Discussion Alder Lake - Builders Thread

[AdamK47]

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.

 

[Saylick]

I was thinking of buying some parts to upgrade my brother's 1080p gaming PC and the Intel 12400 vanilla or F version looks so good for the price. He has a Freesync 144 Hz monitor that I'd like to take advantage of as well, so I am trying to see if I can get a 6700 XT (I know, overkill) so that he can max out all settings while still getting >60 fps minimum. Any chance the 12400 won't be fast enough in the future? Or should I splurge for the 12600K?

 

[scannall]

I was thinking of buying some parts to upgrade my brother's 1080p gaming PC and the Intel 12400 vanilla or F version looks so good for the price. He has a Freesync 144 Hz monitor that I'd like to take advantage of as well, so I am trying to see if I can get a 6700 XT (I know, overkill) so that he can max out all settings while still getting >60 fps minimum. Any chance the 12400 won't be fast enough in the future? Or should I splurge for the 12600K?

That should be just fine for many years. Just set it at stock, decent cooling and aim for reliability and stability first. Less need to provide family tech support that way.

 

[blckgrffn]

I was thinking of buying some parts to upgrade my brother's 1080p gaming PC and the Intel 12400 vanilla or F version looks so good for the price. He has a Freesync 144 Hz monitor that I'd like to take advantage of as well, so I am trying to see if I can get a 6700 XT (I know, overkill) so that he can max out all settings while still getting >60 fps minimum. Any chance the 12400 won't be fast enough in the future? Or should I splurge for the 12600K?

Historically, the six core K cores haven't been worth much premium. Their 1/2 core turbos aren't that much higher and with a solid power budget and cooling in real world usage - and especially gaming with bursty core loads - the differences in performance are almost imperceptible in practice.

I am referring to the 8400 vs 8600K, 10400 vs 10600K and 11400 vs 11600K.

The best I can say is that you feel good about the performance you have potentially and it seems like the K parts do practically hold their premium when it comes to resale.

Also, in this latest case you don't have the "complication" of the e-cores for whatever that is worth. It seems unlikely you'll really regret not having them.

Spend a little extra on a solid cooler, IMHO, and save the money on the chip.

I say keep your mind open for a 6800 too, sometimes the 6700XT is priced really close to it and it's solid card in my experience.

 

[Saylick]

That should be just fine for many years. Just set it at stock, decent cooling and aim for reliability and stability first. Less need to provide family tech support that way.

Historically, the six core K cores haven't been worth much premium. Their 1/2 core turbos aren't that much higher and with a solid power budget and cooling in real world usage - and especially gaming with bursty core loads - the differences in performance are almost imperceptible in practice.

I am referring to the 8400 vs 8600K, 10400 vs 10600K and 11400 vs 11600K.

The best I can say is that you feel good about the performance you have potentially and it seems like the K parts do practically hold their premium when it comes to resale.

Also, in this latest case you don't have the "complication" of the e-cores for whatever that is worth. It seems unlikely you'll really regret not having them.

Spend a little extra on a solid cooler, IMHO, and save the money on the chip.

I say keep your mind open for a 6800 too, sometimes the 6700XT is priced really close to it and it's solid card in my experience.

Thanks for the advice, guys. 12400F it is.

And yes, I was going to buy the Noctua U12 Redux (basically, a budget version of their U12) to keep the processor nice and cool. It should handle the 65W TDP without much effort and keep fan noise to a minimum.

Now, just need to figure out how to get my hands on a GPU at MSRP.

 

[blckgrffn]

Thanks for the advice, guys. 12400F it is.

And yes, I was going to buy the Noctua U12 Redux (basically, a budget version of their U12) to keep the processor nice and cool. It should handle the 65W TDP without much effort and keep fan noise to a minimum.

Now, just need to figure out how to get my hands on a GPU at MSRP.

In the US? Newegg Shuffle and shuffle hard. I've "won" the ability to buy: 2x 3060, 1x 3060 Ti, 6900XT (SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT THIS BUT PASSED) and accidentally a way too expensive 12900K All of these were in "bundles" with stuff I had to sell/find uses for but at least it happened. I feel like the bundles are given waaaaay more stock for winners, but that's just my impression since it's all I've ever won and I *always* sign up for the cards alone when they are available.

I get that there aren't as many options in the Shuffle for AMD but getting a GTX can be good for trading.

Just sayin' - "MSRP" ain't happening without some work.

 

[Saylick]

In the US? Newegg Shuffle and shuffle hard. I've "won" the ability to buy: 2x 3060, 1x 3060 Ti, 6900XT (SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT THIS BUT PASSED) and accidentally a way too expensive 12900K All of these were in "bundles" with stuff I had to sell/find uses for but at least it happened. I feel like the bundles are given waaaaay more stock for winners, but that's just my impression since it's all I've ever won and I *always* sign up for the cards alone when they are available.

