Gaming Performance: i3 vs i5, i7, i9 Intel 12th-gen

so do you remember when all you needed for a gaming cpu was an i5 that was back when games barely made use of four cpu cores and it just made a lot more sense to spare that budget for your gpu i mean we have climbed tremendously in terms of gpu power since then but games are definitely becoming a bit more cpu intensive so with intel recently kind of finishing up their 12th gen lineup with the introduction of the i3s and the locked i5s this raises the question again how much you should be spending on a gaming cpu i mean how many cores and threads do games these days actually take advantage of do more course give you a smoother frame rate experience for example and is opting for something like an eight core or 10 core cpu for gaming is that considered future proofing is that something that you really need to think about so to test this i've paired a bunch of the new cpus from intel with one of the fastest gpus today the rtx 3080. at the bottom of the lineup we have the new quad core i3 12100f which despite only being 130 dollars boasts eight total threads boosting up to 4.3 gigahertz this is our cheapest option of the list and only pulling about 60 to 90 watts at full load it pulls the least amount of power as well then bumping up to around 200 bucks is the i5 12 400. for that extra money we're getting an additional 2 performance cpu cores a bit of extra cash and a 100 megahertz higher boost clock like the i3 though the cpu cores here are not overclockable but with 6 cores and 12 threads currently considered the sweet spot by many this is definitely one to keep an eye on now also an i5 but actually a very different cpu is the i5 12 600k the k denotes that this one is overclockable but this one also packs 10 total cpu cores the extra 4 cores over the i5 12 400 are the lower power efficient cores though so it'll be interesting to see how much of an impact they make for gaming if any stepping up to the big stuff now though we have the i7 12700k at around 400 we're now packing 12 total cpu cores made up of eight performance cores and four efficient cores at this point beefy air coolers or liquid calling would be recommended with those performance cores now boosting up to five gigahertz here is the end game though it's the i9 12 900k this is the fastest desktop processor that you can buy at the moment beating both the ryzen 5900x and 5950x in gaming and production workloads although pulling a lot more power while doing so and honestly that pretty much goes for the rest of intel's 12th gen lineup as well as much as i love amd ryzen 5000 and all of the epic builds that i've done with those cpus in the past that ship has kind of sailed they had a long and powerful rain and so if you're asking what about amd ryzen uh intel's 12th gen is pretty much just the way to go at the moment both for gaming and production workloads and speaking of production workloads that's probably a really good place to start so we all know that more cores and threads scale pretty much linearly in multi-threaded apps like cinebench r23 and blender so some of these results should be no surprise to you but a really interesting comparison here is between the i5 12400 and the i5 12600k so they are both i5s but remember the 12600k has an additional four efficient cores over the 12 400 and despite being clocked lower they do improve performance here by quite a bit that carries on in v-ray 2 where the 12600k has a 32 uplift over the 12 400 again despite them both being called i5s as for the i3 12 100 f multi-threaded performance here isn't terrible for a quad core cpu at all where it's really impressive though is where it comes to single threaded performance in cinebench where it just beats all of amd's ryzen 5000 cpus so what does that mean when it comes to gaming performance well it means that in some games the i3 can keep up with the demands of most modern titles unless they're very cpu intensive do maternal is a great example of that story based first person shooter not very cpu intensive aside from the high frame rates and the 130 i3 is able to deliver performance that is indistinguishable versus the 600 i9 12 900 k cpu usage is a fair bit higher and the frame rate graph is a bit more variable but overall it's still a really impressive performance of course though on the flip side there are games out there which are a lot more demanding on the cpu whether that's down to being less optimized or incorporating a bit more ai into the game's code cyberpunk 2077 is a really good example of that where the i3 is really close to touching 100 cpu utilization and on average here is about 12 and a half percent slower than the i5 12 400. what's really good to see here though is that it still delivers a pretty smooth stutter-free experience despite almost being completely maxed out the comparison here between the two i5s is also pretty interesting where on average the 12600k is about six percent faster on average than the 12 400. when we sub in the i7 and the i9 though things don't seem to improve that much further there's a bit of a gain here by bumping up to the i7 but the i9 isn't able to take it much further than that the i9 is only slightly faster here when it comes