12600KF -> 14600KF worth it?

T

THRESHIN

2[H]4U
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having a hard time deciding and would love some opinions...

currently have a 12600KF on a MSI z690-p board. its DDR4, PSU is an 850W so plenty of headroom there. I run a custom water setup so cooling is not an issue. I have no need to do a full rebuild at this time, DDR4 outdated or not.

keep in mind that the prices are in CAD.

i see a 14600KF on sale for $219 which is pretty cheap. At the same time i'm not unhappy with my 3 year old 12600KF. i can see that there are some big gains in some areas from this upgrade and very small ones in others. Have yet to overclock the 12600, haven't found the time or need yet. but then again i could max out my current setup and run it into the ground for the next 6 years.

one question: was the issues with the 14th gen settled with BIOS updates? aware that it was due to elevated voltages, seems that it's been a long road for that. i can't find much on if it was properly fixed and put to bed. any word on how this would affect overclocking? makes me wonder if these cpu's have problems with increased voltages which is nice to do when cranking up that clock speed as we all know.

my daily usage that would tax the system is typical gaming at 1440p and lately a lot of handbrake x265 encoding. i can see there being a good uplift for handbrake, but maybe not so much for gaming?

granted i will likely upgrade the GPU one day down the road, but i'm doing fine there for now.

thanks guys.
 
How is your current cpu load for the typical game? I'd estimate a 15 to 20% uplift on that upgrade. Roll your numbers off that.
 
Good points. Might not get around to OC'ing it though....not for a while at least.
 
THRESHIN said:
one question: was the issues with the 14th gen settled with BIOS updates? aware that it was due to elevated voltages, seems that it's been a long road for that. i can't find much on if it was properly fixed and put to bed. any word on how this would affect overclocking? makes me wonder if these cpu's have problems with increased voltages which is nice to do when cranking up that clock speed as we all know.
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The i5s never really had much trouble to begin with. Intel was pushing more voltage to get higher clocks on the higher end chips. i9s got the worst of it. With a 14600K I'd just update the BIOS and not worry about it. Since you have a 12600K already you can update before you change procs and the new one will never run on the old microcode. In other words I wouldn't worry about it with an i5-14600K.
 
An overclocked 12700K is more similar to the 14/13600K series than the 12600K which is pretty weak in comparison. I moved off of an overclocked 12900K to a stock 13600KF and don't really notice any difference besides it dumping less heat. The cache/ring frequency being unlocked on the 14/13th gen also helps vs 12th gen on certain applications. It was pretty dumb having to disable the ecores on my 12900K to get better performance in ff14, don't have to do that on the 13600KF.

One thing to note is the 13/14600K is a hotter chip than the 12600K. 181 vs 150W
 
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i decided to go pick it up after work here, this is dirt cheap and it isn't coming back. looks like the stores are selling off the remainder of their stock.


D-EJ915 said:
An overclocked 12700K is more similar to the 14/13600K series than the 12600K which is pretty weak in comparison. I moved off of an overclocked 12900K to a stock 13600KF and don't really notice any difference besides it dumping less heat. The cache/ring frequency being unlocked on the 14/13th gen also helps vs 12th gen on certain applications. It was pretty dumb having to disable the ecores on my 12900K to get better performance in ff14, don't have to do that on the 13600KF.

One thing to note is the 13/14600K is a hotter chip than the 12600K. 181 vs 150W
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fair warning, thank you. i have a fairly robust custom water setup....should be more than enough :)
 
14600k is basically 12900k, when it comes to gaming performance.

Something interesting about 13th and 14th gen, is they have some larger caches. Which seem to benefit DDR4 systems. (not huge. But, it seems to be there, when looking at comparison framerates).
 
Got it installed last night, up and running no problem. Newest bios was installed before I put the 14600 in.

And wow...these things heat up a room no problem under load. The temperatures from this cpu is a little rediculous. Generally under 80C but the P cores do peak a little over 80 very briefly. Seems they're not even going 100% but this is handbrake encoding x265 so it may not be utilizing it all. my water loop is struggling. It's moving heat alright, this cpu is just putting out a ton of it. I'm not sure I would be able to overclock this.

I will be looking into possible problems with my water loop as it is extremely old. My pump is variable so I'll be turning up the speed first off. I'm using an old MCP655 pump but they were really good ones. The rad is a fairly thick copper 360mm, alphacool. Fans working fine. Doesn't seem too dirty. cpu block is a heat killer 4. I haven't changed out the coolant in a very long time so might need to do that and clean out some corrosion.

When removing my old CPU I can see I'm getting excellent contact with the block so no issues there.
 
turn up pump speed to 60-70%, anymore doesnt really make a difference.
maybe try repasting and reseating your block, how the old one looked coming off doesnt mean there may not be a problem now... also, 80 is still well within spec, but maybe 360 isnt enough for how cool you want it.
you could also try knocking back the core voltage a bit, they tend default to too much.
 
THRESHIN said:
Got it installed last night, up and running no problem. Newest bios was installed before I put the 14600 in.

And wow...these things heat up a room no problem under load. The temperatures from this cpu is a little rediculous. Generally under 80C but the P cores do peak a little over 80 very briefly. Seems they're not even going 100% but this is handbrake encoding x265 so it may not be utilizing it all. my water loop is struggling. It's moving heat alright, this cpu is just putting out a ton of it. I'm not sure I would be able to overclock this.

