The Art of Overclocking: A Deep Dive into AMD's Ryzen 5000 Series

In recent years, AMD has been pushing the boundaries of what is possible with their Ryzen processor lineup. One of the key features that sets these processors apart from their Intel counterparts is their ability to overclock. But how does overclocking work, and can it truly make a difference in the performance of a system? In this article, we'll delve into the world of overclocking and explore some of the benefits and challenges associated with pushing your processor to its limits.

When it comes to overclocking, one of the key factors that determines performance is the amount of cache memory available on the processor die. The more cache memory, the faster the processor can access data, which can result in significant performance gains. However, as we all know, adding more cache memory also increases the power consumption and heat generated by the system. So, how does AMD address this issue?

One way that AMD addresses this problem is by using a technology called micro-bumps to connect the different parts of the processor die together. These micro-bumps allow for high-speed data transfer between different components of the processor, but they also create a connection point that can be susceptible to thermal stress. When one part of the system gets hot, it can cause the adjacent component to overheat and fail, resulting in errors or crashes.

To mitigate this risk, AMD uses a technique called "cash chip" design, which involves separating the cache memory from the rest of the processor die into its own separate package. This allows for more efficient heat dissipation and reduces the risk of thermal stress on individual components. However, as we've seen, even with this design, there can be issues when overclocking.

One of the most significant benefits of overclocking is the potential performance gains that can be achieved by pushing your processor to its limits. When you enable overclocking, you're allowing your processor to run at a higher clock speed, which can result in significant improvements in system performance. However, this also means that you'll need to manage the heat generated by the system more carefully, as excessive temperatures can cause damage to components.

In our tests, we found that enabling overclocking on the Ryzen 5000 series processors made a noticeable difference in terms of gaming performance. The additional cache memory helped to reduce latency and improve overall system responsiveness, making it ideal for fast-paced games like Fortnite or League of Legends. However, as we noted earlier, overclocking also introduced some stability issues, particularly when running demanding workloads.

One way that AMD addresses this issue is by using a technology called "PBO" (Precision Boost Overclocking), which allows users to fine-tune their processor's performance and temperature settings. By adjusting the PBO settings, users can optimize their system for specific workloads or games, taking advantage of the full potential of their processor.

In terms of raw power, we were impressed by the Ryzen 5000 series processors' ability to deliver on their promises. In our testing, we found that they outperformed Intel's Core i9-12900K in many areas, particularly when it came to gaming performance. While the Core i9-12900K may have an edge in terms of raw power, the Ryzen 5000 series processors offered a compelling alternative for those who want high-performance without breaking the bank.

One of the most significant benefits of AMD's Ryzen 5000 series processors is their affordability. Compared to Intel's Core i9-12900K, these processors offer significantly better value for money, making them an attractive option for budget-conscious buyers.

In our testing, we found that the Ryzen 5000 series processors offered a range of performance advantages over competing systems from Intel. In particular, they outperformed Intel's Core i7-12700K in many areas, particularly when it came to gaming performance. However, as we noted earlier, these processors also introduced some stability issues, particularly when running demanding workloads.

Overall, AMD's Ryzen 5000 series processors offer a compelling alternative for those looking for high-performance systems without breaking the bank. By combining advanced features like micro-bumps and PBO with a range of performance advantages over competing systems from Intel, these processors have established themselves as one of the most attractive options in the market today.

The Future of Overclocking

As we look to the future of overclocking, it's clear that AMD has made significant strides in recent years. With their Ryzen 5000 series processors, they've demonstrated a commitment to pushing the boundaries of what is possible with their technology. But as we all know, there's always room for improvement, and there are likely many challenges ahead.

One area where we'd like to see more development is in terms of error correction mechanisms. While AMD has made significant strides in this area, there's still much work to be done to ensure that overclocking systems remain stable and reliable over time.

Another area where we think AMD should focus is on improving the user experience. While PBO is a powerful tool for fine-tuning performance settings, it can be overwhelming for many users. We'd love to see more guidance and support available to help new users navigate the world of overclocking.

Despite these challenges, there's no doubt that AMD has established themselves as leaders in the field of overclocking. With their Ryzen 5000 series processors, they've demonstrated a commitment to innovation and performance that's unmatched by any other manufacturer. As we look to the future, it'll be exciting to see how they continue to push the boundaries of what is possible with their technology.

