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Edited February 4, 2022
at 12:56 PM
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My local microcenter is showing 20 in stock. This is the version with integrated graphics. The i5 12400 seems to be the new sweet spot for budget builds and budget gaming. It is faster than AMD 5600g (the closest direct competitor) and 5600x. From reports, the bundled cooler is a big improvement from previous stock coolers so it is not necessary to spend money on that either. With a ASUS Prime B660 it would be about $300 out the door for a CPU/MB combo with graphics and a cooler or even cheaper if you can get one of the $25 off coupons that was posted on here for uploading a build.
CPU Core - Alder Lake
Processor - Core i5 12400
Operating Frequency - 2.50GHz
Turbo Speed - 4.4GHz
Cores - Six-Core
Number of Threads - 12 Processing Threads
Socket Type - LGA 1700
Level 2 Cache - 7.5MB
Level 3 Cache - 18MB
https://www.microcenter.com/produ...r-included
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If you're looking for the cheapest build option you can find a near-$100 B660 chipset board paired it with the cheapest DDR4 you can find (or some you already have if you're upgrading a more modern system) would get you up and running. That could keep your total bill of materials (incl. RAM) around $300-350 and provide a functioning system with solid performance. You'd have plenty of CPU upgrade path, but unless you're willing to upgrade the stock cooler you're probably leaving a lot of performance locked away inside the CPU.
Do try to avoid motherboards built around the H610 chipset as the pricing seems to overlap with the B660 in the retail channel. The H610 chipset is positioned at the bottom end, and will probably be built into plenty of OEM systems, but there's no obvious value pricing on it available to regular consumers that I've seen (vs. more full-featured chipsets like B660 motherboards).
The next best investment to mention might be a solid air-cooler for $40-60. However, if you want to build the best platform to get every bit of performance out of the CPU you'd have to track down the cheapest Z690 chipset motherboard you can find, which probably adds another $60 or more to the bill for the H610 configuration. There are a lot of CPU tweaking and support features available in that chipset which could help with the current CPU choice or any future CPU upgrades. This is a key feature of the newest CPUs from Intel that could justify the upgrade, though obviously cheaper boards don't always implement this functionality as easily as more properly high-end motherboard manufacturers.
Good luck!
Jon
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I think that's why the price keeps being lowered and promos are coming up at retailers. I settled on a 11400 to avoid the high priced motherboards.
However, your statement about stock speed might fail to highlight for some readers the way modern Intel CPUs switch between their base clock speed (2.5GHz for this CPU) and their boost clock speed (4.4GHz single core; 4.0 GHz all cores): the only limiting factor for how long and how fast an Intel CPU can boost are CPU thermals. A better cooler ensures that more cores stay at a boosted speed when required/tasked. Additionally, better cooling also allows that boost to keep the speeds at the highest possible frequency. (Assuming the motherboard also remains cool and stable to supply the CPU power)
Good luck!
Jon
Memory overclocking is not available on h610 but i will buy DDR4 3200 to go with cheap build anyway, so what's the big deal?
Good luck!
Jon
No it is not
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https://www.tomshardwar
That website keeps reloading on my phone. AMD did not give their integrated graphics a fancy name, but it's much faster than UHD 730 and still faster than Intel Xe.
Ryzen 5 5600G is better overall when you consider how much better the integrated graphics are. And i5-12400 at 65 watts is only 10% faster on average than Ryzen 5 5600G so not a huge difference there.
The 12400 uses the lower tier 730, not the 770 the higher end alder lake chips use.
They should be close depending on the rest of the system specs and games being played. The 5700G has a better GPU than the 5600G.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rrZS71U
We run some k series on the copper slug oem cooler. Fan does get loud but max load we see in the mid 80s.
Don't want to overclock for sure tho.
Seems like this summer I will have to build a new system!
It's really time to move on, but ... OMG, is it taking forever for more "mid-price" boards for Alder Lake to show up (obviously someone content to run Ivy Bridge for nearly a decade isn't gonna pay top $ for a MB). Starting to look like I may be waiting til summer too
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As an added bonus it looks like the ASUS B660-Plus motherboard also has a 2.5g ethernet connection which will help with my 1gb+ internet connection going forward. Like I mentioned I've never build a pc before so I'm thinking 16gb of ram (currently have 8gb) and a decent SSD. Does anyone have any recommendations for the ram and a SSD along with a case? What else am I missing for the build?
I have access to a Microcenter but am willing to buy components elsewhere if cost effective.
Thanks,
-Guru
For work, get 2x8GB 3200MHz of whatever RAM is on sale. Western Digital SN550 Blue is more than enough.