12400F + H610/B660 Makes every other build obsolete

[Dogzilla07]

1. With 12400F being 180 eur in Europe (and comparable elsewhere), and ASUS Prime H610M-A D4 at 105 eur, together with Crucial 3000MHz 15-15-16 and the mobo having 2x M.2 slots + VRM heatsink, + PCI-E 4.0 + dual-channel RAM + Wi-Fi slot, this is it.

 

This is one of only 2 CPU+MOBO+RAM combos that's relevant in the best-buy category (if not at all), the only other being:

 

2. 12400F (180 eur) + ASUS Prime B660M-K D4 (129 eur) together with Crucial 3600MHz 16-18-18 and the mobo adding PCi-E 4.0 M.2 SSDs and memory OC (not like it's necessary, but a few % more fps), this is that.

 

Not only does this match 5600x, it beats it in 1% and 0.1% lows, and is more power efficient than AMD ( as of current tests, we need Steve testing of course). This (as of current testing) comes within 10% of the any AMD or Intel CPU for even 1080p 240Hz. Also don't buy boxed with stock laminar cooler, buy the tray version and get Arctic Freezer i13 X for 15 eur, and well just enjoy the absolute silence and 0 thermal throttling. And coupled with Kioxia Exceria 500GB M.2 NVMe which is 42-46 eur and is a DDR M.2 that trails significantly below the competition (or comparable Kingston A2000 if prices change), and you've got the absolute best bang-for buck which ends up between 500-600 eur depending on the PSU + CASE without a gpu.

 

SilentiumPC Ventum VT4V TG destroys everything no matter what market your in (as it comes with 4 fans, integrated fan controller and Phanteks/Lian Li style Meshfilter front) all for 55 eur (or Phanteks P400A with 2 fans for 70 eur). Add to that your choice of the current cheapest good bronze/gold PSU like Seasonic Core GC 650W for 66 eur and that all comes to either a grand all total of 535 eur with H610 or 565 eur with B660, and you are ready for Intel ARC A370/A380 4GB or AMD 6500 XT 4GB for < 200 eur, or Nvidia 3050 4GB (hopefully).

 

Heck with this Seasonic or something comparable, you can at some point plug in AMD 6700XT, Nvidia 3060 Ti/3070, Intel ARC A780 and enjoy gaming that has never been cheaper (for 1080p only until summer) for top performance (Until AMD AM5 later this year/early next year). Not counting graphic cards of course.

[YoungBlade]

H610 only supports a single memory channel. You cannot run dual channel RAM on it.

[Dogzilla07]

20 hours ago, YoungBlade said:

H610 only supports a single memory channel. You cannot run dual channel RAM on it.

Not true actually, H610 supports dual channel, it was a mistake/misinterpretation on the Intel picture graph from tomshardware. Check the official specs on the H610 page for the Asus motherboards I mentioned above.

 

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards-Components/Motherboards/PRIME/PRIME-H610M-A-D4/techspec/

 

Every H610 board from every company is dual channel.

[Dogzilla07]

On top of all of this with 12100/12400F + H610 supporting 3200 MHz memory, and Alder Lake IMC scaling by frequency seemingly being bad, together with another boost the H610 has over B660/H670 (I mention below) pretty much makes no VRM heatsink Asus H610M-K the best option for gaming from 3050-3090 Ti, 1080p - 8k - 480Hz.

 

Asus having outdone themselves, and their segmentation being the most consumer-oriented, I think they might end up winning this generation amongst the cheapest boards. Not only do their H610 boards have (on paper) better VRM Mosfets the all their <TUF H610/B660/H670 with 64A Mosfets, as I mentioned the segmentation is so good.

 

cheapest H610 ($95) > medium H610($100) > cheapest B660 ($120) > medium B660 ($140) which translates into (1xM.2 PCI-E 3.0 > 2xM.2 PCI-E 3.0 > 2xM.2 PCI-E 4.0 > 3xM2 PCI-E 4.0). and then H670 brings more PCI-E graphic lanes.

 

Granted there's a lack of USB-C, DDR5/PCI-E 5.0 which the competition has, but overall go Asus!, cheapeast board 100% running 12400F without heatsink and without overheating (pending HardwareUnboxed/Gamersnexus/other review of course).

