CPU upgrade recommendations to match a RTX 3080 for 3440x1440@144Hz gaming

[Kintelligence]

Recently got my hands on a RTX 3080, but feel the rest of my system is severely bottlenecking it.
Am running it alongside a i5-6600k and 16 GBs of RAM, and see the CPU constantly running at 100% while the GPU is barely sweating.

I do mostly gaming with a little bit of streaming + watching others stream at the same time, on a 3440x1440@144Hz screen.
Alongside some software development, but that usually isn't very CPU intensive.

Initially I really wanted to go with an AMD CPU, but looking at the 12th gen Intel CPUs they are also very tempting.

Whether I go AMD or Intel I will need a new MB and RAM as well.
At least it will leave me with enough parts to make a new PC I can leave at my parents place.

Hope someone can point me in the right direction.

[Frenky]

I'm on the same resolution (@100hz) with a 3070 Ti and I'm running a 3700x without any problems. Any modern AMD or intel CPU will be fine for you. If I needed a new mobo/cpu right now I'd go with a 5800x but that's just my AMD bias.

[Pixelfie]

I would go for a 12700KF and Z690. That should pair well with a 3080. 5800X is good too if it's much cheaper, but I think for you the 12700KF would make more sense. Then for RAM I recommend 16gb 3600mhz, that's plenty for your use.

[RONOTHAN##]

2 minutes ago, Pixelfie said:

I would go for a 12700KF and Z690. That should pair well with a 3080. 5800X is good too if it's much cheaper, but I think for you the 12700KF would make more sense. Then for RAM I recommend 16gb 3600mhz, that's plenty for your use.

I'd probably go for the K version instead of the KF, since the price difference isn't huge (I've even seen the K be cheaper than the KF) and the iGPU is useful for troubleshooting purposes, but either one is good. 

[Cr33ps]

3 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

I'd probably go for the K version instead of the KF, since the price difference isn't huge (I've even seen the K be cheaper than the KF) and the iGPU is useful for troubleshooting purposes, but either one is good. 

It can also help for faster video editing/encoding because it has an APU

[Pixelfie]

5 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

I'd probably go for the K version instead of the KF, since the price difference isn't huge (I've even seen the K be cheaper than the KF) and the iGPU is useful for troubleshooting purposes, but either one is good. 

That's not always the case, but if it's cheaper or priced similar then it could definitely be worth it

[Kintelligence]

Where I am at the prices look something like this:
5800X - $420
12700KF - $460
12700K - $480

Trying to get an overview of what the prices of mobos are.
Any mobo features to look out for?

[Pixelfie]

1 hour ago, Kintelligence said:

Where I am at the prices look something like this:
5800X - $420
12700KF - $460
12700K - $480

Trying to get an overview of what the prices of mobos are.
Any mobo features to look out for?

For gaming the 12700K is slightly faster but nothing major. For anything else it's much better and often performs similar to or better than a 5900X. If you don't mind spending $20 extra I would get the 12700K. Also if you don't overclock it might be work checking a 12700 and B660.

 

For features it's really what you want. I just recommend to make sure the VRMs can handle these chips without issues. Some features that depend on the board are for example WiFi, audio chip quality, IO ports, how easy the BIOS is to use, etc

[Bobbysixjp]

The 12600K would not bottleneck a 3080Ti at that resolution. 

[Kintelligence]

On 2/27/2022 at 4:12 AM, Bobbysixjp said:

The 12600K would not bottleneck a 3080Ti at that resolution. 

Oh man. Was just about to pull the trigger on a 12700K, but looking through benchmarks the 12600K seems to be not much worse.
Any input on DDR4 vs DDR5?

DDR5 seems to be more than double the price…
And buying a motherboard I have to commit to either one or the other.

[Deadpool2onBlu-Ray]

On 2/26/2022 at 4:32 PM, Kintelligence said:

Recently got my hands on a RTX 3080, but feel the rest of my system is severely bottlenecking it.
Am running it alongside a i5-6600k and 16 GBs of RAM, and see the CPU constantly running at 100% while the GPU is barely sweating.

I do mostly gaming with a little bit of streaming + watching others stream at the same time, on a 3440x1440@144Hz screen.
Alongside some software development, but that usually isn't very CPU intensive.

