My first PC build with i7 12700KF and RTX 2080

[Mysteryguy2107]

Budget (including currency): 2400 AUD

Country: Australia

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Mostly AAA title gaming and some 1080p and 4k video editing.

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): Already got an RTX 2080 which I was using with my Dell G7 7588 via thunderbolt 3 connection.

 

Hey Guys,

 

This is gonna be my first build. I just went with the numbers of the current 12th gen Intel CPUs and I felt like 12700KF is going to be the best CPU for me. I am gonna include the Gigabyte Aorus Pro Z690 motherboard (for DDR5 and PCIe gen 5 for GPU and Gen 4 for the NVMe). I already got an RTX 2080 with me which I initially bought to 'cheaply' upgrade my Dell G7 7588 (i7 8750H and GTX 1060 Max Q) but the performance wasn't satisfactory. Either the CPU is being the bottleneck or its the Thunderbolt 3 connection (and my money is on the TB3 being the bottleneck). For case, I am gonna go with the Cooler Master H500M (particularly for the mesh front panel and 200mm fans in the front) along with an AIO from Cooler Master as well (Their ML 360 illusion) and of course a 16 gig 4800 MHz double DIMM kit from Kingston. 

 

I am getting 55-60 fps on Forza Horizon 5 and about 30 fps on RDR2 (1080p max settings) and I feel like the RTX 2080 is being restricted by 4 lanes connectivity via TB3. Am I right for this one?

Also, how is 12700KF (I know the 'KF' model don't have discreet graphics in them) as well as an RTX 2080 (particularly from Gigabyte) on PCIe 5 (if I am not mistaken the Z690 Aorus Pro got PCIe Gen 5 for the GPU) are gonna go together? Has anyone ever run this setup before? Will it be able to do 4k gaming (Its a 'nice-to-have' feature for me)? And what PSU wattage should I target? Should I just go a 1000W modular PSU without too much thinking and call it a day? 

 

Do let me know your thoughts.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

13 minutes ago, Mysteryguy2107 said:

Will it be able to do 4k gaming (Its a 'nice-to-have' feature for me)? And what PSU wattage should I target? Should I just go a 1000W modular PSU without too much thinking and call it a day?

In my experience the 2080 is not enough for 4K native in any game I own, but it should definitely perform a lot better than you were getting.  In most games 1440p 60fps should be easy enough, in DLSS games they should be able to upscale to a reasonable 4K output.

I play a lot of The Crew 2 and I went to a 3080 to get that into native 4K, makes it look a lot less dated (as its quite an old engine now and still has some horrific asset pop-in issues).

If you have any plans to move up to a 4070/4080 then 1000W might be a safe bet, though I'm counting on 850W being enough for my build.  For what you are planning now, I'd think 650W would be enough, but it doesn't hurt to go higher than you need today to avoid having to replace the PSU again if you upgrade.

I currently have a 12700F and a 3080, it pulls around 550W in gaming.

[Ryuikko]

3 hours ago, Mysteryguy2107 said:

This is gonna be my first build. I just went with the numbers of the current 12th gen Intel CPUs and I felt like 12700KF is going to be the best CPU for me. I am gonna include the Gigabyte Aorus Pro Z690 motherboard (for DDR5 and PCIe gen 5 for GPU and Gen 4 for the NVMe). I already got an RTX 2080 with me which I initially bought to 'cheaply' upgrade my Dell G7 7588 (i7 8750H and GTX 1060 Max Q) but the performance wasn't satisfactory. Either the CPU is being the bottleneck or its the Thunderbolt 3 connection (and my money is on the TB3 being the bottleneck). For case, I am gonna go with the Cooler Master H500M (particularly for the mesh front panel and 200mm fans in the front) along with an AIO from Cooler Master as well (Their ML 360 illusion) and of course a 16 gig 4800 MHz double DIMM kit from Kingston. 