to the lowest one percent of frame rate over the i7 12 700 k but for the most part it's the i5 12 600k that gets us most of the way there so cyberpunk is a bit of a hand selected game here to represent something that's a bit more cpu intensive and so is rainbow six siege running at 1080p with an rtx 3080. i mean at this point we're really pushing these cpus as much as we can to see how many draw calls they can handle before becoming a bottleneck so you're not going to notice the difference between 400 and 500 fps here but it's still a pretty interesting test here the i3 is still able to cope quite fine no stuttering or hiccups whatsoever and cpu usage also has a bit of headroom just as in cyberpunk though it's the 12600k which gets us most of the way there when we sub in the i7 and the i9 the results are virtually identical between them not really giving us much more performance jumping into f1 2021 which is typically referred to as a relatively cpu intensive game but here the more affordable i3 and i5 are really proving themselves as strong options at 1440p with the 3080 delivering over 200 fps they are neck and neck with the i9 12 900k not only that but cpu usage looks fine proves that there is a bit of headroom here in the tank as well and the i3 is no more stuttery than the i9 it's only when we drop the resolution down to 1080p that we can force a bottleneck for that i3 and at that point the higher core count faster cpus are able to stretch their legs a bit further death stranding is a very similar case to that this game can get heavily cpu bottleneck if you select the right options and the right graphics and run it at lower resolutions you'll honestly see scaling there all the way up to the 12 900k at more realistic resolutions and settings though stuff that we'd actually be playing at that's all the i3 really needs to catch its breath and deliver performance that's virtually equal to the i7 and the i9 here so are the days back where all you need for gaming is an i5 well pretty much i would say i5 is definitely a really solid option but even more competitive is the i3 at 130 dollars i mean sure there are games out there where we can clearly illustrate a difference between these different tiers of cpus but for most games out there there's just not a massive difference and even when there is a difference i'm talking hand-picked games high frame rates low settings you know to really force a cpu bottleneck you'd be hard-pressed to buy anything more than an i5 12-600k purely on a gaming focused pc so i7 i9 not really worth it when it comes to building a gaming focus pc if you haven't you know already maxed out the budget for your gpu of course if you're already going with like a 3080 3080 ti i can see why someone would also go with like a 12700k or 12 900k just because they're looking for components to upgrade i kind of get that but if you have not you know maxed out the budget for your gpu and you're looking at like an i7 then i would highly recommend taking a couple of steps back and looking at the i5s instead i know that kind of sounds a bit absurd to some people but man these i5s are really really quick i would much rather go like i five twelve four hundred paired with an rtx 3080 compared to say 12700k and a 30 70 or a 3060 ti of course i can highly recommend the i7 and the i9 cpus for production workloads though so if you're doing some editing cpu encoding rendering and stuff like that that is of course where those cpus and those high core counts do make sense now the decision between the i3 and the i5s that is a little bit more tricky but this is how i would break it down the 12600k is what i would recommend as your enthusiast cpu option something that you'd go with if you're someone who plays at higher frame rates if you have a 240hz monitor for example and you play with lower quality settings in that scenario you're more likely to impose a cpu bottleneck and so the 12600k will help you overcome that do keep in mind though that the 12600k is at least 100 more expensive than the i5 12 400 i say at least because you also need to factor in the slightly better cooling solution that you'll need for the 12600k as well as if you plan to overclock it on a z690 motherboard and again it comes back to the point of trying to maximize the budget for your gpu if for example by going with the i5 12 400 you can save a bit of cash and then upgrade from a 3060 to a 360 ti then that would be the way to go instead of going for the 12600k and then as for the i312 100f i mean really you can't make a stronger case for any cpu in intel's current lineup at 130 you are just getting insane performance here and for those that are playing at higher resolutions higher quality settings or maybe pairing it with you know maybe not a crazy gpu those are situations where you're not going to be cpu bottlenecked as much and the 12100f is a seriously good choice again save that cash put it towards a stronger gpu where you'll actually be making a big difference so that pretty much wraps up everything that you need to know in a nutshell i will have the cpus linked down below and i really hope that this video helped you out as always a huge thanks for watching and i will see you all in the next one