Initially I really wanted to go with an AMD CPU, but looking at the 12th gen Intel CPUs they are also very tempting.

Whether I go AMD or Intel I will need a new MB and RAM as well.
At least it will leave me with enough parts to make a new PC I can leave at my parents place.

Hope someone can point me in the right direction.

Do not go AMD right now. Dead-end platform and has been 1 up by Intel. Grab a 12600k or 12700k depending on price. I personally think the 12600k is PLENTY especially at that high of res. As far as DDR4/DDR5, imo it is not worth moving to DDR5 yet. I would get a 12600k and a entry/mid level z690 board. 

[Deadpool2onBlu-Ray]

On 2/26/2022 at 4:39 PM, Frenky said:

I'm on the same resolution (@100hz) with a 3070 Ti and I'm running a 3700x without any problems. Any modern AMD or intel CPU will be fine for you. If I needed a new mobo/cpu right now I'd go with a 5800x but that's just my AMD bias.

In your case, 5800x makes by far the most since because you have an AMD mobo. If starting a new build, intel the way to go for right now unless zen 3 goes way down in price.

[Frenky]

2 hours ago, Ryan829 said:

In your case, 5800x makes by far the most since because you have an AMD mobo. If starting a new build, intel the way to go for right now unless zen 3 goes way down in price.

I'm still on X370 so if I wanted to move to a 5800X i gotta spend like 500 bucks. Makes no sense spending that money for like 10 more fps, especially if zen 4 is coming this year.

 

 

[Deadpool2onBlu-Ray]

2 hours ago, Frenky said:

I'm still on X370 so if I wanted to move to a 5800X i gotta spend like 500 bucks. Makes no sense spending that money for like 10 more fps, especially if zen 4 is coming this year.

 

 

Oh I assumed b450 or something. Yeah. Totally not worth it. Wait for a real upgrade like 5nm Zen4 and DDR5

[Bobbysixjp]

11 hours ago, Kintelligence said:

Oh man. Was just about to pull the trigger on a 12700K, but looking through benchmarks the 12600K seems to be not much worse.
Any input on DDR4 vs DDR5?

DDR5 seems to be more than double the price…
And buying a motherboard I have to commit to either one or the other.

DDR5 will probably become mainstream within two- three years I imagine. For now DDR4 is probably the best way to go but if you are the kind of person that doesn’t upgrade for 5 years then by that time DDR4 will be more or less obsolete (like DDR3 is now).
And as you mentioned DDR5 is crazy expensive now and doesn’t offer that much (if any) of a performance increase over DDR4. 
Seeing as the 13th gen will also be compatible with Z690 boards, you could get DDR5 now and then buy faster RAM when it becomes available. You could also upgrade to a 13700K in a couple of years time. 
If you go with DDR4 now you can still upgrade to a better CPU but of course you are stuck with DDR4…..

I went with DDR4 and a 12600k because I like to upgrade every couple of years. My plan is to wait until the 14th gen and then go with a Z790 board and DDR5, probably in 2024. 
 

[Queen Chrysalis]

On 2/26/2022 at 9:12 PM, Bobbysixjp said:

The 12600K would not bottleneck a 3080Ti at that resolution. 

 

14 hours ago, Kintelligence said:

Oh man. Was just about to pull the trigger on a 12700K, but looking through benchmarks the 12600K seems to be not much worse.
Any input on DDR4 vs DDR5?

DDR5 seems to be more than double the price…
And buying a motherboard I have to commit to either one or the other.

Listen to these guys.  A 12600k will not bottleneck anything at any resolution.  IDK what some y'all are smoking but there isn't a game under the sun that is gonna come within the same zip code of bottlenecking on a 10-core processor, especially considering how fast those Alder Lake cores are.  Don't waste your money on an i7 that will not give you ANY change in performance.  Hell, an i5 10400 would not really perform any differently for 99.9% of games at 1440 ultrawide, but I digress.

 

[jaslion]

19 hours ago, Kintelligence said:

Oh man. Was just about to pull the trigger on a 12700K, but looking through benchmarks the 12600K seems to be not much worse.
Any input on DDR4 vs DDR5?

DDR5 seems to be more than double the price…
And buying a motherboard I have to commit to either one or the other.

Get ddr4 ddr5 is not doing better than ddr4 except in some cases but not worth the early adopter fee for the slower ones.

