Goodbye AMD, Hello Intel 12th Gen

[Dave Rice]

With Ryzen 5, AMD have abandoned the value end of things, plus Intel’s 12th Gen i5-12400 is a veritable wonder (I’ve seen it described at the Q6600 of this generation). I’ve a new build for a customer who I’ve persuaded to move from Dell, and believe me that is a big thing, mostly due to Dell’s price being literally double.

He is all for total cost of ownership and is quite willing to pay for cutting edge if it means longevity. In this case the premium for 12th Gen over 11th was only £50 so a no brainer. His fears on build quality were allayed when I pointed out that Dell would only give him a years warranty, some of these components are lifetime, the minimum is 3 years.

i5-12400F, Gigabyte B660M DS3H, Kingston FURY Beast 32GB (2 x 16GB) 3200MHz DDR4, WD Black SN850 500GB M.2 PCIe 4.0 NVMe (7,000MB/s Read, 4,100MB/s Write) and an Asus GT730-4H-SL-2GD5 as he wants to run 4 monitors (ViewSonic VA2418-SH 24” IPS).

This i5 has no P and E core mucking about, this is 6 P cores with HTT. That WD Black is ridiculously quick and with 32GB of ram (which is what he currently has and will not be persuaded) it’s going to fly.

[Dave Rice]

Delivery today, the customer decided to buy the bits themselves to make the tax easier (apparently there is a 130% allowance this year) and he decided that he wanted 64GB of ram. Just as well I didn’t mention 32GB modules or I think we’d be at 128!

[Ed P]

Better not tell him about SoftPerfect’s ramdisk then!

Stonkingly fast in action – but it takes time to load the disk during startup and obviously time to save it off at the end of day.  Free to try, but I’ll confess that I have not found the ‘normal’ application that really makes full use of it. Modern apps/games normally  use all the memory you throw at them, so it probably only has use for last gen apps and games.  The only use I could see for myself would be as a secure VM.

I guess it could also be a VM HoneyPot, sandpit or disposable browser.

[Dave Rice]

Well it’s built, Windows goes on tomorrow.

[Dave Rice]

OMG this is insanely quick.

[Ed P]

Looks a tad slow to me if I use the Softperfect  ramdisk 🙂 !

Actually not one of my timings, but close enough. The image was in fact taken from the Softperfect site in which someone wanted to use a ramdisk as a concurrent screen buffer.

link

This may actually be something that interests your client (I have difficulty with thinking about a four-screen setup unless it is handling concurrent video streams).

[Dave Rice]

When you think this volatile vs persistent you can see that unified memory is indeed getting closer.

The 4 screens are purely for real estate. They will be in a 2 x 2 formation and I’m going to leave the stand to him (fat chance). I’ve picked Viewsonic IPS monitors as their menu buttons are on the back (as opposed to under the bezel) so we can get them tight up against each other. I’ll try and get some photos when it’s finished.

[keith with the teef]

Yeah, Intel have hit back hard and of course Intel CPU’s rule of thumb dont half game.

Its the MoBo prices when it comes to Intel thats the killer and when you consider that chips this day and age are like SOC’s then a mobo should be peanuts.

But yeah. That new i3 12100F is stonking for games, in fact I don’t believe it. Reminds me of the old 2 core 4 thread i3’s but they did not last long as more cores was required. But yeah, find a cheap B660mobo and its the stuff of wee childrens dreams.

[Dave Rice]

The CAD boys are at it again, just setting up a new Gen 2 Thinkbook.

AMD Ryzen R9-5900HX 3.3GHz, 32GB DDR4 (16GB soldered so max 48GB), 1TB SSD M.2, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 6GB, 16″ WQXGA IPS, Windows 10 Pro

I’m sure you’ll not be surprised to learn it’s basically the Legion in tough clothes and no flashy bits. The build quality is just superb. Fair play, they have included a 1TB WD Blue SN730 which benchmarks within a whisker of the SN570 he’s bought as a second drive. So top spec all round. If you haven’t seen the reviews of the SN570, it’s the 3rd Gen NVMe to buy review and sees off many 4th Gen.

Needless to say it eats for breakfast tasks like installing Office. He got 25% +£150 off which is a huge £££ saving.

At the same time his Mrs pointed out her laptop was literally held together with duct tape so he took advantage of a sale of  3rd Gen Ryzen Ideapads £350 after a voucher for:

AMD Ryzen™ 5 3500U, 14″ FHD (1920 x 1080), TN, 4 GB DDR4-2400 MHz (SODIMM) + 4 GB DDR4-2400 MHz (Soldered), 256 GB SSD M.2 2242 PCIe, W10 Home S

For some reason they’ve chosen a short 2242 M2 SK Hynix 256GB NVMe even though it will take 2280 drives. Benchmarks OK, 2,500 MB/s read and 1,700 MB/s write and it fairly flies along. Even though it’s a TN screen it’s very nice, until you see it next to the Thinkbook 🙂 But for £350 it’s a fantastic bargain and everyday tasks don’t trouble it a jot.

One annoying thing, there’s room for a 2.5″ drive – they used to come with spinners – but they’ve removed the SATA socket and drive mounting holes. How bloody stupid is that! Even dafter, they’ve left the silver foil heat shield in the top chassis.

He brought his Synology DS214play round to speed up the data transfer and it literally died on my bench, so there’s a new DS220j chassis arriving tomorrow. I put the drives into a DS214 chassis I have and Synology Assistant dealt with the migration to the different hardware, I should be able to do the same trick with the 220j. I’m currently backing up the important folders though.

He is now “fecking skint” and he’s not had my bill yet…

[keith with the teef]

Blimey, that does so sound like a blank check book build in the current climate for the cost of PC hardware and you say he’s “fecking skint”

He best look for a part time job. 🙂

Nice piccy of the build above and how much ram? lol! Love the PCI-E ssd.

About the TN panel you pointed out. With TN’s for best results make sure they are set to the Max hz often gets overloo0ked.

[Dave Rice]

A more usual for me build this week, an office type PC. There are no budget AMD offerings these days so it’s an i3-10105, budget Gigabyte H510M H motherboard and 8GB DDR4 2666.

Find of the day was the Lexar NM620 256GB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe for £28. Advertised as “Up to 3000MB/s Read, 1300MB/s Write” which turns out to be spot on despite a review that said it was rubbish.

Absolutely destroys anything under £40, keeps up with all the more expensive options and it has a 5 year warranty. For Gen 3 x 4 this will be my go to.

Needless to say the i3 bombs along, but not so long ago 4C 8T was known as an i7…

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