Channel: Optimum Tech

Views: 369,132

Keywords: i3 12100F, i5 12400, i5 12600K, i7 12700K, i9 12900K, intel 12th gen, intel alder lake, i3 vs i5, i5 vs i7, is i7 worth it for gaming, optimum tech, gaming benchmarks

Id: nhlhA9AnT_s

Length: 9min 58sec (598 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 24 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/capn_hector]

One thing to bear in mind is that in the past, higher thread counts have ended up stretching their legs later in the life of the processor. For a lot of the time a 2500K or 4690K was good enough, until it wasn’t. It was good for 3 years and the i7 took over in the 4-5 year window. But if you asked this question on the day the 2500K launched then no, obviously it’s not going to be showing a difference at that point. So it doesn’t necessarily make sense to make that call based on todays games and GPUs either.

The counterbalance is that per-thread performance improves over time as well, so the question is always, by the time you need the higher thread count, would you be better off just upgrading to something else? Obviously when things are improving quickly the answer is buy lower in the stack but more frequently, and when things stall out it’s better to buy higher in the stack and just run it forever.

[u/JonWood007]

I mean i5s are normally the best product for price/performance. i3s cut corners and are a little low on longevity, as shown by the 12100 lagging a bit behind the 12400. Now theres a premium i5 and a budget i5, and which one is better ultimately comes down to budget. i7 and above are generally enthusiast products that are overkill for gaming. Unless you buy right before a major jump like I did with the 7700k, which was similar in performance to like a coffee lake i5, buying i7s isnt worth it. Even then, my i7 cost as much as a premium i5 would today (literally cost me as much as a 12600k or 5600x would).

So yeah. Heres the thing about OVERBUYING. If you overbuy, odds are by the time you need the cores and threads the future product offers, it will be outdated. If you bought a 1600x or 1700, you mightve done better than with a 7600k, but if youre comparing to a 8600k or something liike that, eh...by the time you need those threads, it's gonna be dated. The 8700k is doing the same thing. The only game ive legit been cpu bottlenecked in with my 7700k is BF2042...but BF2042 doesnt benefit from more cores much. If I had a 8700k, Id get like an extra 10 FPS and thats it. Might as well just turn xmp on. What really matters in 2042 is stronger IPC, meaning 12th gen intel and 5th gen ryzen tend to run circles around both the 7700k and 8700k.

Ya know? I would say look at thread usage today, and maybe go ONE step above that.

buying 4/8 right now isnt a good idea. The 12100 is a robust product that will outpace an older 6/12 cpu with weak single thread like a 3600, but if you can buy a 12400 its a better deal. 12400 is the minimum id recomemnd if you buy now, and i would look into maybe a 12600k just to ensure I have enough threads in the future. Alrhough I suspect by the time you need a 16 thread processor, it will end up doing what the 8700k is doing now, where it gets better performance, but it's not really gonna benefit much.

It's largely not worth it to go for an i7 or i9. By the time you actually use that many threads, there will be MUCH better products on the market. The way theres MUCH better products than an 8700k or a 1700 on the market now if you want that many threads.

[u/kunanon21]

Benchmark gaming performance without benchmarking emulator gonna be my new pet peeve.

[u/ReasonableBass]

I think the video takes on a subject that is harder to demonstrate than most people think: how many cores you need for gaming and how higher turbo boost impact gaming results. I say that it all depends on your monitor refresh rate. gaming at 60hz you wont need nearly as much cpu as you gonna need when gaming at 240hz. great video, thanks for sharing.