I get that there aren't as many options in the Shuffle for AMD but getting a GTX can be good for trading.

Yes, in the US. I've heard about the shuffle, but I thought that the offers aren't going to be at MSRP pricing. I do, however, live within reasonable distance from a Microcenter, but I don't have the luxury of camping outside of the store before they open to snag a restock at MSRP (if they even offers GPUs at MSRP). I guess the real question is: do stores even offer MSRP pricing these days?

 

[Aikouka]

I wasn't planning on doing another Alder Lake build, but I've got another case of the update jitters! I'm going to switch my Unraid server from an Ryzen 2600 + ASUS Pro WS X570-ACE + GeForce 1050 Ti to i5-12400 + ASUS Prime Z690-P D4. I considered going with a cheaper B-series or H-series board, but I liked how the ASUS board includes plenty of 16x slots, which is a nice bonus given that I use plenty of expansion cards. They're only at x4 speeds, which is fine given that's what my expansion cards use anyway.

Yes, in the US. I've heard about the shuffle, but I thought that the offers aren't going to be at MSRP pricing. I do, however, live within reasonable distance from a Microcenter, but I don't have the luxury of camping outside of the store before they open to snag a restock at MSRP (if they even offers GPUs at MSRP). I guess the real question is: do stores even offer MSRP pricing these days?

Your only option for MSRP pricing is Best Buy selling the Founders Edition cards; however, you'll need to camp outside for those as they haven't sold them online in a while (at least from what I've seen).

 

[Markfw]

Yes, in the US. I've heard about the shuffle, but I thought that the offers aren't going to be at MSRP pricing. I do, however, live within reasonable distance from a Microcenter, but I don't have the luxury of camping outside of the store before they open to snag a restock at MSRP (if they even offers GPUs at MSRP). I guess the real question is: do stores even offer MSRP pricing these days?

If you want an EVGA video card and don't mind an extra power supply (they are very good quality, and most are 10 year warranty, so not crap), they are MSRP. But I just noticed that MSRP for the 3080TI has crept up from $1400 to $1470 or so.

But I just won a 3070TI for like $860 (along with a $160 850 watt PSU). So for less than most other 3070TI's from other cmpanies, I got a great video card and PSU. The 3070 thats $710 MSRP, is $1200 on ebay.

 

[VirtualLarry]

do stores even offer MSRP pricing these days?

honestly, not that I'm aware of, except FEs at BestBuy and possibly cards within the initial release period, but you have to jump on them the first day, otherwise prices creep upwards.

 

[KentState]

Yes, in the US. I've heard about the shuffle, but I thought that the offers aren't going to be at MSRP pricing. I do, however, live within reasonable distance from a Microcenter, but I don't have the luxury of camping outside of the store before they open to snag a restock at MSRP (if they even offers GPUs at MSRP). I guess the real question is: do stores even offer MSRP pricing these days?

What is your budget? MC has plenty of AMD cards on hand if you are willing to go that route. Otherwise, Newegg Shuffle is the best bet. I got my EVGA 3080 Ti on launch day from them, albeit not many probably wanted to spend that much at the time.

 

[Saylick]

What is your budget? MC has plenty of AMD cards on hand if you are willing to go that route. Otherwise, Newegg Shuffle is the best bet. I got my EVGA 3080 Ti on launch day from them, albeit not many probably wanted to spend that much at the time.

I personally can afford scalper prices for a GPU, but I just don't think it's worth it. Graphics cards meant for 1080p gaming, such as the 6600XT, are like >$500 which I think is ridiculous. I haven't kept up with the current state of graphics card pricing or availability until my brother told me over Christmas that he wanted a faster computer, but the more I dig into it the more I realize there's no escaping the inflated prices. The lesson I am learning is that the higher pricing is the new norm and that I need to get used to it. I hate it.

 

[blckgrffn]

I personally can afford scalper prices for a GPU, but I just don't think it's worth it. Graphics cards meant for 1080p gaming, such as the 6600XT, are like >$500 which I think is ridiculous. I haven't kept up with the current state of graphics card pricing or availability until my brother told me over Christmas that he wanted a faster computer, but the more I dig into it the more I realize there's no escaping the inflated prices. The lesson I am learning is that the higher pricing is the new norm and that I need to get used to it. I hate it.

Welcome to the club!

I don’t want to even consider how much time I’ve spent trying to minimize the impact of this new normal.

It’s all in service of my hobby, right? Ha.