 

below detailed comparison of them:

 

https://geizhals.eu/?cmp=2660862&cmp=2660875&cmp=2660678&cmp=2660681

 

From left to right, Prime H610M-K, Prime H610M-A, Prime B660M-A, Prime B660-Plus:

 

 

H610 (cheapeast Asus Prime) is shaping up to be the only board necessary for 12100/12400F provided that it supports MCE and unlocked TDP. Hopefully someone tests this soon. (and of course as u need more I/O/Lanes just step up to the next H610/B660/H670/

 

[Dogzilla07]

Below video, bad Alder Lake IMC, making H610 boards with 3200MHz and nice timings like 14-14-14/15-16-16/16-16-18 as good as top CPUs/MOBOs:

 

 

And additionally the video below this, showing Intel i3-12100 performing better than Ryzen 3600 (having 137 FPS in warzone, with 20 more FPS at 1% lows), then 108 FPS in Cyberpunk 2077 ( and 10 more at 1% lows). Overall better 1% and 0.1% lows for Intel for most games, except Horizon Zero Dawn and PUBG.

 

Additionally, Asrock is again doing the unthinkable and impossible. they are the only ones who have officially written than their 3 PCI-E 5.0 B660 Boards (B660M/B660 Steel Legend, and B660 PRO RS/D5), support using the new and upcoming 14000MB/s PCI-E 5.0 M.2 NVMe with I assume bifurcation support (using riser to split the main PCi-E 5.0 graphic slot into Gen5x8 for the GPU and a second Gen5x8 for 2x NVMe. Asus TUF and above might also support this, but there is no mention on the pages or in the manuals.

 

 

Granted it's not as elegant as the of a solution as the 6 x Z690 boards present with seperate actual PCi-E 5.0 M.2 slot, but the cheapest of those boards is $475, and these B660 Asrock will probably stabilize at $150, so yeah

[Dogzilla07]

Welp, that's it HardwareUnboxed just showed that 12400F at 65w vs unlocked is a really small difference, so that's it, H610 boards, specifically the Asus Prime H610M-K and H610M-A, are all you need to get the most out of your 12400/F (Barring some extremely unlikely and weird snafu with the VRM controller). And that is so close to 5600x/12600k, that the current price makes the 12400F + H610 absolute monster.

 

[YoungBlade]

1 hour ago, Dogzilla07 said:

Welp, that's it HardwareUnboxed just showed that 12400F at 65w vs unlocked is a really small difference, so that's it, H610 boards, specifically the Asus Prime H610M-K and H610M-A, are all you need to get the most out of your 12400/F (Barring some extremely unlikely and weird snafu with the VRM controller). And that is so close to 5600x/12600k, that the current price makes the 12400F + H610 absolute monster.

 

I wouldn't be so quick to rule out VRM snafus from Asus. If you watched the HUB B560 videos, you'll know that the Asus Prime in particular had some terrible B560 boards. The Prime B560M-K couldn't even keep the VRMs cool at stock with the 11400, let alone the 11700F or any kind of upgrade. The out-of-the-box VRM thermals after the stress test was 96C with the 11400.

 

Yes, the 12400 looks like a solid option, but cheap boards are not a good pairing with powerful parts. The H610 board you pictured above doesn't even have a VRM heatsink. I strongly question whether it can handle the 6+ core parts. Maybe the 12100 will work for it, but don't think for a second that Asus didn't cut every possible corner on the VRMs until demonstrated otherwise.

[Dogzilla07]

3 hours ago, YoungBlade said:

I wouldn't be so quick to rule out VRM snafus from Asus. If you watched the HUB B560 videos, you'll know that the Asus Prime in particular had some terrible B560 boards. The Prime B560M-K couldn't even keep the VRMs cool at stock with the 11400, let alone the 11700F or any kind of upgrade. The out-of-the-box VRM thermals after the stress test was 96C with the 11400.

Highly unlikely this time around, the Mosfets themselves are upgraded from 58A to 64A, but more importantly instead of 3 doubled/teamed FETs, there's now a true/real 6x64A VRM section. That coupled with even lower power usage of 12400F compared to 11400F and the irrelevance of running over 65w stock, the H610 Prime boards should perform extremely well. That is if there's not something weird Asus did in the implementation.