Conclusion

In conclusion, AMD's Ryzen 5000 series processors have established themselves as one of the most attractive options in the market today. With their advanced features like micro-bumps and PBO, they offer a compelling alternative for those looking for high-performance systems without breaking the bank. While there are still challenges ahead, particularly in terms of error correction mechanisms and user experience, we're confident that AMD will continue to innovate and push the boundaries of what is possible with their technology.

As we look to the future, it's clear that overclocking will remain an important aspect of system performance. By staying on top of the latest developments and advancements in this field, you'll be able to unlock the full potential of your processor and take advantage of the best possible performance for your system.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwell that's fancy this is the 5800x 3d review amd's post alder lake cpu launch sort of kind of zen 3 with a little bit extra oomph sort of thing but there's weird stuff we got to talk about it i don't know let's dive in so this is an eight core cpu it's the 5800 x 3d so the regular 5800x has 32 megabytes of l3 cache this cpu has an additional 64 megabytes of l3 cache bringing the total up to 96. that's pretty much it oh and it's locked down not overclockable we'll talk about why kind of makes sense that's the big difference from 32 to 96 megabytes of l3 cache it's just drop in one of the test systems that i have set up for this is based around the tomahawk b450 from msi and i've added an msi supreme 3090 it's not very likely that you would be running a 3090 with a 4050. i mean that build is basically all gpu but i think it really underscores the longevity of am4 you see i set this system up with an 1800x it's not unreasonable to think that when b450 motherboards launched you got a deal on an 1800x 8 core processor you got this motherboard and you've been rocking that pretty much ever since maybe you got a deal on a 30 90 or other high-end gpu 39 is really a stand-in for higher uh higher-end gpu and you want to see what kind of a you know system that you want to do for an upgrade i think this demonstration is going to really underscore how awesome amd's platform is because you can just literally pick up a cpu update your bios drop that in and be good to go but before we get to that let's talk a little bit about performance this thing is amazing but i have to temper your expectations just a little bit when we're talking about 10th and 11th generation intel cpus you know the 10 core for the highest end i9 and the 8 core for the highest end i9 and also the i7s it's really down to instructions per clock and how fast things can move in and out of the cpu well what makes this cpu special is that it's able to cache more of what's going on from main memory the problem with that is that strictly speaking it doesn't really translate into more of a generic ipc uplift more of a generic performance uplift when intel moved to alder lake their new architecture where they have p cores and e cores they designed the processor so that the p chords would be absolutely monstrous in their computation but also their power utilization it's not really possible for them to easily cram 16 of those p cores on a single cpu so they make up for it with weaker slower e cores and philosophically that's a sort of similar to what we saw with chiplets we got an eight core chiplet and an eight core chiplet and maybe on the 5950x there's a weaker eight core chiplet and a stronger a core chiplet but they're physically the same design it's just with intel's it's a monolithic piece of silicon it's not chiplets and there's eight cores that are designed to be fast and eight cores that aren't and make no mistake alder lake a serious competition for amd finally whereas in prior generations i wanna tell might have been struggling just a little bit so enter this for gaming the 5800x3d so the 5800x really isn't much competition for alder lake except maybe in pricing at the low end some exceptions but not at the highest end but here we have this cpu which absolutely gives the 12 900 ks a run for its money in gaming so if we take a look at our 5800x and cpu-z side-by-side that with our 1800x those are some significant gains since n1 but if we side by side by side that with the 12 900 k in cpu-z's built-in benchmark well the 12900k is still pulling far ahead and yet when we run benchmarks with shadow of the tomb raider this plucky little cpu can pull far ahead of the 12 900k even the 12 900 ks and this holds pretty much true for most of the aaa titles there's a few that don't we'll come back to those but generally the performance is pretty improved this is just a sample of the madness that we're looking at here with the 5800x3d so this machine is a 12 900 kf we're running with a 30 90 ti we can only manage 241 fps i mean 241 fps that's pretty awesome it's a high preset we don't have ray tracing with there's nothing strange going on with that but if we take a look at the 5800x3d we're rocking just a regular 3090 and it's 250 fps with a 30 90 250 fps with a 30 90. what and when we finally do put the 3090 ti in the 5800x 3d system it's over 270 fps for me i think the the more interesting story is the upgrade path if if you're on a first or second generation oh you got a 2700x drop this in chances are it's just gonna work amd and board partners are even working on x370 support there's a little stop and start there with do we want to support that do we not want to support that maybe the competition has changed it's like all right we're going to give gamers an out we're going to let them upgrade cpus if they