Budget King: $130 Intel Core i3-12100F CPU Review & Benchmarks
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- Опубликовано: 21 июл 2024
- This review benchmarks the Intel Core i3-12100 & 12100F CPUs versus the AMD R5 3600, R5 5600X, i5 CPUs, and more. At its price, this is an impressive budget gaming CPU.
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NOTE: Intel notified media that it incorrectly stated on its chipset comparison slide that H610 is 1 channel, but it is actually 1 DIMM per channel (DPC), while still being dual-channel. This was an Intel error and the company has corrected its spec tables going forward. We will adjust future content to reflect this.
The Intel Core i3-12100 and 12100F only have one major difference, and it's the presence of an IGP. Beyond that, the CPUs are identical and behave the same in non-GPU tasks. If paired with a dGPU, they'd also behave the same (assuming you aren't using QuickSync or some other IGP feature). We bought the Intel i3-12100F for $130 to review, and so far, it's matching-up strong against Intel's own i5-12600K -- providing most of the performance for much less money -- and against AMD's R5 5600X and R5 3600. We plan to look at the Intel Core i5-12400 next to determine which of these two makes more sense for budget gaming PC builds in 2022.
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We went through the specs of all of Intel’s lower-end Alder Lake CPUs & motherboards here: • RIP AMD Low-End: Intel...
You can see our review of the i5-12600K here: • Attacking AMD's Prices...
You can find our Z690 motherboard round-up here: • Intel Z690 Motherboard...
We also have a full playlist of CPU Cooler reviews here: • Cooler Reviews
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AMD R5 5600X on Amazon: geni.us/02wIzEi
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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Intel i3-12100F & 12100 CPU Review
01:52 - 12100 vs. 12100F Specs
04:34 - Frequency Behavior (All-Core & Single Core)
05:23 - CSGO CPU Benchmarks (1080p & 1440p on i3-12100)
06:42 - Cyberpunk 2077 Best CPU Benchmarks
07:33 - Far Cry 6 - 1080p Budget CPU Comparison
08:42 - Red Dead Redemption 2 Best Gaming CPU
09:20 - Total War: Three Kingdoms (Battle) - 1080p
10:08 - Rainbow Six Siege (1080p & 1440p)
11:41 - F1 2021 - 1080p/High
12:17 - Production Testing: Blender
13:26 - Chromium Code Compile
14:14 - Adobe Premiere
14:43 - Adobe Photoshop
15:08 - 7-Zip Compression & Decompression
15:44 - Power Consumption - Blender & Cinebench
16:27 - Conclusion
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Host, Test Lead, Writing: Steve Burke
Testing: Patrick Lathan
Video Editing: Keegan Gallick 
Игры
We went through the specs of all of Intel’s lower-end Alder Lake CPUs & motherboards here: ruclips.net/video/_FJKCVFOa_c/видео.html
You can see our review of the i5-12600K here: ruclips.net/video/OkHMh8sUSuM/видео.html
Buy the Disappointment PC Shirt in cotton store.gamersnexus.net/products/disappointment-pc-t-shirt-2021-100-cotton-black or Tri-Blend store.gamersnexus.net/products/disappointment-pc-t-shirt-2021-triblend-black to support us, our special intros, even more in-depth testing as we continue to expand the lab in 2022, and to commemorate a year of disappointment!
You can find our Z690 motherboard round-up here: ruclips.net/video/VEkDVlv1FFg/видео.html
We also have a full playlist of CPU Cooler reviews here: ruclips.net/p/PLsuVSmND84QtyyYcalFch402w3ypcp1TQ
NOTE: Intel notified media that it incorrectly stated on its chipset comparison slide that H610 is 1 channel, but it is actually 1 DIMM per channel (DPC), while still being dual-channel. This was an Intel error and the company has corrected its spec tables going forward. We will adjust future content to reflect this.
Regarding one memory channel for H610 it's actually a mistake according to PRO Hi-Tech, you know those guys. They've reached out to Intel for a clarification after seeing that slide that you also showed and the response was that it has 2 memory channels and the marketing people that made that slide are dumb.
The power slides mentioned an R7 5800. For a moment I thought an entirely new CPU had slipped past me 😂
Is i7 11700F non k ..a good cpu ?
@Gamers Nexus hey Steve could you please give a CPU USAGE graph and the stutter on gaming from this 4C/8T Cpu????
