawk perhaps. Just avoid H610 based mainboards.

 

 

Initially I ran my i5-12600K with a GTX 1060 3GB I had lying around, since GPU prices were still quite insane when I built this PC back in March/April. IL-2 ran totally fine with that GPU in 1440p and I didn't even have to dial back the eye-candy that much. I was getting around 90 to 100 FPS in quite busy career-missions on the Stalingrad map.

 

IMO, right now is the perfect time to go with 12th gen  - especially if you're in the US where prices seem more attractive than over here in Europe. It's a significant jump in performance over 11th gen, it's still widely available, it's plenty fast for IL-2 or any other modern game and with the launch of 13th gen, prices have already gone down (expect in my country for some reason, lol) and will probably drop further.

 

 

S.

Edited November 9, 2022 by 1Sascha

[CosmiC10R]

 

 

[MasserME262]

Thanks everyone for the advice.

 

Finally I got a 12400, couldn't afford something faster.

MSI B660M-A MOBO, 16gb RAM (ddr4, 3200).

 

I'm using the 1050 (2gb non-ti) that I already had. 

 

Finally I can fly near Stalingrad without heavy stutters, however in Fortress on the Volga, the game stutters a little bear stalingrad (it's not heavy, but it's evident). It feels like a different new game now, I can finally fly and fight without feeling bad for my poor CPU.

The bad thing is I run everything to minimum.

 

I guess 1660 6gb ti is next

[Voyager]

Check you local stores deals and pricing. If you're just using DDR4, AM4 has the faster platform with the 5800X3D, but if you want to go with DDR5, some stores are offering bundles with free ram on AM5 platforms. DDR5-4800 does seem to out perform even fast DDR4. The Ryzen 7000 series CPUs don't really outperform the 5800X3D yet in Il-2, but there is the expectation that they'll have an X3D part out early next year. 

 

If you're choosing between 11th gen and 12 gen Intel, 12th gen is probably the best choice, especially if you can find good prices with DDR5, mostly because you could upgrade to the 13700K later, which is currently the top CPU for IL-2. (Heavily tweaked and with super fast DDR5, but that's for another day).

 

On GPU, for the Vander benchmarks, for Il-2 only, you may be better off getting a 5700 XT than any RDNA2 card right now. NVidia GPUs are still very expensive. 

 

I'd think the 5700 XT will be about comparable to a 1080 Ti in Il-2. Good enough for most things short of high res VR. There about $280 new or $200 used. The 1080 Ti is also available for ~200 used but it's also a rather old card. Interestingly enough 2070 Supers are about $275 used. 

[1Sascha]

20 hours ago, MasserME262 said:

I guess 1660 6gb ti is next

I'd wait until more 40-series cards hit the market (read: more mid-tier ones that people actually buy/use) and then I'd start looking for a used 20xx or even 30xx on ebay before considering buying brand new. 2070 Super, 3060 or even 3060Ti should be a nice match for your new CPU.

 

Chances are that once stuff like the 4060 is available, prices for used, older mid-tier cards will drop even further on ebay. And I don't think you're at much risk of getting ex-mining GPUs in the mid tier, since AFAIK most miners would've gone with higher end cards like 2080/3080 and up.

 

Used prices really shouldn't be that bad these days - I sold two GPUs in the past four of five months on German ebay, and:

1st hand, hardly ever used 1060 3GB brought €100 (sold sometime in May or June when GPU prices were still insanely high)

2nd hand 2070 Super brought €270 back in August (to be fair: I didn't have the original box or it probably would've gone for closer to €300)

 

Did you get a new PSU for your new build or are you using your old one? Whatever the case, you should make sure that your PSU can handle your new GPU and that it has the required PCIe-connectors to feed your new card.

 

S.

Edited November 11, 2022 by 1Sascha

[chiliwili69]

12 hours ago, Voyager said:

The Ryzen 7000 series CPUs don't really outperform the 5800X3D yet in Il-2

Do we have any evidence of that? particularly in IL-2 or IL-2 VR?

[MasserME262]

3 hours ago, 1Sascha said:

Did you get a new PSU for your new build or are you using your old one? Whatever the case, you should make sure that your PSU can handle your new GPU and that it has the required PCIe-connectors to feed your new card.

Thanks for the tips man. After searching a bit further, now I'm aiming at a 2060. But I gonna check those you mentioned as well.

 

I got a new PSU yes, it's 750 "gold". I think it's enough for some 20** but I'm not sure.

 

Also, a 30** is maybe too much for my needs, also it's quite expensive here where I am from (government restrictions for imported products made their prices go too expensive)

[Voyager]

5 hours ago, chiliwili69 said:

Do we have any evidence of that? particularly in IL-2 or IL-2 VR?

You're right. I think I was thinking of MSFS, where it does not seem to have much of a performance difference. 

 

Not sure how I jumped direct to Il-2. I don't think I've seen any Zen 4 testing in any flight sim besides MSFS. Even the one guy who got one on the DCS forums, last I checked, hasn't set it up and bench marked DCS. 

[1Sascha]

20 hours ago, MasserME262 said:

I got a new PSU yes, it's 750 "gold". I think it's enough for some 20** but I'm not sure.

Should be plenty. I'm running my 12600K (125W TDP) and RTX 3070 (220W TDP) on a Seasonic Focus+ Gold 550W.

 

When in doubt:

https://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator

 

But yeah... with your system and a 750W PSU, I wouldn't worry about it. Gold-certification doesn't automatically mean "good quality", but I think it's fair to say that PSUs that meet this standard are typically of higher quality than no-name, non-certified, ketchup-and-mustard-cable affairs.

 

S.