Which CPU

[DANK_AS_gay]

Budget (including currency): $150 US (as cheap as possible)

Country: US

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Apex, Forza, emulation, future games

Other details Bought GTX 1070, so I would technically be fine with an i3 12100, but I am worried that the 4 core 8 thread CPU will age poorly. As such I wanted to get the i5 12400f, but paying $150 (same as my 1070) seems a bit much. So, I am here to ask, what CPU would be ideal? The 12400f would let me keep the same CPU for longer, and would be better for emulation. It's also $50-$70 more, and I'm wondering if it's worth it. I personally think so, but it feels weird paying more for the CPU than my GPU. It also feels weird buying a 4 core CPU (the i3 12100f) in 2022... So I'm stuck. Any advise?

 

[rustable]

13 minutes ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

Budget (including currency): $150 US (as cheap as possible)

Country: US

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Apex, Forza, emulation, future games

Other details Bought GTX 1070, so I would technically be fine with an i3 12100, but I am worried that the 4 core 8 thread CPU will age poorly. As such I wanted to get the i5 12400f, but paying $150 (same as my 1070) seems a bit much. So, I am here to ask, what CPU would be ideal? The 12400f would let me keep the same CPU for longer, and would be better for emulation. It's also $50-$70 more, and I'm wondering if it's worth it. I personally think so, but it feels weird paying more for the CPU than my GPU. It also feels weird buying a 4 core CPU in 2022... So I'm stuck. Any advise?

 

the 12400f is a 6 core cpu

[DANK_AS_gay]

2 minutes ago, rustable said:

the 12400f is a 6 core cpu

Yes, and the 12100 is a 4 core CPU, your point being?

I edited the main post to be worded a bit better in any case.

[rustable]

7 minutes ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

Yes, and the 12100 is a 4 core CPU, your point being?

I edited the main post to be worded a bit better in any case.

lol my bad i misread the post (you also worded it bad)

[porina]

Of the two options I'd get the 12400f and know I wont have to worry about CPU and it'll likely be fine for years even if you upgrade GPU later.

 

As another option, what is used 6 core pricing like for you? For example I'm keeping a 8086k around as a test system. Wouldn't go older than Coffee Lake or Zen 3 personally.

[DANK_AS_gay]

1 minute ago, porina said:

Of the two options I'd get the 12400f and know I wont have to worry about CPU and it'll likely be fine for years even if you upgrade GPU later.

That's what I was thinking, I will go for that then. (I'll wait for more advice, but I'll mark this as the solution in an hour or two depending on the rest of the answers)

2 minutes ago, porina said:

As another option, what is used 6 core pricing like for you?

I would prefer to stick to new, I can upgrade to 13th gen in 4 or 5 years when I want to since Intel uses the same socket for 2 generations. Means I don't need an entirely new motherboard, I also have an M1 Mac, so I've been spoiled for single core performance...

[Dedayog]

14 minutes ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

That's what I was thinking, I will go for that then. (I'll wait for more advice, but I'll mark this as the solution in an hour or two depending on the rest of the answers)

I would prefer to stick to new, I can upgrade to 13th gen in 4 or 5 years when I want to since Intel uses the same socket for 2 generations. Means I don't need an entirely new motherboard, I also have an M1 Mac, so I've been spoiled for single core performance...

That single core performance spoiling... how amazing is that in games?  Oh wait...

 

As above, the 12400F is a good balanced CPU for the 1070 and can even hold its own with newer faster GPU's.  I wouldn't sweat the paying more than the GPU, since you're buying a 5 year old GPU, it's not relevant.

[DANK_AS_gay]

1 hour ago, Dedayog said:

That single core performance spoiling... how amazing is that in games?  Oh wait...

Emulation is pretty rock solid, and I have enough GPU grunt to upscale to my native screen resolution. I also can play the only games ported to mac, Black Ops 3, Borderlands 2, among other games. But really that single core performance makes emulation great, and makes the OS experience snappy (aside from an NVMe drive).

1 hour ago, Dedayog said:

As above, the 12400F is a good balanced CPU for the 1070 and can even hold its own with newer faster GPUs.

Good, I'll spend the "extra" money and get a good solid CPU, so I can upgrade my GPU in 5 years when it starts to get a bit slow for modern games. The 1070 is still pretty relevant due to the 8GB of VRAM lol

[Dedayog]

1 hour ago, DANK_AS_gay said:

Emulation is pretty rock solid, and I have enough GPU grunt to upscale to my native screen resolution. I also can play the only games ported to mac, Black Ops 3, Borderlands 2, among other games. But really that single core performance makes emulation great, and makes the OS experience snappy (aside from an NVMe drive).

Good, I'll spend the "extra" money and get a good solid CPU, so I can upgrade my GPU in 5 years when it starts to get a bit slow for modern games. The 1070 is still pretty relevant due to the 8GB of VRAM lol

Sorry, the relevant comment was about the price comparison you made, not performance.  The 1070 is still a solid 1080p GPU, I'm no stranger to the 10 series as my 1080Ti is very much doing well.

 

Here's to hoping that 1070 lasts ya 5 more years