Start with Cyberpunk 2077 most of the times is 100%.
Let me help you a little with a video that you made at 2020...
ruclips.net/video/-pRI7vXh0JU/видео.html
I have a question, do I need to specifically buy a cooler for the 1700 socket or have most cpu coolers already updated their thingy to fit the 12th gen cpus? I was going to buy something like the cooler master hyper 212
It's so nice that this level of performance is starting to become affordable.
A N I M E
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Somebody with a School Days pfp commenting somebody with a borderline war crime for their profile name brings a new meaning to Nice Boat.
@@EbonySaints all warcrime nerds are weebs.
Never forget.
Autism is your superpower
With some cheap motherboards this is going to be great value for budget builds. Assuming budget GPUs are available again of course.
it will probably never go back to "normal" prices dont drop after a consumer base has been normalized to higher prices for whatever reason, even if those reasons are non existent anymore
@@Aleph-Noll just don't buy it until it won't get "normal". get a second hand card for example, basically screw manufacturers just as they screwed everyone.
Starting at $249
The RTX 3050.....
its not for budget gpus cause "budget gpu" is an oxymoron, its for those who thought they could get an i7 and a 3080 but have to settle for a i3. Win-win for intel
Two more weeks trust TSMC's plan
According a tweet by Dr Ian Cutress, Intel updated the spec sheet for h610, it does have dual channel memory. There is only 1 DIMM per channel, however.
Thanks. An error or omission on Intel's slide, then. We'll adjust future content for that. 1 DPC can still be a limiter.
That changes everything for ultra budget though. Because if it was only one channel it's pretty much useless.
@@RafitoOoO Yeah, It would be a dumb way of cutting costs
What does 1 dimm per channel means? Is it way worse or not as bad as having
1 channel?
@@bigdoggo5827 It just means that motherboards will be able to run dual channel, but will have no more than 2 slots for RAM.
I love the fact that Steve appreciates affordable options. Look at the smile on his face. 😊. I love this Chanel. ❤
Yeah probably been hard to grow much the past year
This is the first content, arguably, in over a year.
A man of the people.
"An average of 420 FPS sounds high, and it is."
Clever writers you have there.
He is the writer.
tbf 420 joke was a pretty low hanging fruit
@@igoresque Still funny you gotta admit
I didn't even notice
Just about playable 😂
H610 is 1 DIMM PER channel, not just 1 channel. You will still get dual channel, but you will be limited to boards with just 2 dimm slots. Still no memory overclocking, so I would go for B660 anyway
An error on Intel's slide then. Thanks.
@@GamersNexus Yeah, the description is kinda confusing on ARK site as well, you need to hover over the memory section to see "DIMMs per Channel indicates the quantity of dual inline memory modules supported per each processor memory channel". I suppose someone making those slides did not bother to check on that.
So h610 is basically enough for i3 12100f and i5 12400f because you can easily fit 32gb of ram in there if you want to.
It doesn't support memory OC, but you can run the ram up to 3200mhz and tighten timings for best performance.
@@damara2268 I guess someone buying a cheap mb for i3 will not buy some kick ass 3600+ modules anyway
H610 probably intended for ultra small form factor "office" computers and low end laptops.
I wasn't aware of how much I missed seeing CPUs like this one. Great piece once more!
Bro...AMD had these CPUs for a while. Great performance, decent price. Now im liking the Intel cpus a lot
@@a2zistoolong448 Eh, nothing like the 12100F, really. The 3300X was good for a while, and still is, but there really should have been a Ryzen 3 5000 series model on launch day.
@@BRC_Del yup...im just saying AMD was pretty decent before these new Intel cpu
@@a2zistoolong448 It had been a while between then and this.
@@BRC_Del oh ok
Very interesting 🤔 A new budget gaming CPU king? Personally I think the 12400f will still be the king in price/performance category.
P.S. 9:13 the wrong CPU is highlighted, as the 5600x is mentioned, but the 5800x is highlighted. Just a gentle poke at the editor, as it is very rare to see any errors in your videos 😅
Yea, I don't think the CPU matters much but I'd feel more comfortable with a couple more cores. I think I've read the new console CPU's are 8 cores and while I'm sure they are mediocre, that might mean developers make their games 8 core optimized
@@hansolo631 yes, indeed. Ps5 and Xbox Series X have a cpu with 8 cores and 16 threads, opening much more powerful options for game developers to make more complex games, with the more powerful gpu and memory to back it up.