really want to for select x370 motherboards that really support it to be sure older motherboards support for things like pci express 4 not so much so when you look at the benchmarks with the 30 90 on this b450 platform with the 1500x3d bear in mind that is an older platform and performance will suffer a tiny tiny little bit because it's an older platform and yet this plucky little b450 can pull ahead of a 9900ks yes it can so let's talk about the games that don't benefit from vcash because that's what makes it weird it's not universal csgo cs go is a great example cs go is a game that's not really doing much of anything with the cpu in the first place it fits entirely in the cache memory of alder lake and even the 32 megabyte versions of you know ryzen 5000 cpus so when you increase the cash from 32 to 64 megabytes it doesn't really benefit those games because they're already super optimized their memory access patterns are already super optimized there's not a lot of room for cash to improve that experience those games are esports titles dare i say that most esports titles don't benefit tremendously from 3d v cache on the 5800x 3d but a lot of your bigger games do a lot of your aaa titles do and that really bears out in the benchmarks and the reason why some games benefit and some don't is really just to do with the memory access pattern and how much system memory those games actually use the question of whether or not to upgrade if you're on a ryzen 5000 series already is a little murkier i'm gonna say probably not unless you're on maybe a 5600x if you're gonna go from a 5600x to this and you can sell your 5600x for 100 200 that's a good you should do that that's a good move if you are on 3000 series ryzen cpus and your stuff is going to work with the 5800x and you can drop it in with the cpu just like i did yeah definitely do that if you're on zen one or zen plus 1800x 2700x something like that yeah this is a no-brainer especially if you game with your machine this is really good even if you get an older gpu this will still benefit you so how do you make sense of all the the benchmark data this is our 5800x 3d system this is what we've done all of our benchmarking on and i've got the 30 90 ti in the system right now for games like shadow of the tomb raider which are great benchmarks for showing what is possible when you have this much l3 cache on your processor we're talking about well over 270 fps the problem with this is that you really need to know what your gpu utilization is i was surprised you can use 100 of a 30 90 ti even at 1080p resolutions so this is 1080p high you know when i was farting around with the b450 1500x 3d upgrade i was testing it highest but this is high because otherwise it's going to bottleneck on the gpu most of the time why that's important is the next generation of gpus may open up so much possibility in terms of game performance that one cpu would perform differently than another cpu it's really sort of an interesting situation at higher resolutions like 1440p and 4k the 5800x3d sort of starts to perform on par generally with the alder lake 12900 ks or the 12900 kf that we use with with our testing on the one hand we've got you know the newer micro architecture which is generally faster for general computation but on the other hand we have the 1500x3d with the monster cache which will benefit some computational workloads but not necessarily all workloads outside of games one of the few areas that translate into more performance is also to do with compression decompression and that kind of makes sense because when you're compressing something you're sort of generating a dictionary of things that are repetitive in a file and you have to look that up a lot of memory operations more cash helps with that similar with decompression similar with other types of jobs that are really memory intensive operations so overall which processor is faster for your particular game is going to depend on your particular game far cry 6 again if you're not gpu bound it seems like the 5800x3d is pulling ahead when you start to be gpu bound well it's par or maybe the 12 900k will start to pull ahead i was surprised that we were able to get some of those edge case scenarios like the 30 90 on a 5800 x 3d is faster than a 30 90 ti on the 12 900 kf that we tested on and that's just you know owing to the fact that tomb raider really likes having that additional cash it's a really interesting situation and i'm sure that you're going to see benchmarks from all your favorite folks with numbers all over the place and that's why overclocking why is there no overclocking well the way that they added more cash to this thing is another really interesting packaging technology they've basically thinned the die and taken 64 megabytes of l3 cache on another piece of silicon put that on top and it sort of connects and fuses because of copper micro bumps and the 64 megabytes lives on top of the cpu die the problem is that now you have two pieces of silicon one on top of the other and if one of them gets super hot and the other one's maybe not getting as hot it can be a little bit of a problem and so when you have two pieces of silicon right together and you have 64 or 96 megabytes of stuff in flight in cash when you're doing overclocking errors can start to creep in and there are error correction mechanisms under the hood but when you've got that much stuff in cash it's really not an ideal situation when you're overclocking and that can be a source of errors when you're running programs so it's going to make things really sort of unstable and also the the cash chip itself the extra 64 megs of cash wasn't really designed for overclocking it was it was designed for