 

As for cpu a 12600k by no means is holding back a 3080. I mean you can realistically achieve what you want with a cpu as old as a ryzen 2600 and not have a problem. Don't get it it's just an example.

 

So a 12600k is plenty for your needs. Also don't overspend on the board a msi z690 pro-a is plenty of a board and around 170$.

[linus is my favourite mum]

what resolution u use it at? That impacts the bottleneck

[linus is my favourite mum]

If u are using 1080p then i9 12900k is best. 0% bottleneck:https://pc-builds.com/bottleneck-calculator/result/1c9174/1920x1080/1/general-tasks/

[Bobbysixjp]

36 minutes ago, linus is my favourite mum said:

If u are using 1080p then i9 12900k is best. 0% bottleneck:https://pc-builds.com/bottleneck-calculator/result/1c9174/1920x1080/1/general-tasks/

Who would use a 3080 at 1080p though?

[Bobbysixjp]

1 hour ago, jaslion said:

Get ddr4 ddr5 is not doing better than ddr4 except in some cases but not worth the early adopter fee for the slower ones.

 

As for cpu a 12600k by no means is holding back a 3080. I mean you can realistically achieve what you want with a cpu as old as a ryzen 2600 and not have a problem. Don't get it it's just an example.

 

So a 12600k is plenty for your needs. Also don't overspend on the board a msi z690 pro-a is plenty of a board and around 170$.

Second the MSI pro-A

[Queen Chrysalis]

1 hour ago, linus is my favourite mum said:

If u are using 1080p then i9 12900k is best. 0% bottleneck:https://pc-builds.com/bottleneck-calculator/result/1c9174/1920x1080/1/general-tasks/

That's just an app, it's just guessing based on a very basic formula that doesn't take a lot of things into account.  And I know that the 12900k would not be ANY faster than the 12600k in games as they are the exact same cores and no games are running out of resources on my zen1 hyperthreaded hexacore, so an alder lake one WITH a single threaded quad stapled to it's ass would receive ABSOLUTELY no benefit from additional cores that are still running at the same speed.  Even if more cores did just magically make the games run faster like that app thinks they do, bottleneck still wouldn't happen there in real life as the ultimate 'bottleneck' for anything is gonna be a monitors refresh rate, and at 1080p no monitor is gonna be fast enough for a 3080 pumping out the type of meme-tier framerates you speak of, nor should ANYONE buy a 3080 to game at 1080p. 

[YoungBlade]

2 hours ago, linus is my favourite mum said:

If u are using 1080p then i9 12900k is best. 0% bottleneck:https://pc-builds.com/bottleneck-calculator/result/1c9174/1920x1080/1/general-tasks/

Those bottleneck sites are absolutely useless. I honestly think they do more harm than good and that the world would be a better place if they were all Thanosed out of existence.

 

There are dozens of reasons why they suck, but the biggest problem is that different games will bottleneck in different ways. For example, Control at 1080p max settings will not bottleneck on the CPU with any current graphics card. You can actually use a 6600K and you'll see identical performance to a 12900K with a 3090. Yet CSGO at the same settings with just a 2060 will be CPU limited, even with a 12900K.

 

There's no one number or metric you can look at to know where a system will bottleneck. You have to actually test it, or at minimum do a lot of research into the specific game or application and how it plays with each piece of hardware.

 

Please, never use one of those sites ever again. Your whole PC enthusiast life will be better off.

[jaslion]

4 hours ago, linus is my favourite mum said:

If u are using 1080p then i9 12900k is best. 0% bottleneck:https://pc-builds.com/bottleneck-calculator/result/1c9174/1920x1080/1/general-tasks/

Those bottleneck calculators are entirely and totally bs. They make no sense AT ALL.

 

I was typing an explanation but @YoungBlade pretty much perfectly summed it up and in better words than I could.

[Deadpool2onBlu-Ray]

On 3/1/2022 at 8:39 AM, Kintelligence said:

Oh man. Was just about to pull the trigger on a 12700K, but looking through benchmarks the 12600K seems to be not much worse.
Any input on DDR4 vs DDR5?

DDR5 seems to be more than double the price…
And buying a motherboard I have to commit to either one or the other.

Bro. 12600k. Stop overthinking.