That said, the cpus in the consoles will get old fast. A couple years from now, a budget 6/12 core amd or intel cpu will have more power that the zen 2 cpu in the consoles. Even today, the i5-12600k is most likely more powerful.
All this said, a budget 6/12 core cpu, such as the i5-12400 will still easily run any future game, for at least 5 years. The minimum cpu requirement even for the most demanding new games is never that high, even if the game is specifically designed for a 8/16 core system. Usually the minimum cpu requirement is around 6-12 year old cpu, depending of course on the technology used to make the game.
@@hansolo631 Consoles had 8 cores for years, Xbox One close to a decade ago and PS3 fifteen years ago, we have to let the 'surely this will influence pc games' argument go.
There's an issue - motherboard prices. 12100F and 12400F with the cheapest B660 mobo cost as much as 11400F+B560 or 5600X+B450 respectively.
@@sic22l Yes, at the moment, but at the end of this year, this won't be a problem anymore, I reckon.
Nice! Hopefully this will be the successor to the 3300x with actual stock.
Feels like the 3300X never got a real chance!
3300x never existed
It's a great lil processor, I'm happy I got one at launch. Although, I've had friends ask me if it was fake because it's the only one they've ever seen. Honestly, it's the only one I've ever seen in person.
I got one in order to safe costs and wait for the 3000 series videocards at the time. Prices went through the roof as everyone knows so never upgraded again. Great thing for 130 eur
I thought it was a discarded 3600x or something, that’s why there wasn’t stock?
i3 10100 pretty much matched the 3300x, a year ago on Odin Hardware benchmarks, for sure... 3300x also was never really in stock for long, it was basically the beginning first chip that never was in retail ever day 2 of launch. You were far better off, with my weeks of research into the i3 benchmarks side by side... paying 40 less and getting the same results basically with the i3 10100... thats why I use it, its the best deal heh. I only buy the best deals.
With performance this good at such a low price I think it's time for me to finally consider retiring my i7-4790K, Intel has really shot back with these new Alder Lake CPUs
I'm thinking of getting rid of my 4770 finally. Just waiting for cheaper motherboards
Same for my i5-4460
@@JudeTheRUclipsPoopersubscribe get h610m
good B660 with this i3 would be perfection right now
in 3-5 years you could get a 2nd hand 12th or maybe even 13th gen i7 in it and rock it for another 5 years
@@GewelReal Absoluitely especially when you consider many people passing this CPU as a budget option are still on an older CPU. Spend your money on a higher end GPU and a 12100 would absolutely serve you for another 5 years with ease. Be warned budget gamers!
Impressive. Finally seeing significant progress. Very nice to see an i3 processor beating my old i7.
Was waiting for this review 😊
i3-12100f and a 3050 might be pretty lit if you can get your hands on em.
@WETA♥️ glad the dislike button got taken away but yall are still in replies, nice platform youtube.
@@I_Am_Hateful just report for pornograpy/explicit content, they'll get banned soon enough ;) This bot posted the same shit on my comment
@@voidvoidvoid7274 Sure, but that doesn't exactly solve the issue though, does it? It's slow and they'll just make a new account anyway.
You mean a 130$ CPU with a 500$ GPU ?
yeah if u want to build a esports gaming machine or sum. i mainly play apex legends and my 5 yr old setup needs a bit of a upgrade to keep 200 fps. if i can get my hands on both of them parts, i’m pretty sure i dont need to upgrade my whole pc for 1000 € just for a 3060
I think you should put older CPUs into your comparison for low end chips like this. I know you've got the 3600 there but anyone looking to buy one of these probably has an older first or second gen Ryzen or a 8th/9th Gen Intel and wants to see the difference they could achieve.
Take the delta from our previous revisits as a quick and dirty look at it. You can do % scaling from one of those to one of the CPUs in common on the chart, then extrapolate fairly accurately.
Comparing the position in the charts relative to the 9900k, I think it is somewhere in the 9600k performance range.
They can't do this unless the testing platform used is the same. I guess they had a different normalized platform back then for testing.
