Discussion Alder Lake - Builders Thread

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AdamK47

AdamK47

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
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This thread is for those of us that own or are looking to get an Alder Lake CPU.

Bought mine on release day. 12900K. Memory selection was limited to only Crucial DDR5 4800 at the Micro Center I went to. Bought two 2 x 8GB kits. Motherboard is a Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Master. I did buy a 360mm Lian Li Galahad 360mm AIO. Ended up returning it since the Lian Li Socket 1700 backplate that I bought separately worked well with my NZXT Kraken X73.

46RRrSN.jpg
 
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AdamK47

AdamK47

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
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I don't intend to use the 32GB of DDR5-4800 for very long. Availability of higher end DDR5 is non-existent at the moment. I ultimately want to get 32GB of DDR5-6000+.
 
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clemsyn

Senior member
Aug 21, 2005
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AdamK47 said:
This thread is for those of us that own or are looking to get an Alder Lake CPU.

Bought mine on release day. 12900K. Memory selection was limited to only Crucial DDR5 4800 at the Micro Center I went to. Bought two 2 x 8GB kits. Motherboard is a Gigabyte Z690 Aorus Master. I did buy a 360mm Lian Li Galahad 360mm AIO. Ended up returning it since the Lian Li Socket 1700 backplate that I bought separately worked well with my NZXT Kraken X72.

46RRrSN.jpg
Click to expand...

I did a 12600K with the Asus motherboard Z690A Prime with the same memory :) The Asus motherboard had holes that made my Haswell heatsink fit in the board.
 
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Dave3000

Golden Member
Jan 10, 2011
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AdamK47 said:
I don't intend to use the 32GB of DDR5-4800 for very long. Availability of higher end DDR5 is non-existent at the moment. I ultimately want to get 32GB of DDR5-6000+.
Click to expand...

I'm considering a 12700k with 32GB or 64GB DDR5 or whether just to stick with my 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 that I'm currently using. Is your Crucial 32GB DDR5-4800 dual-ranked or single-ranked? I want to get dual-ranked DDR5 with just 2 sticks installed if I do upgrade to a 12700k. You can check with CPU-Z to see whether the modules are single or dual-ranked.
 
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OlyAR15

OlyAR15

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Oct 23, 2014
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Dave3000 said:
I'm considering a 12700k with 32GB or 64GB DDR5 or whether just to stick with my 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16
Click to expand...
I've been thinking of upgrading to either a 12700KF or 12600KF, and reusing my DDR4 and 1TB Gen3 SSD. From all the benchmarks I've seen, it just doesn't seem worth it to upgrade those components. This test shows essentially negligible performance gains for games between 3200 DDR4 and 6000 DDR5. I'd rather save the money and put it towards better cooling and a new case.
 
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Aikouka

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
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OlyAR15 said:
I've been thinking of upgrading to either a 12700KF or 12600KF, and reusing my DDR4 and 1TB Gen3 SSD. From all the benchmarks I've seen, it just doesn't seem worth it to upgrade those components. This test shows essentially negligible performance gains for games between 3200 DDR4 and 6000 DDR5. I'd rather save the money and put it towards better cooling and a new case.
Click to expand...

That's what I ended up doing. I balked a bit when I started tallying up the cost with DDR5 included. I mean... it's just another $300 for 32GB, but given higher motherboard costs and the potential need for a new cooler, it was beginning to add up a bit more than I'd like. Once I heard that DDR4 performed just as well as DDR5, which shouldn't have been a huge surprise, I decided to look into DDR4 boards. I ended up going with ASUS's ROG Strix Z690-A Gaming WiFi D4. It was a little more than I wanted to spend on a board if I wasn't going to get 10Gbps Ethernet built in (it was $350), but I wanted one that had enough USB ports, and I like how ASUS allows for LGA-15xx/1200 coolers.