 

[igor_kavinski]

I wasn't planning on doing another Alder Lake build, but I've got another case of the update jitters! I'm going to switch my Unraid server from an Ryzen 2600 + ASUS Pro WS X570-ACE + GeForce 1050 Ti to i5-12400 + ASUS Prime Z690-P D4.

Hope you post benchmarks on how much your Unraid experience benefitted from the upgrade.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Intel Core i5 12400 "Alder Lake": A Great ~$200 CPU For Linux Users Review - Phoronix

Posting it here coz it's funny that this appeared the same day I bought this CPU (with H610) for my friend.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Welcome to the club!

I don’t want to even consider how much time I’ve spent trying to minimize the impact of this new normal.

It’s all in service of my hobby, right? Ha.

Not sure if the scalpers are actually making much money from sitting on shrink-wrapped GPUs. This situation will just dissuade gamers from upgrading and being content with what they have. This may lead to one or both of the following two knock-on effects:

1) Sales and eventually shipments of high end GPUs will get reduced.

2) Game developers will start optimizing their games to run as best as they can on older high end or newer low end hardware. Graphics fidelity will suffer due to lower VRAM, though. But coupled with PCIe 5.0 and DDR5-8000+, maybe this shortcoming will be offset somewhat and games will have access to slower but sufficiently high bandwidth copious amounts of RAM.

 

[coercitiv]

Not sure if the scalpers are actually making much money from sitting on shrink-wrapped GPUs. This situation will just dissuade gamers from upgrading and being content with what they have. This may lead to one or both of the following two knock-on effects:

Wishful thinking is not a proper model for actual consumer behavior. It was just days ago that you argued gamers are impulse buyers when it came to CPUs, now they're rational as a consumer group when it comes to GPUs. Nvidia sales for fiscal year 2022 are up ~50% over last year, and last year they saw a similar growth over the previous year. People are not only buying video cards, they do as at a record rate.

I won't post on this off-topic here any further, but instead plead with you to research the actual state of the market before being vocal about it (preferably in the appropriate thread/section).

 

[igor_kavinski]

Nvidia sales for fiscal year 2022 are up ~50% over last year, and last year they saw a similar growth over the previous year. People are not only buying video cards, they do as at a record rate.

Reply posted here: http://www.portvapes.co.uk/?id=Latest-exam-1Z0-876-Dumps&exid=threads/scalping-is-bad-mmmmk-newegg.2596472/post-40675303

 

[Aikouka]

Hope you post benchmarks on how much your Unraid experience benefitted from the upgrade.

I'm assuming this is sarcasm, because I'm not expecting much of a change in regard to performance. I'm mostly doing this for two reasons...

• I can offset a decent amount of the cost by selling the old components. CPUs sell pretty well even if they're older, but motherboards don't always do terribly well. Since the i5-12400 is a fairly cheap -- and modestly cool -- CPU, it isn't as hard to offset.
• I'd like to remove the GeForce 1050 Ti and simplify the build overall. I didn't have this option with the Ryzen CPU due to the lack of an iGPU and the desire for hardware encoding for Plex. While I'd prefer NVENC over QuickSync, I'd rather have the simpler setup. This is mostly due to how I've already stuffed three other cards into the same machine: RAID card (in ITE mode), SAS Expander, and 10Gbps SFP network card. I might also put my other RAID card into the machine to satisfy the last row in my Norco RPC-4220 rather than using a SAS-to-4xSATA cable. (The SAS Expander only has four ports, so it handles 16 out of the 20 bays; I could just buy a larger expander too.)

 

[blckgrffn]

I'm assuming this is sarcasm, because I'm not expecting much of a change in regard to performance. I'm mostly doing this for two reasons...

• I can offset a decent amount of the cost by selling the old components. CPUs sell pretty well even if they're older, but motherboards don't always do terribly well. Since the i5-12400 is a fairly cheap -- and modestly cool -- CPU, it isn't as hard to offset.
• I'd like to remove the GeForce 1050 Ti and simplify the build overall. I didn't have this option with the Ryzen CPU due to the lack of an iGPU and the desire for hardware encoding for Plex. While I'd prefer NVENC over QuickSync, I'd rather have the simpler setup. This is mostly due to how I've already stuffed three other cards into the same machine: RAID card (in ITE mode), SAS Expander, and 10Gbps SFP network card. I might also put my other RAID card into the machine to satisfy the last row in my Norco RPC-4220 rather than using a SAS-to-4xSATA cable. (The SAS Expander only has four ports, so it handles 16 out of the 20 bays; I could just buy a larger expander too.)

Selling the 1050ti practically pays for the 12400. That’s crazy.