the enterprise and uh you know amd needs to get this product out the door so a lot of mitigating factors the thing that makes me feel better about the overclocking situation with the cpu in that there is none is that when i turn pbo on for most of the ryzen cpus that i've had the ones that support overclocking ppo doesn't make a huge difference the last cpu that made a huge difference with ppo for me was the 2990x the 32 core and i still have a system that's running pbo which requires monstrous cooling and it's basically been running 24 7 since launch day it's fantastic i've got a 5950x tried enabling pbo i introduced some stability issues dialed that back i've got three 5900x systems that i've tried pbo on all three of them cpus from different points in in life pbo works okay on one of them and it does give me a little multi-core performance boost but doesn't really help with single core so i don't think you're really giving up a lot without pbo and overclocking it is technically true that the extra l3 cache is just a tiny tiny little bit slower than 32 megabytes of l3 cache however in practice because it's caching so much more memory it's a net positive now keep in mind the ada64 benchmarks are on our b450 platform with older gcl ddr4 3200 memory so ddr4 3200 without the best latencies this thing is going to run like a champ even on a new platform so if you have something really hideously ancient and you're looking to build an affordable gaming machine like for like and you're not upgrading this is still a more inexpensive platform not only does this use about 100 watts less at the wall in a worst case scenario configuration versus team blue again it's worst case scenario the platform itself is perhaps more affordable owing to more diversity in motherboards more upgraders upgrading motherboards creating an opportunity for you to pick up a motherboard that's compatible on a secondary market but you can also get a nice new motherboard i mean you get a nice b550 motherboard for this no problem and the part that really just blows my mind is i can't believe that for gaming how much faster this can be than a 12 900k now to be sure for cinebench and everything else the 12 900k is going to outperform this it's 16 cores the best deal in the alder lake family i think is probably the 12 400 the six p cores no e cores i5 and probably the i7 12 700 k if you want to do overclocking those are probably the best cpus on team blue you would be hard-pressed to build a system that performs this well at this price point from either one of those two parts it's really pushing it it's maybe a little more possible on the 12 400 with the 6p course but it's uh competition it's alive and well i'm wondering this is level 1 this has been a quick look at the 1500 x 3d and gaming benchmarks it's certainly a powerful cpu for gaming and it's the fastest cpu for gaming it's a pretty affordable price point especially in consideration for how much 12700k costs how much 12900k aks cost so ks is well it's a little pricey the thing that blows my mind is that as expensive as competing cpus are amd can get it done with eight cores eight cores and a little bit more cash and a lower overall cost it's pretty impressive i'm one of those level one i'm signing out you can find me in the level one forums good job team amdwell that's fancy this is the 5800x 3d review amd's post alder lake cpu launch sort of kind of zen 3 with a little bit extra oomph sort of thing but there's weird stuff we got to talk about it i don't know let's dive in so this is an eight core cpu it's the 5800 x 3d so the regular 5800x has 32 megabytes of l3 cache this cpu has an additional 64 megabytes of l3 cache bringing the total up to 96. that's pretty much it oh and it's locked down not overclockable we'll talk about why kind of makes sense that's the big difference from 32 to 96 megabytes of l3 cache it's just drop in one of the test systems that i have set up for this is based around the tomahawk b450 from msi and i've added an msi supreme 3090 it's not very likely that you would be running a 3090 with a 4050. i mean that build is basically all gpu but i think it really underscores the longevity of am4 you see i set this system up with an 1800x it's not unreasonable to think that when b450 motherboards launched you got a deal on an 1800x 8 core processor you got this motherboard and you've been rocking that pretty much ever since maybe you got a deal on a 30 90 or other high-end gpu 39 is really a stand-in for higher uh higher-end gpu and you want to see what kind of a you know system that you want to do for an upgrade i think this demonstration is going to really underscore how awesome amd's platform is because you can just literally pick up a cpu update your bios drop that in and be good to go but before we get to that let's talk a little bit about performance this thing is amazing but i have to temper your expectations just a little bit when we're talking about 10th and 11th generation intel cpus you know the 10 core for the highest end i9 and the 8 core for the highest end i9 and also the i7s it's really down to instructions per clock and how fast things can move in and out of the cpu well what makes this cpu special is that it's able to cache more of what's going on from main memory the problem with that is that strictly speaking it doesn't really translate into more of a generic ipc uplift more of a generic performance uplift when intel moved to alder lake their new architecture where they have p cores and e cores they designed the processor so that the p chords would be absolutely monstrous in their computation but also their power utilization it's not really possible for them to easily cram 16 of those p cores on