I will be looking into possible problems with my water loop as it is extremely old. My pump is variable so I'll be turning up the speed first off. I'm using an old MCP655 pump but they were really good ones. The rad is a fairly thick copper 360mm, alphacool. Fans working fine. Doesn't seem too dirty. cpu block is a heat killer 4. I haven't changed out the coolant in a very long time so might need to do that and clean out some corrosion.

When removing my old CPU I can see I'm getting excellent contact with the block so no issues there.
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I would say those are good temps for a stock 14600k on a loop which has been running for a non-trivial amount of time.

You can try disabling "IA CEP", for a sort of one-click Undervolt. Otherwise, 14th gen is generally good for some manual undervolting.
 
wow this turned into a total fiasco.

so i decided it was high time to clean out the water loop. needed to make a few minor changes anyways, so why not? what could possibly go wrong? famous last words...

cleaned out the block, some small corrosion in there. may contribute to high temps. cleaned out the radiator. i think this was my big issue. this alphacool rad seems to grab dust and hide it. when i got it out i could see that it was probably around 40% blocked with dust. sure, harass me for my laziness! i deserve it after all.

fired up my little air compressor got it cleaned out. did a vinegar clean on the rad and block, seems great now. put it back together, filled it up, bled the air.....wait for it....i have a 90 degree swivel fitting. it was necessary for the new rad. now its leaking badly. tried taking it apart, its just an o-ring. these things are near impossible to get apart without damaging them. i mostly have automotive tools, nothing that'll pry the swivel ring off. the gap is just too small.

without going into details, the desktop is down for the count until i get new fittings. i think i'll order 2 this time. leak was big enough that it cannot be tolerated. and here i was excited to see what my efforts bring!

FML! probably take forever to get the fittings. canada post is on strike. there's one vendor here that still caters to custom water setups like mine, dazmode. they're out of montreal i think. they definitely charge a premium but there are no other choices here. i'm about an inch away from going back to air cooling. my laptop kinda sucks, wasn't meant to be my primary system!
 
THRESHIN said:
wow this turned into a total fiasco.

so i decided it was high time to clean out the water loop. needed to make a few minor changes anyways, so why not? what could possibly go wrong? famous last words...

cleaned out the block, some small corrosion in there. may contribute to high temps. cleaned out the radiator. i think this was my big issue. this alphacool rad seems to grab dust and hide it. when i got it out i could see that it was probably around 40% blocked with dust. sure, harass me for my laziness! i deserve it after all.

fired up my little air compressor got it cleaned out. did a vinegar clean on the rad and block, seems great now. put it back together, filled it up, bled the air.....wait for it....i have a 90 degree swivel fitting. it was necessary for the new rad. now its leaking badly. tried taking it apart, its just an o-ring. these things are near impossible to get apart without damaging them. i mostly have automotive tools, nothing that'll pry the swivel ring off. the gap is just too small.

without going into details, the desktop is down for the count until i get new fittings. i think i'll order 2 this time. leak was big enough that it cannot be tolerated. and here i was excited to see what my efforts bring!

FML! probably take forever to get the fittings. canada post is on strike. there's one vendor here that still caters to custom water setups like mine, dazmode. they're out of montreal i think. they definitely charge a premium but there are no other choices here. i'm about an inch away from going back to air cooling. my laptop kinda sucks, wasn't meant to be my primary system!
Click to expand...

All that effort and you'd get the same performance with a $35 air cooler. This is why I don't bother with custom loops any more.
 
LigTasm said:
All that effort and you'd get the same performance with a $35 air cooler. This is why I don't bother with custom loops any more.
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i want to so bad cuz would look cool in my case but I agree... had water cool many years ago and dont miss it!
 
pendragon1 said:
tough. they have what he needs and our postal system is on strike, its his easiest option at the moment.
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Still making a vendor list. Piping money to amazon just inflates the current issues, such as supply line lag, or the mail system getting frozen.
 
pendragon1 said:
tough. they have what he needs and our postal system is on strike, its his easiest option at the moment.
Click to expand...

Canada post is on strike? We’re not allowed to strike in the US.

I do miss the old water cooling sites though.
 
fwiw MSI has all of the 14th gen microcode updates in their bioses, last of which came out in may this year..

Microcode update 0x129 addresses an issue where the processor may request high voltages, potentially leading to accelerated degradation.
Microcode update 0x12B addresses elevated voltage requests by the processor during idle and/or light activity periods (includes 0x129).
Microcode update 0x12F to further address processor degradation on systems with light activity. (latest one)

I flashed my board ahead of installing the 14900kf and am running the "intel recommended" bios settings (not MSI performance settings). I flipped XMP on and so far so good..
I haven't see it go above 81c under duress, gaming in the low 50s.. idle is around 35c (installed a corsair titan 280 with the cpu).. I am hoping to ride this platform out for a bit.. fingers crossed!
 
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LigTasm said:
Canada post is on strike? We’re not allowed to strike in the US.

I do miss the old water cooling sites though.
Click to expand...
yup. they threatened to a couple months ago and then all of a sudden they were on strike now. i think the gov can force them back after a while, same with our idiot teachers strike in 'Berta.... but both are topics for another thread.
 
My opinion (which ain't worth much) is any NEW 14gen cpu put into a board w/12F biios update and set to intel defaults is going to be good to go. I never exceed 80c or 80w in gaming with my 14600K and that's with a small o/c on air & voltage manually set 1.24v.
One add... If not running 32GB consider adding another 16... at least on my system having 32GB DDR4 boosted 1% lows. You're FPS should go up 10-30 FPS depending on the title @1440p.

Let us know how it went/if your happy.
 
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