 

What happened with B560 wasn't a weird Snafu, (not in the context I'm using it now, my Snafu context is something that Builzoid wouldn't notice after examining detailed specs+pictures), it was just a too weak design choice.

 

3 hours ago, YoungBlade said:

but don't think for a second that Asus didn't cut every possible corner on the VRMs until demonstrated otherwise.

Exactly, the only reason I'm mentioning them is because on paper Asus hasn't cut any corners this time around. On the contrary, they seem to have done a full 180 with the lowest segment.

[Dogzilla07]

My god it seems i3-12100F for $97 is enough for gaming on any resolution and in any game, it truly beats 6 core ryzen 5 3600 and i5-11400 even in 1% and 0.1% lows. That's it 4 core is back baby #Return of the King!

 

i3-12100F ($97) + Prime H610M-K ($90) is only $187 !!!! and about $70 for Memory, and $15 for a cooler = <$300. And it works with 6900 XT and 3090 Ti for 8K/4K gaming. 

 

P.S. 12900K is still 50% faster xD, and considering 6+ core CPUs finally overtook 4-core on steam + Unreal 5, etc , ... It's not quite obvious if 2 years down the road 12100F will be enough, however a very unexpectedly great performance from H610 + i3, nonetheless.

 

 

[YoungBlade]

52 minutes ago, Dogzilla07 said:

My god it seems i3-12100F for $97 is enough for gaming on any resolution and in any game, it truly beats 6 core ryzen 5 3600 and i5-11400 even in 1% and 0.1% lows. That's it 4 core is back baby #Return of the King!

 

i3-12100F ($97) + Prime H610M-K ($90) is only $187 !!!! and about $70 for Memory, and $15 for a cooler = <$300. And it works with 6900 XT and 3090 Ti for 8K/4K gaming. 

 

P.S. 12900K is still 50% faster xD, and considering 6+ core CPUs finally overtook 4-core on steam + Unreal 5, etc , ... It's not quite obvious if 2 years down the road 12100F will be enough, however a very unexpectedly great performance from H610 + i3, nonetheless.

 

 

And yet, despite your assurances to the contrary, GN is still reporting that H610 only offers a single memory channel, with what looks like an Intel slide as evidence. Do you have any source from Intel that clarifies this issue? If H610 is limited to a single channel, then running a 4c/8t CPU of this caliber on it would be terrible.

[Tan3l6]

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/218829/intel-h610-chipset.html

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/218832/intel-b660-chipset.html

 

 

Whatever "# of DIMMs per channel" actually means, H610 is reported 1 and B660 reported 2

Quote

DIMMs per Channel indicates the quantity of dual inline memory modules supported per each processor memory channel

 

I think it just might mean that there are only 2 memory slots.

Like this Gigabyte H610 is reported dual channel, but only has 2 RAM slots:

 https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/H610M-S2H-DDR4-rev-10/sp#sp

 

[Dogzilla07]

54 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

And yet, despite your assurances to the contrary, GN is still reporting that H610 only offers a single memory channel, with what looks like an Intel slide as evidence. Do you have any source from Intel that clarifies this issue? If H610 is limited to a single channel, then running a 4c/8t CPU of this caliber on it would be terrible.

They have in their first comment below the above video, noted that Intel has contacted them to notify them that it was a mistake in the slides and that H610 indeed is DUAL CHANNEL.

 

That's on top of official specs on every motherboard page, and a couple of discussions on other forums, reddit, where Intel responded to people.

[Mister Woof]

I don't think obsolete is the right word

Other parts, even in AMD lineup, are still better, just more expensive

[BahnStormer]

As I understand it: H610 will run two sticks on the primary memory channel (in dual channel mode), but it doesn't allow a second memory channel to be spec'd by the manufacturer - hence why there are only ever 2 RAM slots on those boards.

 

The bit I'm not sure of is if this means you can't run mismatched memory (i.e. a 4Gb + 8Gb modules) or more importantly, if you actually wanted to do this (?!?), I doubt it would support the AMD-style "hybrid dual channel"... this is a pretty fringe case those - only likely when people start to do budget upgrades at a later date.