Although, now that I look at it again.... I might've made a minor error in my choice. I still use S/PDIF for connecting to my Logitech speakers, and it looks like I missed that this board does not have an optical out for the audio! Yikes! I could use the cables instead, but the last time I tried using Line Out on the back and Headphones on the front, it would treat them as one output device. So, that meant I'd have to ensure my speakers were turned off if I didn't want to use them. It's not a huge deal, I guess, but I like the manual switching as it's a very deliberate choice in audio output. Also, I have a 10Gbps Ethernet card lying around, which means I'll get to use an Intel-based chip instead of the typical Marvel/Aquantia NIC/PHYs.
 
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AdamK47

AdamK47

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
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Dave3000 said:
I'm considering a 12700k with 32GB or 64GB DDR5 or whether just to stick with my 32GB DDR4-3200 CL16 that I'm currently using. Is your Crucial 32GB DDR5-4800 dual-ranked or single-ranked? I want to get dual-ranked DDR5 with just 2 sticks installed if I do upgrade to a 12700k. You can check with CPU-Z to see whether the modules are single or dual-ranked.
Click to expand...

There aren't any memory chips on the back side of each 8GB DIMM so I would think single rank. I have four DIMMs which would be dual rank.
 
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KentState

KentState

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Oct 19, 2001
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It's been a while since I built my first DDR4 based system. How long does it usually take for the speed and quality to peak? I would love to try an Alder Lake build, but not sure I want to replace my 5950x build just yet. Maybe waiting for Zen 4 and seeing if Sapphire Rapids hits first?
 
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AdamK47

AdamK47

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
15,197
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I settled on running my 12900K at all 5.1GHz P-Core and all 3.9GHz for the E-Cores. Uncore/L3 is at 3.6GHz. The 32GB of DDR5 Memory is at 4800 with reduced timings of 36-35-35-72. Secondary timings have also been tweaked.
 
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Spicedaddy

Spicedaddy

Platinum Member
Apr 18, 2002
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Built my new system this weekend.

i9-12900K
Asus Z690 Hero
8GB Crucial DDR5-4800 (I want 32GB of faster stuff, but that's all I could find for now)
Noctua NH-D15S

I installed Windows 11 and it's running well. Multicore test in Cinebench makes it reach 90C, but I get over 27K so cooler is ok.
 
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DrMrLordX

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
21,610
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Spicedaddy said:
CPU Power was max 233W in HWMonitor. My UPS shows the system is pulling 300W.
Click to expand...

Nice! Intel seems to have avoided hotspotting with Alder Lake. No way you can cool a 5950X @ 233W using an NH-D15. Not even sure water would do it tbh.

Anyway you're bumping right up on the typical PL2 of 241W, so you aren't losing much performance.
 
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lightmanek

lightmanek

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Feb 19, 2017
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DrMrLordX said:
Nice! Intel seems to have avoided hotspotting with Alder Lake. No way you can cool a 5950X @ 233W using an NH-D15. Not even sure water would do it tbh.

Anyway you're bumping right up on the typical PL2 of 241W, so you aren't losing much performance.
Click to expand...

I think it's more to do with thinning die to HS, Intel did play with it already in previous gen and they made it better with 12th gen.
 
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xinthius

Junior Member
Nov 15, 2021
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I've just finished my new build - first gaming PC in a while. It was a hard toss up between this or AMD, but I felt that the CPU gain of the i5 vs the 5600/5800 was too material to overlook, especially for something I plan on keeping for a couple of years with the possibility to upgrade to DDR5 once prices become more reasonable.

  • i5-12600k
  • Asus Prime WiFi board
  • 16GB Corsair DDR4 RAM (Don't see the point spending too much on DDR5 currently)
  • Crucial P5 1TB M.2 (Again, don't see the need for a PCIE 4 drive just yet)
  • 6700XT
  • Corsair H100i Elite CAPELLIX cooler
A huge upgrade to the Dell XPS 15 I've been running in clamshell for a while (i7 9750h). So far I am very impressed.

Build 1.jpg
 
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