Question Help me flesh out a 12100F build

[Lil'John]

I'm pulling this out of my "cheap" low end gaming machine thread to focus strictly on the 12100F CPU.

From other thread, I am doing older games like Battletech with Roguetech upgrade(ie memory hog), Shadowrun Returns, and Warhammer 2. I have ZERO interest in FPS games or multiplayer type games. I am replacing a i5-4690k with 560ti in SLI build that the CPU died on(I think). The claim from Roguetech is it sees biggest benefit from single thread performance and not more cores.

I am choosing the 12100F because it gets me equiv or better performance for cheap. I understand it is only a 4/8 core but it will work for what I want.

I am replacing the 560ti SLI with an Asus 1050ti card. Again, low end card but I think I found it to be ~30% better than sli setup for cheap. So, good enough.

I am reusing a SilverStone GD08B case and a EVGA Nex650G power supply. I forget what version of SSD I'm reusing but it is an Intel 535 or similar in M.2 format.

From there, I'm at a bit of a loss for motherboard and memory.

For MB, I had the following recommended:
Gigabyte B660M DS3H DDR4 Micro ATX -- bad VRMs
MSI PRO B660M-A DDR4 Micro ATX -- good VRMs
ASRock Z690 Steel Legend ATX -- a hair outside what I'd like to budget on this
GIGABYTE Z690I AORUS Ultra LITE DDR4 -- just at max price point.

From a feature standpoint, I just need a solid motherboard. I have ZERO need for wireless, dozens of USB ports, or RGB fluff. My case does not expose the motherboard and will support E-ATX boards.

For memory, I'm a bit out of date so I'm still trying to figure what I need beyond 16Gb or 32Gb. I've seen 16CL mentioned as well as 3200 or 3600.

Lastly, should I invest in an aftermarket CPU cooler? And if so, what should I consider? A review or two have claimed I should ditch the stock CPU cooler.

 

[Tech Junky]

I suggested the steel legend and the se226xt cooler in the other thread IIRC.

As long as everything plays well together with adequate cooling it should be a vast improvement.

 

[OlyAR15]

I paired a 12100 with an asrock h610 mITX board. Cheap and small. No need to go crazy on the motherboard.

 

[Lil'John]

I suggested the steel legend and the se226xt cooler in the other thread IIRC.

As long as everything plays well together with adequate cooling it should be a vast improvement.

Pulling your build list over here:
PC Builder - Intel Core i3-12100, Radeon RX 6400, Fractal Design Focus 2 ATX Mid Tower - PCPartPicker

What made you suggest the ASRock Z690 Steel Legend ATX... the price works for me.

Also, I'm not familiar with PNY brand memory. Are they reliable?

 

[Tech Junky]

I recommend things I've used and don't give me issues.

I've used a few ASRock boards for builds and they just work. As long as you're doing fresh install of an os as you should be anyway.

Pny is reliable and has been around for quite awhile.

 

[Lil'John]

I recommend things I've used and don't give me issues.

Understood. I was just curious what made you pick the ASRock board. Any particular feature?

I have used an ASRock in the past and it worked..

 

[Tech Junky]

I look for well rounded options. It has a good grouping of options like the PCIE slots offer gen 3/4/5 so I can position cards where they're best utilized based on their speed. The power setup is decent. Plenty of fan headers.

Plenty of SATA headers for multiple drives which is a priority for me with 5 drives for "NAS" storage w/o needing to use AIC's to add ports.

The 3 M2 slots make sense w/ 2 of them being NVME and 1 SATA.

It's not RGB heavy or include a bunch of junk that's not related to the actual performance of the board itself. It's also considerably cheaper than it was last fall - NE is selling it right now for $140 which is about 50% less https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813162027

I didn't need the WIFI version because I already had the M2 / antennas to mount one myself as a backup connection. DDR5 didn't / doesn't make sense to pay more for such a slight gain in performance and added another $200 to the costs if going that route.

 

[Lil'John]

Pulling your build list over here:
PC Builder - Intel Core i3-12100, Radeon RX 6400, Fractal Design Focus 2 ATX Mid Tower - PCPartPicker

What made you suggest the ASRock Z690 Steel Legend ATX... the price works for me.

Well, shoot... non-sale price doesn't work. Wish I could have jumped on it last night

Any reason not to go with G.Skill Aegis Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin SDRAM PC4-25600 DDR4 3200 CL16-18-18-38

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08175L812

 

[Tech Junky]

Doesn't matter if the reviews are decent and not a bunch of fluff.