 

12400F is likely to be much more conservative than the i7/i9 systems, but my main concern would be the micro-spikes being demanded of the VRM's and certainly based on 10th/11th gen H-series boards, they have a reputation for power-throttling even mid-range CPU's and 12th gen might be very different and might now have "efficiency" cores, but this does NOT mean it has suddenly become efficient.... think of it as adding a token electric motor + small battery to your Lamborghini V12

 

[Dogzilla07]

22 minutes ago, BahnStormer said:

12th gen might be very different and might now have "efficiency" cores, but this does NOT mean it has suddenly become efficient...

12100/F and 12400/F both don't have efficiency cores, and in general 12th gen power(BIG) cores are more efficient that 10th/11th gen. GamersNexus showed that the single core of a 12100F is slightly more efficient than 5600x, which is a drastic improvement compared to previous Intel generations. It's later than AMD, and highly likely short-lived, as AMD AM5 will likely annihilate Intel, but until the second half of the year, Intel has the efficiency crown.

 

22 minutes ago, BahnStormer said:

but my main concern would be the micro-spikes being demanded of the VRM's and certainly based on 10th/11th gen H-series boards,

Asus prime H610 VRM is ~1.75-2x better than Asus prime B560, and moderately better than any other H610, and half the B660/H670. (at least on paper).

[Arethusa]

I just bought this combo. Total price in CAD plus shipping is $462.03. I will report my own benchmarks later. 

[Dogzilla07]

One things I noticed from GamersNexus video is that there's an error with the (not currently official listed) Gigabyte B660 DS3H DDR4 lineup, as on geizhals the VRMs don't seem to match what's on the official site (that's not completely out of the ordinary before the board gets actual prices), but still unfortunate.

 

https://geizhals.eu/gigabyte-b660-ds3h-ddr4-a2661685.html

 

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/B660-DS3H-DDR4-rev-10#kf

 

This makes this Gigabyte board really interesting for the price.

 

And also we really need a test, or someone to take a detailed look on those Asus Prime H610s. If geizhals made a mistake on the VRMs data, the Primes might not be as good (which is irrelevant for 12100/12400, but might deflate my dreams of 12600/12700 on H610 xD)

 

Here's a video of the 12400F and the the cheapeast H610 with the worst VRM on the market, and the conclusion is, no throttling. Granted a more detailed test from HardwareUnboxed would be better (as the board might be doing high temps on the VRMs) but this is a good a showing:

 

 

[Dogzilla07]

Additionally I found a 12100+H610M-K test, and it works amazing, 40W in PUBG, 12100/12100F can work on basically anything. As shown XMP works on both H610 in this video and above. so a nice 3000MHz or 3200MHz kit with 15-16-16 / 16-18-18 timings will do wonders:

 

 

[dulkenyut]

On 1/14/2022 at 2:28 AM, Arethusa said:

I just bought this combo. Total price in CAD plus shipping is $462.03. I will report my own benchmarks later. 

Hi, hows it going? Do you see any VRM throttling on H610M-K or any other issue that hinder your 12400F full (stock) performance? Because I am going to pick this combo too.

[Arethusa]

On 1/22/2022 at 10:14 PM, dulkenyut said:

Hi, hows it going? Do you see any VRM throttling on H610M-K or any other issue that hinder your 12400F full (stock) performance? Because I am going to pick this combo too.

CPU just arrived today will be putting it together tonight. Any ideas how to test VRM throttling? 

[YoungBlade]

8 minutes ago, Arethusa said:

CPU just arrived today will be putting it together tonight. Any ideas how to test VRM throttling? 

Run a core heavy load like Cinebench for an extended period of time (like 30 minutes or longer) and see if the frequency drops off after a while or if the system crashes.

[Arethusa]

1 minute ago, YoungBlade said:

Run a core heavy load like Cinebench for an extended period of time (like 30 minutes or longer) and see if the frequency drops off after a while or if the system crashes.

Sounds good! I will post my result within 24hrs.

[Arethusa]

[Guest]

Sub'ed to see results.

[Arethusa]

Just ran a sustained Cinebench load for 20 mins. Temps topped at 83c with stock cooler. CPU was pinned at 4Ghz didn't notice any issues. Will do some more testing later, but this is just for now.