I'd recommend just scaling down to a 12700f  Instead since 12th gen as percesion boost which will raise the cores as fast as they can go. The z690 might be fine but for now at least I wouldn't recommend either pcie gen 5 or ddr5 to be used now since 12gen is a bit iffy with those. Since pcie slots are backwards compatibale,The gpu will most likely work in that gen 5 slot but obviously not at the speeds that the slot can handle. I hope you mean 240 front panel because I personally don't know of any 100mm fans. Of course you could also be talking about 200mm fans and that would make more sense. That 360 aio is most likely overkill for a 12700f or k, but it's up to you if it's based on esthetics. 12gen  will struggle to reach those speeds of ram due to it being in gear 1 ( im not entirely sure what it's called I'm just copying from @RONOTHAN## lol)

Going down to a 3600 or 3200 kit would be fine 

[RONOTHAN##]

46 minutes ago, Ryuikko said:

12gen  will struggle to reach those speeds of ram due to it being in gear 1 ( im not entirely sure what it's called I'm just copying from @RONOTHAN## lol)

Not exactly, that's true on locked Alder Lake CPUs since they've got locked VCCSA voltage, and in order to hit decent memory speeds on Intel CPUs you need to raise that voltage. 

 

On the unlocked chips, 4200MHz Gear 1 is pretty easy. 

[Mysteryguy2107]

7 hours ago, Ryuikko said:

I'd recommend just scaling down to a 12700f  Instead since 12th gen as percesion boost which will raise the cores as fast as they can go. The z690 might be fine but for now at least I wouldn't recommend either pcie gen 5 or ddr5 to be used now since 12gen is a bit iffy with those. Since pcie slots are backwards compatibale,The gpu will most likely work in that gen 5 slot but obviously not at the speeds that the slot can handle. I hope you mean 240 front panel because I personally don't know of any 100mm fans. Of course you could also be talking about 200mm fans and that would make more sense. That 360 aio is most likely overkill for a 12700f or k, but it's up to you if it's based on esthetics. 12gen  will struggle to reach those speeds of ram due to it being in gear 1 ( im not entirely sure what it's called I'm just copying from @RONOTHAN## lol)

Going down to a 3600 or 3200 kit would be fine 

Thanks for your suggestion. The reason for me to go with 360 rad is because I want some headroom to overclock the 12700KF (the reason for me to go with that CPU). Also, the H500M case comes with a couple of 200 mm fans in the front. I dont think I'll be facing that caviat of not being able to run full speeds on those DDR5 sticks since I'll be going with a 12700KF.

 

Do let me know your suggestions.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Mysteryguy2107]

11 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

In my experience the 2080 is not enough for 4K native in any game I own, but it should definitely perform a lot better than you were getting.  In most games 1440p 60fps should be easy enough, in DLSS games they should be able to upscale to a reasonable 4K output.

I play a lot of The Crew 2 and I went to a 3080 to get that into native 4K, makes it look a lot less dated (as its quite an old engine now and still has some horrific asset pop-in issues).

If you have any plans to move up to a 4070/4080 then 1000W might be a safe bet, though I'm counting on 850W being enough for my build.  For what you are planning now, I'd think 650W would be enough, but it doesn't hurt to go higher than you need today to avoid having to replace the PSU again if you upgrade.

I currently have a 12700F and a 3080, it pulls around 550W in gaming.

Thanks for your input.

 

Do you reckon it's the TB3 connection or is it the 8750H to be the bottleneck for the 2080? Just being curious at this point.

[Alex Atkin UK]

17 hours ago, Mysteryguy2107 said:

Thanks for your input.

 

Do you reckon it's the TB3 connection or is it the 8750H to be the bottleneck for the 2080? Just being curious at this point.

I'm just guessing but I'd expect TB3 to be the issue, with the 8750H possibly still being a bit of a bottleneck if you could push the full bandwidth to the GPU.

All I know is I could get really close to 1080p 120fps on my 2080 on a 9900K.  Now I can do 4K 80-120 on a 3080 though that's on a r9 5950X (I doubt the CPU makes a difference here, I just wanted to upgrade to use the old PC for AI upscaling).