Question Will the $115 I3 12100 processor reset the 'budget' PC scene?

Markfw

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I just read that the roughly $115 I3 12100 will perform roughly on par with the Ryzen 3600. This might make it the first decent 'budget' processor in quite some time.

Anyone think that it might revitalize the budget PC building scene?
The problem is the platform. No $50 motherboards with DDR4, so am AM4 board with cheap DDR4 wins in total cost, and number of cores. I just bought a NEW 5950x for $650 ! Arguably equal to the fastest desktop processor Intel has.
 
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OlyAR15

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The problem is the platform. No $50 motherboards with DDR4, so am AM4 board with cheap DDR4 wins in total cost, and number of cores. I just bought a NEW 5950x for $650 ! Arguably equal to the fastest desktop processor Intel has.
But the Ryzen 3600 doesn’t have an integrated gpu, so you are forced to buy a graphics card. That will likely swing the balance back to the 12100.
 

DrMrLordX

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I just read that the roughly $115 I3 12100 will perform roughly on par with the Ryzen 3600. This might make it the first decent 'budget' processor in quite some time.

Anyone think that it might revitalize the budget PC building scene?

Needs a (relatively) cheap dGPU to go with it. And tbh given the total price delta between the 12100 and 12400, the 12400 is more significant.
 

Mopetar

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The problem is the platform. No $50 motherboards with DDR4, so am AM4 board with cheap DDR4 wins in total cost, and number of cores.

I think the cheap boards will arrive in time. Up until now Intel only had the Z690 boards out because they had only launched the top of their line up and the people who were going to shell out for a 12900K were going to spend on a high-end motherboard as well.

Intel did spend some of their CES keynote announcing the new consumer focused chipsets and we should see the less expensive motherboard options hitting the market in the next few months. I don't think it's a stretch to expect cheap motherboards from Intel before we see cheap discrete graphics cards.

AMD can still compete at the high-end, but as far as Zen 3 goes, they never released any of the bottom half of the product stack. It's hard to fault them when demand has been so high and they've not doubt faced supply constraints of their own, but it seems like Intel is going to have the best budget friendly parts for the near future.

Perhaps that will change once Zen 4 releases or AMD finally gets around to releasing some parts that are targeted at those market segments, but right now there just isn't anything that isn't several years or generations old. Their cheapest consumer desktop part is the 5600G which is at $259 MSRP. Renoir was OEM only and their previous budget oriented APUs were based on Zen+.
 

DrMrLordX

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Technically speaking, the Intel platform here doesn't need a dGPU, only the AMD 3600 will.

True, but meaningless unless you're willing to make significant compromises. Within the context of "users of this forum" I would think they would at least want the equivalent of an old 1060 in there for low-rez gaming. Footing an extra $70 for the 12400 is a no-brainer, especially if you're going to do multiplayer stuff like Warzone or Halo Infinite.
 
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GunsMadeAmericaFree

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>I don't think it's a stretch to expect cheap motherboards from Intel before we see >cheap discrete graphics cards.

I agree, what's the point of releasing an inexpensive processor if you have to spend $250 to buy a motherboard for it? I'm just wondering roughly when we can expect some sub $90 motherboards to start arriving.....
 

dullard

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>I don't think it's a stretch to expect cheap motherboards from Intel before we see >cheap discrete graphics cards.

I agree, what's the point of releasing an inexpensive processor if you have to spend $250 to buy a motherboard for it? I'm just wondering roughly when we can expect some sub $90 motherboards to start arriving.....
Seems like you are a little impatient (and exaggerating). It has been just 10 days since the launch of the chip and $95 motherboards are already here. No need to pay $250 for a motherboard. https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813162055 Plus ASrock already has 5 motherboards on their website using the cheaper H610 chipset, they just haven't quite hit the market yet, so I expect the prices to keep going down. Other companies are announcing them too.

I do have to somewhat agree with @DrMrLordX though. While the 12100 might bring back sub $400 PCs, it just doesn't seem worth it to me. A $500 PC just has so much more value than the $400 PC. Although, I would personally go with the 12500 or 12600 over the 12400.
 
