Question What is a reasonable intel gaming cpu ?

[you2]

I've not been following cpus for a couple of years now since my machine was fine (I had an i7 haswell refresh (lga 1150). Recently the system ceased to post; I suspect it is the mother board though I suppose it might be gpu. I had replaced the 10 year old psu about 1 month ago and all was fine until this afternoon. Anyway the system won't even post (I removed all disks); so I want to upgrade the motherboard/cpu and then reuse my old disks (including boot disk which has windows 10).
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I'm really unsure which intel generation and cpu i should go with - the motherboard will have to be an itx. A bit of googling suggest maybe z490 board with 10th generation i5 or i7 of some variety but intel loves marketing and has too many variations. I will not bother with over-clocking but want something at least on par of the linear speed of my current cpu (not even sure if that is an i5 or i7 ). Once i know which cpu to get i can find a motherboard that will fit it.
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I considered getting a replacement mb for my haswell refresh but why ?

 

[dullard]

For current gen Intel CPUs, I'd say the 12400F strikes the ideal balance between price/performance.

I agree with your assessment in general. Although, right now with a pricing error at Newegg, the 12400 is a much better deal (if you are willing to trust a shipment from a stranger in China):

Are you a human?

www.newegg.com

If you really are budget constrained, the 12100F can scrape by at low settings.

 

[you2]

While I would call the 12900KS an outrageously bad suggestion; i could see some folks considering the 12700 for the extra cores if they used the cpu for more than pure gaming. I'm ok with the 12400 i ordered - the price difference between it and the 12400F is minimal and it adds flexibility having the cpu's gpu. Also while not my thing there is some interesting software that can make use of the gpu's compute engine.
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As for ordering it from china;( bit surprise we still sell cpus to china ); i wouldn't. I need it now - not in 3 weeks.

 

[dullard]

While I would call the 12900KS an outrageously bad suggestion; i could see some folks considering the 12700 for the extra cores if they used the cpu for more than pure gaming. I'm ok with the 12400 i ordered - the price difference between it and the 12400F is minimal and it adds flexibility having the cpu's gpu. Also while not my thing there is some interesting software that can make use of the gpu's compute engine.
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As for ordering it from china;( bit surprise we still sell cpus to china ); i wouldn't. I need it now - not in 3 weeks.

You made a good choice. I personally would steer clear of the 12700 chips (anything i7 in the Alder Lake). The extra 4 E-cores really throw off what people are used to doing. If you aren't actively using the software, Windows assumes it is background, and thus the 4 weakest cores are now doing all the hard work while the 8 stronger cores sit nearly idle. While you can avoid this with workarounds, why buy a new computer and then need a ton of workarounds? Either 12900 and above or 12600 and below will work just the way you are used to it.

You did bring up something that might be good or might be nothing. When Intel comes out with its desktop graphic cards this summer, the iGPU is supposed to be able to work with them. In general, past attempts at dual GPUs were failures. But, there is a longshot that Intel has solved that problem of making the iGPU useful on your 12400.

 

[Tech Junky]

( bit surprise we still sell cpus to china )

From

Then again they're the source for the silicon they're made from. Now, whether or not they're able to get / sell cryptographically sensitive HW is a different story.

the iGPU is supposed to be able to work with them

Laptops have dual GPU's already and have for many years. The change by going 100% Intel or 100% AMD are the synergies they can deploy for a more powerful / faster setup between the different sectors i.e. CPU / GPU. Leveraging pathways that aren't readily usable when mixing / matching between vendors.

Right now though on the ARC series it's ultra/slim laptops dipping their toes into the water w/ the low end offerings. Card brining the fight though to the likes of RTX3070+ should be released by Fall (Aug-Nov). The interesting part will be pricing. Flooding the market with new HW should drive prices back down to reality.

 

[dullard]

Laptops have dual GPU's already and have for many years. The change by going 100% Intel or 100% AMD are the synergies they can deploy for a more powerful / faster setup between the different sectors i.e. CPU / GPU. Leveraging pathways that aren't readily usable when mixing / matching between vendors.