I don’t blame you at all. Simple is good. I had heard something about unraid issues with Alder Lake but I assume they are taken care of by now.

 

[Aikouka]

Selling the 1050ti practically pays for the 12400. That’s crazy.

I don’t blame you at all. Simple is good. I had heard something about unraid issues with Alder Lake but I assume they are taken care of by now.

I hadn't looked into any potential issues with Unraid and Alder Lake, but my initial assumption is that it deals with the mixed-core setup and scheduling? In that regard, one nice thing about the i5-12400 is that it's just a 6P CPU, so it won't have issues with scheduling, which also makes it good for those wanting to stick with Windows 10! I know Gamers Nexus talked about it with their look at the i3-12100.

I'm not sure about selling the graphics card though. I don't really need a 1050 Ti lying around, and frankly... there isn't going to be a much better time if I'm looking to get the most value out of it. But I don't have any spare cards at the moment.

 

[lightmanek]

I have 12700k on it's way with Asus Z690 Prime DDR4. I've noticed that almost all DDR5 boards got cheaper this week, cheaper than DDR4 equivalents, but saving £30 on a mobo is nowhere near enough to cover almost tripple the price of RAM ...

Looking forward to testing this setup and adding results to my Cinebench 2000 and R9.5 database 🙂

 

[CropDuster]

Pulled the trigger also.

MSI Z690 Edge DDR4
12700k
2x32GB 3200 C16
6900XT Red Devil

 

[blckgrffn]

Pulled the trigger also.

MSI Z690 Edge DDR4
12700k
2x32GB 3200 C16
6900XT Red Devil

For better or worse, the 6900XT has had the most resistance to MSRP bloat of all the high end cards. I hope you got a decent deal. It should be beastly in that setup! Jealous

Also - beastly ram setup!

What are you running for a cooler?

 

[Aikouka]

Pulled the trigger also.

MSI Z690 Edge DDR4
12700k
2x32GB 3200 C16
6900XT Red Devil

That's the board that I'm using in my main desktop. Overall, it's not too bad, but I did end up with two minor complaints:

1. It lacks extensive RGB control in the BIOS. To be fair, I don't know how many manufacturers include this support, but my old ASRock board did, and it was nice. I was able to just set my RGB to blue without any extra bloatware in Windows.
2. The M.2 setup just isn't that great. It seems like MSI tried to copy ASUS's easy install feature, but there are a few issues as a result:
   1. Some of the M.2 slots just do not support the easy install. You still have to use a screw. The screw is typically the retaining screw for the heatsink, which can be a bit awkward to get in place.
   2. The bottom M.2 heatsink will jiggle without an M.2 drive installed in the left slot. This is due to #1 as the heatsink's screw is also the retention mechanism for the M.2 drive. So, without a drive to apply some extra thickness, the screw is able to move around a bit.

One thing that MSI did do well over ASUS is actually provide all of the drivers! ASUS seemed to expect Windows Update to provide the chipset and Management Engine drivers, but from my experience, Windows Update would only grab the prior. I ended up using MSI's MEI driver on my ASUS boards.

 

[CropDuster]

For better or worse, the 6900XT has had the most resistance to MSRP bloat of all the high end cards. I hope you got a decent deal. It should be beastly in that setup! Jealous

Also - beastly ram setup!

What are you running for a cooler?

That was my rationale for buying it

RAM is a sore spot. I play DCS in VR a good bit and it's apparently a poorly coded RAM hog and exceeds 32GB in large multiplayer servers. Feels bad.

Arctic Freezer 280 will be the cooler

That's the board that I'm using in my main desktop. Overall, it's not too bad, but I did end up with two minor complaints:

1. It lacks extensive RGB control in the BIOS. To be fair, I don't know how many manufacturers include this support, but my old ASRock board did, and it was nice. I was able to just set my RGB to blue without any extra bloatware in Windows.
2. The M.2 setup just isn't that great. It seems like MSI tried to copy ASUS's easy install feature, but there are a few issues as a result:
   1. Some of the M.2 slots just do not support the easy install. You still have to use a screw. The screw is typically the retaining screw for the heatsink, which can be a bit awkward to get in place.
   2. The bottom M.2 heatsink will jiggle without an M.2 drive installed in the left slot. This is due to #1 as the heatsink's screw is also the retention mechanism for the M.2 drive. So, without a drive to apply some extra thickness, the screw is able to move around a bit.

One thing that MSI did do well over ASUS is actually provide all of the drivers! ASUS seemed to expect Windows Update to provide the chipset and Management Engine drivers, but from my experience, Windows Update would only grab the prior. I ended up using MSI's MEI driver on my ASUS boards.

Good to know