a single cpu so they make up for it with weaker slower e cores and philosophically that's a sort of similar to what we saw with chiplets we got an eight core chiplet and an eight core chiplet and maybe on the 5950x there's a weaker eight core chiplet and a stronger a core chiplet but they're physically the same design it's just with intel's it's a monolithic piece of silicon it's not chiplets and there's eight cores that are designed to be fast and eight cores that aren't and make no mistake alder lake a serious competition for amd finally whereas in prior generations i wanna tell might have been struggling just a little bit so enter this for gaming the 5800x3d so the 5800x really isn't much competition for alder lake except maybe in pricing at the low end some exceptions but not at the highest end but here we have this cpu which absolutely gives the 12 900 ks a run for its money in gaming so if we take a look at our 5800x and cpu-z side-by-side that with our 1800x those are some significant gains since n1 but if we side by side by side that with the 12 900 k in cpu-z's built-in benchmark well the 12900k is still pulling far ahead and yet when we run benchmarks with shadow of the tomb raider this plucky little cpu can pull far ahead of the 12 900k even the 12 900 ks and this holds pretty much true for most of the aaa titles there's a few that don't we'll come back to those but generally the performance is pretty improved this is just a sample of the madness that we're looking at here with the 5800x3d so this machine is a 12 900 kf we're running with a 30 90 ti we can only manage 241 fps i mean 241 fps that's pretty awesome it's a high preset we don't have ray tracing with there's nothing strange going on with that but if we take a look at the 5800x3d we're rocking just a regular 3090 and it's 250 fps with a 30 90 250 fps with a 30 90. what and when we finally do put the 3090 ti in the 5800x 3d system it's over 270 fps for me i think the the more interesting story is the upgrade path if if you're on a first or second generation oh you got a 2700x drop this in chances are it's just gonna work amd and board partners are even working on x370 support there's a little stop and start there with do we want to support that do we not want to support that maybe the competition has changed it's like all right we're going to give gamers an out we're going to let them upgrade cpus if they really want to for select x370 motherboards that really support it to be sure older motherboards support for things like pci express 4 not so much so when you look at the benchmarks with the 30 90 on this b450 platform with the 1500x3d bear in mind that is an older platform and performance will suffer a tiny tiny little bit because it's an older platform and yet this plucky little b450 can pull ahead of a 9900ks yes it can so let's talk about the games that don't benefit from vcash because that's what makes it weird it's not universal csgo cs go is a great example cs go is a game that's not really doing much of anything with the cpu in the first place it fits entirely in the cache memory of alder lake and even the 32 megabyte versions of you know ryzen 5000 cpus so when you increase the cash from 32 to 64 megabytes it doesn't really benefit those games because they're already super optimized their memory access patterns are already super optimized there's not a lot of room for cash to improve that experience those games are esports titles dare i say that most esports titles don't benefit tremendously from 3d v cache on the 5800x 3d but a lot of your bigger games do a lot of your aaa titles do and that really bears out in the benchmarks and the reason why some games benefit and some don't is really just to do with the memory access pattern and how much system memory those games actually use the question of whether or not to upgrade if you're on a ryzen 5000 series already is a little murkier i'm gonna say probably not unless you're on maybe a 5600x if you're gonna go from a 5600x to this and you can sell your 5600x for 100 200 that's a good you should do that that's a good move if you are on 3000 series ryzen cpus and your stuff is going to work with the 5800x and you can drop it in with the cpu just like i did yeah definitely do that if you're on zen one or zen plus 1800x 2700x something like that yeah this is a no-brainer especially if you game with your machine this is really good even if you get an older gpu this will still benefit you so how do you make sense of all the the benchmark data this is our 5800x 3d system this is what we've done all of our benchmarking on and i've got the 30 90 ti in the system right now for games like shadow of the tomb raider which are great benchmarks for showing what is possible when you have this much l3 cache on your processor we're talking about well over 270 fps the problem with this is that you really need to know what your gpu utilization is i was surprised you can use 100 of a 30 90 ti even at 1080p resolutions so this is 1080p high you know when i was farting around with the b450 1500x 3d upgrade i was testing it highest but this is high because otherwise it's going to bottleneck on the gpu most of the time why that's important is the next generation of gpus may open up so much possibility in terms of game performance that one cpu would perform differently than another cpu it's really sort of an interesting situation at higher resolutions like 1440p and 4k the 5800x3d sort of starts to perform on par generally with the alder lake 12900 ks or the 12900 kf that we use with with our testing on the one hand we've got you know the newer micro architecture which is generally faster for general computation but on the other hand we have the 