This article on the rise and fall of dual GPU's speaks better than I could. Dual GPU setups always have had problems with sharing a single bus, costs, micro stuttering, etc. Since this is a gaming desktop thread, the biggest problem would have been the micro stuttering when rendering different frames on different GPUs. Since they do not render at exactly the same rate, you get oscillations of long and short gaps between frames which can be highly visually distracting.

The Rise and Fall of Multi-GPU Graphics Cards

When it comes to graphics cards, more is nearly always better. More shaders, more RAM, more bandwidth. So how about more GPUs? Here's a brief stroll through...

www.techspot.com

What Intel is trying to get going is in their Deep Link. That includes sharing the workload on artificial intelligence, encoding, and streaming with the iGPU. These are areas where the iGPU can pitch in and help without visual issues like micro stuttering. For example, the main GPU can do the frame rendering and the iGPU does the streaming -- leaving the CPU at full capacity to do its tasks with little to no impact from the streaming.

Intel® Deep Link Support

See hardware requirements, validated games and apps, and how to enable Intel® Deep Link technology.

www.intel.com

 

[Tech Junky]

Ok @dullard Desktops w/ SLI / 2-3 GPU's in the case is a different story.

This first hurdle is the slots / speeds as most MOBO's hack off the speed of the slots as you use more than a single GPU.

X16 - slot 1 might be Gen3 or 4 with full x16 speed
X16 - slot 3 is chopped to x8 for bandwidth and reduces slot 1 to x8 due to the # of PCIE lanes available

If you happen to be using slot 5 there's a good chance it's running through the DMI which in anything prior to ADL is 1/2 the speed DMI 3 (prior to ADL) and DMI 4 ADL+

The problem with DMI is it's sharing all of it bandwidth across multiple functions from drives / sound / GPU's / basically anything in the system that doesn't require CPU direct lanes.

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Beyond this though with PCIE gen 5 / NVME around the corner it could consume your only PCI slot for a gen 5 adapter / NVME that can push 14GB/s. GPUs will take awhile to rev up their engines to get those sorts of BW to render even faster but, they're in the pipeline.

Do you need Gen 5 speeds on a NVME? No, most of the time even on a Gen3 drive it sits idle while the game is open / running since it's put into the RAM space after the initial load. The speed benefit comes with the the transfer from sotrage to RAM. Reducing the time spent waiting for the system to load things is where the improvements are.

Things are changing yet again though with MSFT testing Direct Storage that's supposed to streamline the process even further.

Taking a high level view to see the forest to see where you want to plant your trees helps get the best / most performance out of the HW you're putting into a system.

 

[you2]

A bit off topic; but do i want to upgrade to windows 11 (not possible before cpu upgrade). My personal inclination is windows 11 is a ms advertising platform and not a user os but perhaps i am misreading things.

 

[Markfw]

A bit off topic; but do i want to upgrade to windows 11 (not possible before cpu upgrade). My personal inclination is windows 11 is a ms advertising platform and not a user os but perhaps i am misreading things.

Since you have no E-cores, win 11 gives you no real reason to "upgrade". I hate it, and use linux on my dual-boot box with win 11.

 

[Tech Junky]

W11 is a double edged sword. ITD is implemented to take advantage of the big/little hybrid cores but, it's also a bit of a aesthetic backwards step.

Doing a regedit to move the taskbar is easy to do if you want to move it to the top but, right/left changes how it acts and it doesn't sit well.

If you swap to W11 I would advise blocking the telemetry / updates in DNS to prevent unwanted changes from happening due to updates.

I switched back in Sept because i got sick of the numerous update prompts from W10 constantly. I haven't had any real issues though with W11.

 

[dullard]

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There is a lot of text there, but what particularly did you want to say about the topic at hand: using the iGPU that has otherwise sat idle in CPUs for decades when you have a discrete GPU?

