Mister Woof

yeah, I do suppose the price/performance of this is hard to beat...the 7800X3D is going to be $449 alone....

If you can wait a bit I'd consider the 7800X3D

one with bios flashback for sure, but i would think anything that would work with a 7700 would also do well with a 7800x3d

Pretty sure everything bottlenecks that outside of 4k ultra

7700 games a little better at stock values especially vs. 13600k with DDR4. If you're just gaming the 7700 makes more sense but you should prob wait a month for the 7800X3D.

Yeah, cooler installed wrong or pump is dead. 64w and 100c is BUSTED. Check mounting pressure and hopefully they used the correct mounting kit for LGA1700.

taxes? WHY DID YOU HAVE TO REMIND ME OF THIS EXISTENTIAL DREAD

if ambient is around 20c (68f) in the wintertime, you probably should be looking at around high 20c to mid 30c for idle temps. I wouldn't say 45c is alarming for idle temps

Download and run HWInfo64, click on the max cpu/thread usage to open up a graph, and also the cpu package temp and open up a graph, and also CPU package power to open a graph. Then play your game, and screencap the results for example my 13700KF while playing CP2077 for a few minutes: Tops out at 77C, max cpu thread usage of 73%, max package power of 162w. CP2077 is hugely demanding on CPU compared to the likes of Terraria...you shouldn't even be pinging 1/4 of your CPU playing that game.

It shouldn't get that hot by just running Terraria. I'm guessing whoever installed the cooler did it poorly, or it has some insane kind of voltage set up, or you have something eating CPU cycles beyond your awareness.

IMO don't buy that. Air coolers will not perform very well on these chips.

1.35v under load seems high; but your package power seems about right. When I run my i7-13700KF (same core count as your 12900k) it will hit around 80c on a single pass CBR23, topping out at around 241w. But it is only 1.26v under load. And a 360mm AIO quiet profile.

Saying a 12700k will bottleneck a 3060ti is just an Ackchyually move - it will bottleneck sometimes just like anything else will to greater or lesser degrees. This goes without saying. But pointing out an unreasonable bottleneck for the sake of argument is unhelpful for the question being asked. The real question is if it is a good pairing, and it absolutely is. You can reasonably pair the 12700K with pretty much any graphics card out there and at an appropriate resolution (that does not mean 1080p with a 4090), and it will work perfectly fine and get you good utilization.

Both HUB and GN tests CPUs at 1080p with a 4090 (to actually measure CPU performance, not GPU limits)....where are you getting 4k?

HUB does one thing well - they have huge tests suites. Often that is very useful. GN's problem is their suite for games is puny. I don't think any of them publishes bad data. It's just what data they have and how you apply it to your decision making.

Intel security fixes really screw over those generation of chips in even daily tasks like windows updates. I would update for those alone.

If you can afford a 4090, you should prob get the fastest gaming CPU you can afford. At present, it's going to be the 13900KS. But I suspect the X3D chips will beat it.

UPdate BIOS? 4 sticks is going to be more difficult to run than 2. Just the way it is.

So you already haven an 11700F? Just keep it. Upgrade the whole platform in a few years.

what is the frequency when you throw a workload at it?

The main issue with mATX isn't really the stardard itself, it's just that more often than not that is the standard used for more budget boards. Full ATX for higher end enthusiast boards, and mini ITX for compact forms. Both options have their share of low end offerings and super high end offerings, but mATX tends to mostly be low to mid-range only.

m.2 slot runs off the PCIE bus and could be causing some kind of instability with the system agent, which also has a role in memory. I would slightly increase your VCCSA voltage, up to 1.2v, and see if that helps. YOu might have to bump up your VCCIO a tiny bit as well, and also DRAM voltage to up to 1.4v.

Is this a fresh install with the new components, or is it a carryover install from a different system?

I hate to "give in" to the big corpos, but sometimes you gotta ask yourself if it's worth it. Amazon controls a lot of things, and being at their mercy in the case of service provisioning seems like it could backfire on you pretty easily if you aren't careful. Again, not trying to lick any boots here, because they kind of are the bad guys, but...eh IDK. I'm willing to bet they've sent you the wrong (but better) item in the past, forgotten to charge you for something, issued you a refund but told you to keep some item, etc., that would balance out this one issue in the grand scheme of things. So you could use that to somewhat assuage yourself of this issue.

Chargeback seems unwise in the grand scheme of things. Your standing with Amazon is probably worth more than the cost of one drive. I'd try to escalate it further, but if you can't, I'm not sure there's another option with an overall good outcome other than eating it.