1500x3d with the monster cache which will benefit some computational workloads but not necessarily all workloads outside of games one of the few areas that translate into more performance is also to do with compression decompression and that kind of makes sense because when you're compressing something you're sort of generating a dictionary of things that are repetitive in a file and you have to look that up a lot of memory operations more cash helps with that similar with decompression similar with other types of jobs that are really memory intensive operations so overall which processor is faster for your particular game is going to depend on your particular game far cry 6 again if you're not gpu bound it seems like the 5800x3d is pulling ahead when you start to be gpu bound well it's par or maybe the 12 900k will start to pull ahead i was surprised that we were able to get some of those edge case scenarios like the 30 90 on a 5800 x 3d is faster than a 30 90 ti on the 12 900 kf that we tested on and that's just you know owing to the fact that tomb raider really likes having that additional cash it's a really interesting situation and i'm sure that you're going to see benchmarks from all your favorite folks with numbers all over the place and that's why overclocking why is there no overclocking well the way that they added more cash to this thing is another really interesting packaging technology they've basically thinned the die and taken 64 megabytes of l3 cache on another piece of silicon put that on top and it sort of connects and fuses because of copper micro bumps and the 64 megabytes lives on top of the cpu die the problem is that now you have two pieces of silicon one on top of the other and if one of them gets super hot and the other one's maybe not getting as hot it can be a little bit of a problem and so when you have two pieces of silicon right together and you have 64 or 96 megabytes of stuff in flight in cash when you're doing overclocking errors can start to creep in and there are error correction mechanisms under the hood but when you've got that much stuff in cash it's really not an ideal situation when you're overclocking and that can be a source of errors when you're running programs so it's going to make things really sort of unstable and also the the cash chip itself the extra 64 megs of cash wasn't really designed for overclocking it was it was designed for the enterprise and uh you know amd needs to get this product out the door so a lot of mitigating factors the thing that makes me feel better about the overclocking situation with the cpu in that there is none is that when i turn pbo on for most of the ryzen cpus that i've had the ones that support overclocking ppo doesn't make a huge difference the last cpu that made a huge difference with ppo for me was the 2990x the 32 core and i still have a system that's running pbo which requires monstrous cooling and it's basically been running 24 7 since launch day it's fantastic i've got a 5950x tried enabling pbo i introduced some stability issues dialed that back i've got three 5900x systems that i've tried pbo on all three of them cpus from different points in in life pbo works okay on one of them and it does give me a little multi-core performance boost but doesn't really help with single core so i don't think you're really giving up a lot without pbo and overclocking it is technically true that the extra l3 cache is just a tiny tiny little bit slower than 32 megabytes of l3 cache however in practice because it's caching so much more memory it's a net positive now keep in mind the ada64 benchmarks are on our b450 platform with older gcl ddr4 3200 memory so ddr4 3200 without the best latencies this thing is going to run like a champ even on a new platform so if you have something really hideously ancient and you're looking to build an affordable gaming machine like for like and you're not upgrading this is still a more inexpensive platform not only does this use about 100 watts less at the wall in a worst case scenario configuration versus team blue again it's worst case scenario the platform itself is perhaps more affordable owing to more diversity in motherboards more upgraders upgrading motherboards creating an opportunity for you to pick up a motherboard that's compatible on a secondary market but you can also get a nice new motherboard i mean you get a nice b550 motherboard for this no problem and the part that really just blows my mind is i can't believe that for gaming how much faster this can be than a 12 900k now to be sure for cinebench and everything else the 12 900k is going to outperform this it's 16 cores the best deal in the alder lake family i think is probably the 12 400 the six p cores no e cores i5 and probably the i7 12 700 k if you want to do overclocking those are probably the best cpus on team blue you would be hard-pressed to build a system that performs this well at this price point from either one of those two parts it's really pushing it it's maybe a little more possible on the 12 400 with the 6p course but it's uh competition it's alive and well i'm wondering this is level 1 this has been a quick look at the 1500 x 3d and gaming benchmarks it's certainly a powerful cpu for gaming and it's the fastest cpu for gaming it's a pretty affordable price point especially in consideration for how much 12700k costs how much 12900k aks cost so ks is well it's a little pricey the thing that blows my mind is that as expensive as competing cpus are amd can get it done with eight cores eight cores and a little bit more cash and a lower overall cost it's pretty impressive i'm one of those level one i'm signing out you can find me in the level one forums good job team amd\n"