 

[igor_kavinski]

Reduce Process Interference with Task Manager Efficiency Mode - Performance and Diagnostics

Task Manager Efficiency mode is a new feature that gives you options to ensure certain running processes won’t stress the CPU out, leading to faster foreground responsiveness and better energy efficiency. It also helps you to identify apps that are already running in Efficiency mode and are good...

devblogs.microsoft.com

One feature that may interest you in making the move to Win11. Not sure if this is available in Production yet.

 

[you2]

Ok - i get the gist; stick with windows 10; hopefully more linux native games will be in the future.

 

[dullard]

Reduce Process Interference with Task Manager Efficiency Mode - Performance and Diagnostics

Task Manager Efficiency mode is a new feature that gives you options to ensure certain running processes won’t stress the CPU out, leading to faster foreground responsiveness and better energy efficiency. It also helps you to identify apps that are already running in Efficiency mode and are good...

devblogs.microsoft.com

One feature that may interest you in making the move to Win11. Not sure if this is available in Production yet.

The other thing (which may or may not make any difference) is running Android apps such as games on Windows 11. Sometimes having a bigger monitor makes a difference. But, since most apps were meant for small smartphones not everything translates well.

Mostly Windows 11 just has the annoying rearrangement of everything that you get with each Windows upgrade. Once you get used to it, it isn't much different from Windows 10.

 

[you2]

Ok. I know i am doing something stupid but where to look - i installed the new mb with cpu and ram. I put in both power cables and power switch/reset switch. When i turn the system on the fan cpu powers up but it doesn't post at all. Also the mouse doesn't power up (which might be a hint). What should i be checking ?

 

[Markfw]

Ok. I know i am doing something stupid but where to look - i installed the new mb with cpu and ram. I put in both power cables and power switch/reset switch. When i turn the system on the fan cpu powers up but it doesn't post at all. Also the mouse doesn't power up (which might be a hint). What should i be checking ?

What motherboard ? Many now have two CPU plugs, and if both are not connected will not post. And what slots are the ram in ? My 12700F took like 2 minutes just to post the first time.

 

[Tech Junky]

What should i be checking ?

Follow the manual and make all the connections.

do you get video output?
RAM - important some boards w/ 2 sticks want them in 1 & 3 / others want 2 & 4
Fans / lack of can make things not post
default the bios with the pins / screwdriver to reset everything

 

[you2]

The

What motherboard ? Many now have two CPU plugs, and if both are not connected will not post. And what slots are the ram in ? My 12700F took like 2 minutes just to post the first time.

The MB is itx z690m asrock. This mb only has one 8 pin cpu power cord and the atx power connector; both are in place. I pulled the ram to see if it would post without the ram.

 

[you2]

Follow the manual and make all the connections.

do you get video output?
RAM - important some boards w/ 2 sticks want them in 1 & 3 / others want 2 & 4
Fans / lack of can make things not post
default the bios with the pins / screwdriver to reset everything

No video. The fans are spinning (both chasis and cpu); I pulled the ram so no ram. I just want to get video post. I tried plugging hdmi connector into both the mb and the gpu. I first tried to post with just mb but no video so i added the gpu.

 

[Markfw]

Stupid question.... Is the power connected to the video card ? It may not post, even if you have an IGPU if thats not connected.

Oh, and NOT a stupid question, has the power supply worked on another motherboard ? Or is it new ?

 

[you2]

Yes i attached the power plug to the external gpu (1070). But also tried to post before i plugged in the gpu and that didn't work either.
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When i say post i just want the bios screen to show up on the monitor.

 

[Markfw]

Aside from switching out components one by one to known good components, at this point I an puzzled.

 

[you2]

Well the only component in the mb are the gpu and cpu. I could pull the gpu back out but since that didn't work - could it be the cpu? I don't think it is possible to put the cpu in incorrectly since it has the tabs that lined up on the edges.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Uhh, you won't get a video post without RAM installed. But if you have a beeper installed, you should get some "NO RAM" low-level POST beeping on the speaker, which will generally indicate that RAM and CPU are working.

 

[you2]

This mb doens't have a beeper

 

[you2]

Yea!! Putting ram back in and i got a video post but not from cpu; only from gpu.