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scannall

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Seems like you are a little impatient (and exaggerating). It has been just 10 days since the launch of the chip and $95 motherboards are already here. No need to pay $250 for a motherboard. https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813162055 Plus ASrock already has 5 motherboards on their website using the cheaper H610 chipset, they just haven't quite hit the market yet, so I expect the prices to keep going down. Other companies are announcing them too.

I do have to somewhat agree with @DrMrLordX though. While the 12100 might bring back sub $400 PCs, it just doesn't seem worth it to me. A $500 PC just has so much more value than the $400 PC. Although, I would personally go with the 12500 or 12600 over the 12400.
If I were building a "Mom" box, with the cheap motherboards it is a value king. For my own uses, probably not. But I'm and most of us here are in a niche.
 

Arkaign

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If I were building a "Mom" box, with the cheap motherboards it is a value king. For my own uses, probably not. But I'm and most of us here are in a niche.

GPU wise the market is still really skewed. I mean the 12100 is basically a modern replacement for the i7-7700 more or less, and those still run most things pretty well with appropriate settings and GPUs aside from rare exceptions (admittedly these will inevitably increase with time).

I do think the 12400/500 are far more value for investment if one can swing the moderate price increase.

I'm hoping AMD hasn't written off the sub $200/$150 market entirely. Would be nice to see them fire back with something cool like excess 7nm capacity being used for a Zen3 budget derivative at 4C/8T at $99, or 6C/12T at $149.

It's all a situation that matters less right now because the budget GPU market, used or new, is so utterly broken at present. It wasn't long ago that used 970/980/480/580/1060 tier cards were common $90-$120 range options. Suddenly throwing a $350-$400 ultra budget gaming rig that's pretty decent for a nephew or cash strapped gamer is a real decent path at that point.

Right now though, ouch. Try to win a shuffle on near paper launch day releases or see revised models with a new UPC sell at 100% markups new and 300%+ used.
 
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epsilon84

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Not sure how a quad core with higher IPC will suddenly 'reset' the market. 4C/8T CPUs have been in the $100 bracket for a couple of years now, since 10th gen. Higher IPC doesn't make this a game changer. It's nice to have, that's about it.

The fact that it can outperform a 3600 in gaming is somewhat moot since most people in this category will be running low end GPUs and thus be GPU bound.
 
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Leeea

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I just read that the roughly $115 I3 12100 will perform roughly on par with the Ryzen 3600. This might make it the first decent 'budget' processor in quite some time.

Anyone think that it might revitalize the budget PC building scene?
not that long ago a G3258 could be obtained for $69.99
the main board for $70
the memory for $45
and a decent midrange 1080p video card for another $200

That was a budget PC in 2015 that would do 1080p for $385 + psu etc.


The i3 12100 at $155 cpu + $200 mainboard + expensive ram + mortgage your house for the GPU != budget


while there are no budget processors to be had, the cheapest way into 1080p is a 5600g APU ( $250 ) + $78 B450 + $77 ddr4 3600. Comes out around $405 + psu + etc. The best 2022 deal costs more and is inferior to the 2015 PC. That old 2015 rx380 for $200 will still outperform the 5600g's APU in every way.

-------------------------------------

What is especially sad is the i3-12100 has a nerfed IGP in comparison to its expensive siblings. They could have put a more compelling IGP on it, they just decided not to.
 
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escrow4

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If I were building a "Mom" box, with the cheap motherboards it is a value king. For my own uses, probably not. But I'm and most of us here are in a niche.

if you wanted a mom box you’d give her an iPad or chromebook. I haven’t built a PC for years but if someone still wanted one I’d expect a $100 or less mobo to go with this sort of CPU. And isn’t H610 gimped with single channel (or is it single DIMM) RAM only?
 

DAPUNISHER

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Intel just LOVES to nerf their own products. Having the iGPU be an x10, rather than the x30 that similar Skylake and Kaby Lake Pentiums had, is sad too.
The 12100 has UHD730.
if you wanted a mom box you’d give her an iPad or chromebook. I haven’t built a PC for years but if someone still wanted one I’d expect a $100 or less mobo to go with this sort of CPU. And isn’t H610 gimped with single channel (or is it single DIMM) RAM only?
It is one DIMM per channel.
 