There's a couple of questionable reviews for that listing. Might work at full speed or might not but, considering there's 200+ ratings and only ~30 reviews it's a decent sign it will be fine.

as to the ASR just keep an eye on the pricing for a bit as it's bound to go on sale again. Use Honey to set a price alert or camelcamelcamel.com to check history on amazon.

 

[Lil'John]

And the build is a wrap with price and delivery being the main drivers. I wanted something on my desk early this coming week.

The motherboard is going to be ASRock B660M MicroATX. Price drove this. As noted, I just needed a black and yellow board that said motherboard; basically no frills. Since the CPU can't overclock, I don't feel I needed a z690 and I missed out on a deal.

The memory is 32GB G.Skill Aegis Series 3200 CL16. Price drove this and from my research, anything over 3200 is more geared to overclocking.

I went with the se226xt cooler and a tray 12100F CPU.

As it turns out, my old system didn't have an m.2 drive but an Intel 535 SSD 2.5". I may swap in a SK Hynix M.2 SATA 128GB SSD.

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

Have the prices on the motherboards for these come down much yet?

 

[Tech Junky]

Have the prices on the motherboards for these come down much yet?

Well, the one I'm using linked above was originally $230 and was on sale with NE for $140 for a day. Generally though ADL boards have dropped considerably from where they were at launch as expected to clear inventory to make room for RPL. Keep an eye on them if you have one in mind and you might catch it with a steep discount.

 

[Lil'John]

Quick partial update. I ordered a se226xt cooler and Amazon "jerked" me around with shipping it. It arrived and it was ~1/2" too tall for my case To add insult to injury, it was missing the Intel brackets. Basically a wasted week waiting for it so I could finally fire up a light gaming system.

I will admit, it looked like a nice cooler and may have worked in a taller case.

I decided to try a Scythe Big Shuriken 3 Rev.B and hopefully will get a chance to try some gaming this weekend. Still irked over additional delay.

 

[Tech Junky]

1/2" is disappointing it's a great cooler. This is where PCPartPicker plays a role in fitting things. While not 100% it does a pretty good job at matching things to fit. Amazon can be a pita at times. I had a couple of weeks where they kept missing their delivery dates and collected a bunch of credits for that to the tune of $30. Make sure you complain on chat and push for $10 instead of the normal $5 they typically offer.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Pny is reliable and has been around for quite awhile.

Yeah. PNY does NVIDIA professional workstation cards too. I don't think Nvidia would let them do that without passing some required certification for quality.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I may swap in a SK Hynix M.2 SATA 128GB SSD.

Better increase that to 256GB and make it M.2 NVMe. Windows 10/11 can mushroom to 40GB+ easily. It's always better to have at least 30% free space on an SSD with everything installed, to avoid uneven performance slowdowns as the SSD controller tries to find free blocks for its internal flash management and wear levelling routines.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Make sure you complain on chat and push for $10 instead of the normal $5 they typically offer.

My friend got roughly $25 coz the description said that a stylus was included with the laptop but it wasn't (it was a non-touch laptop. go figure!). Even after that, they didn't edit the listing to remove the free stylus offer.

 

[Tech Junky]

they didn't edit

Amazon is like eBay without bidding. Tons of individual sellers.

 

[Lil'John]

Better increase that to 256GB and make it M.2 NVMe. Windows 10/11 can mushroom to 40GB+ easily. It's always better to have at least 30% free space on an SSD with everything installed, to avoid uneven performance slowdowns as the SSD controller tries to find free blocks for its internal flash management and wear levelling routines.

I run a pure OS drive and then the games/apps go on another drive.

I'm currently typing from the new system and pretty happy with it. OS drive is about half eaten so no big deal. I've got a pair of 240GB Intel 535 SSDs(2.5" drives) for games. One is close to 190GB full.

On the se226xt cooler, I believe it was directly sent from the manufacturer... and it was one of the "Amazon Warehouse" deals so I'm not completely upset. But the almost one week before even sniffing a box kind of sucks.

I've been playing around and trying to "learn" Mechwarrior 5. It runs pretty smooth. I'm fairly happy with the purchase. For the price, I won't complain.

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

Better increase that to 256GB and make it M.2 NVMe. Windows 10/11 can mushroom to 40GB+ easily. It's always better to have at least 30% free space on an SSD with everything installed, to avoid uneven performance slowdowns as the SSD controller tries to find free blocks for its internal flash management and wear levelling routines.

Now that prices have come down, I'm using a 1 TB Silicon Power XD80 for my builds - mostly because of the 800 Terabytes written drive endurance. Sure, there are faster drives, but they also tend to be a lot more pricey.