Arkaign

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Vaporware?

I've yet to see one.

If they existed for sale, at $100-$120ish I would say yes, awesome, but it appears to be a similar paper entry like 3100/3300 😐😔

Edit : to underline this somewhat, an eBay search of recent history shows only 5 5300Gs have sold globally in the recorded period. 4 in the USA. All for fairly poor pricing. An identical search for either a 5600G or 5700G shows endless pages of results for the same period, maybe 250:1 or higher at minimum, reflecting product actually produced in higher than a handful of samples.

 

Leeea

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The 12100 has UHD730.
The UHD730 is the nerfed one.

Need to jump all the way up to a i5-12600k at $300 USD to get the UHD 770.

Even the UHD 770 appears* to be 30% slower then the Vega 7 APU on the 5600g. I have found no information on the crappier UHD 730 on the 12100. Thing is the 5600g is just barely enough for 1080p, so most consumers likely will find the UHD770 and UHD730 to be unplayable at 1080p.

*there are a distinct lack of head to head reviews. The best I could do was extrapolate.

---------------------
I think the best article on the subject is here, but it lacks the alder lake chips:
 
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DAPUNISHER

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The UHD730 is the nerfed one.
This will make you shake your head, but it is the mid tier desktop iGPU. UHD710 is on the Pentiums and Celerons. Which is even more nerfed, and what Larry was referencing.

Though AMD does basically the same thing; giving better iGPU the higher the SKU.
 
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Leeea

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Though AMD does basically the same thing; giving better iGPU the higher the SKU.
The difference* between Vega 7 ( 5600g ) and Vega 8 ( 5700g) is about 4%.

The difference* between Vega 11 ( 3400g ebay findable ) and Vega 8 ( 5700g ) is about 16% in Vega 8's favor.

*https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-5-5600g-review/3

That 4% difference could simply be from the faster 5700g CPU rather then the iGPU.

I would argue the 3400g is previous gen. I did not include it as a budget option as I could not find it new. Looks to be about $180 on ebay used.


But yes, it certainly appears that AMD is planning to do the same thing for some silly reason. The high end skews do not need the nice iGPU, any old just in case iGPU would be fine.

It is the lower end that needs it desperately.
 
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DAPUNISHER

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The difference* between Vega 7 ( 5600g ) and Vega 8 ( 5700g) is about 4%.

The difference* between Vega 11 ( 3400g ebay findable ) and Vega 8 ( 5700g ) is about 16% in Vega 8's favor.

*https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-5-5600g-review/3

That 4% difference could simply be from the faster 5700g CPU rather then the iGPU.

I would argue the 3400g is previous gen. I did not include it as a budget option as I could not find it new. Looks to be about $180 on ebay used.


But yes, it certainly appears that AMD is planning to do the same thing for some silly reason. The high end skews do not need the nice iGPU, any old just in case iGPU would be fine.

It is the lower end that needs it desperately.
Don't forget the 5300G (OEM only) has a reworked Vega 6 and the Athlon 3000g has Vega 3. Though they perform better than the Intel equivalents. Vega 3 easily beats UHD710 and so on.

I also agree the strong CPU performance of the 5600g and 5700G definitely helps against the older, significantly slower APUs. That also means the bonus of being far better with a dGPU later. I have both the 6&7G and they are great APUs. 1 click and the 5600g boosts 4.65GHz and the 5700G boosts 4.85GHz; good stuff.

I played with the UHD630 on the 10400, and it was okay with my GOG stuff like Fallout3/NV, Star Wars force unleashed1&2 that kind of stuff. So it isn't like the 12100 is not going to game; it is better than the 630, and attached to an impressively fast little CPU after all. I will have to look around and see if anyone is playing God of War on it though. That is something the AMD 5000 APUs can do at 1080p and FSR with console like performance.

But yeah, you can't buy a 12100 for MSRP right now, so it is definitely selling very well. Reset budget gaming though? My answer is -

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