Exactly what I was thinking, nobody will be upgrading to these from a 3600 but from a i5-7400 or similar... that would be a nice comparison
@@Mavis847 But what would be the point of it? If 12100f is on par with 9900k, than it definitely better than 7400. You don't choose between 7th and 12th gen when you buying new cpu. And if you have 7400 than you already know performance of your system.
I am really glad that Intel is making these high punching CPU's at a very low cost. Hopefully AMD will release new cpu's at a lower cost now and get off its throne in shame.
but, how much are the motherboards?
My prediction is that they will just re-release their older CPUs as lower-tier SKUs of newer CPUs, maybe with 3D Cache or some more voltages. They will keep the newer 5nm process Zen 4 as the premium line, and re-use their older 7nm Zen 3 as their budget-tier.
@@macking104 here the cheapest (h610m) is $106
Cheapest b660m is $126
@@macking104 Since the pins are now on the motherboard for AM5, it's likely the AM5 boards will be more expensive than the AM4 boards by quite a bit. Cost for the AM5 CPUs might be a bit lower as a result but the overall cost of AM5 will be higher than Intel.
Intel will likely be king again, in the AM5/LGA1700 era.
@@matasa7463 they absolutely won't be lower priced than Zen 3
Correction: from intel, apparently h610 is 1 dimm per channel, but still dual channel (so still full JDEC bandwidth)
19:57 This is why your channel, style and ethic is awesome Steve.
Thanks... Steve.
I picked up a 12100 last month for 129 bucks, with plans to use it in a low-cost file server for my network. I had low expectations, but the price was right. After I got it up and running, I gotta say I was stunned at how nicely it performs. This CPU can easily handle pretty much any game you throw at it. I wasn't originally intending to use it for gaming... but now that I've seen it in action, I think I'm going to change my mind and use this CPU for something better than just a file server.
which mobo
@@rahul-qm9fi h610 or b660
i gotta say i really appreciate the frequency validation at the beginning of these reviews, i just picked up a 12100f and was wondering if 4.1 was normal under ordinary workloads and knew GN reviews were a good place to check.
Looking forward to see how AMD responds to this.
The closest competitor to this i3 is the 3300X, but we all know that like, 3 people were able to buy it before it disappeared into the void a while ago.
I wonder how will the 7000 series Ryzen chips perform, even tho we are still like 6 months away from that stuff.
If (and this is a big IF) AMD ever releases the 5300G for non-OEM builds, it'll be the closest competitor to this in its current product stack, and it'll have a decent APU as the differentiator to go along with it. If you can't source a GPU at all, the difference between a 5300G at $150 vs a 12100 non-F at $125 is close enough to cause some real thoughts as the Ryzen Graphics have far better performance than the 12100 at the cost of lesser actual CPU performance.
More live 8 or 9 months
They'll probably respond to it with 71/300X or 71/300G with RDNA 2 graphics, and they may make the first x1/300 6c/12t CPU but it's most likely not going to happen, not for a few generations at least.
I was one of those three XD
Really looking forward to that 12400 review
Love the explanation and perspective on the graphs! Really makes the difference!
Yes, more in depth analysis on budget components, please!
I just got the 12100 with a lowly Asrock H610M board for my light workload box and I can tell you it runs circles around my previous I5 9400F (which was about 18 months old) in everything. Hell, 4c/8t was reserved for I7s about 3-4 years ago. Love this CPU.
h610 do not have heatsinks on vrm? does mobo overheat?
I build PCs on the side as a hobby and for some extra money, and the 12100f has been loved by my customers! Hard to swallow considering my personal rig is a 9900k and is similar gaming performance to a i3 only a few years later....Quite crazy
Is it really in oar with i9 9900k!? Because I just bought a i3
Great review as always Steve. This ask might be a stretch but having some comparisons of older gen chips in the graphs would be super helpful for people like me looking to upgrade (I have a 7700k).
Obviously it's going to be stunningly better than that but by how much? I'm not sure.
Cheers!
Really love Steve/GN's perspective on hardware/upgrades/money priorities
This is so weird that I can actually upgrade my Ryzen 1600 to this and probably get a performance increase, somewhat tempting especially from a thermal output level since I have an ultra portable sff pc and I only game at 1080p. It is honestly tempting.
Hi Steve, it's not related but I've heard the new Intel GPUs will almost crossfire with the Intel iGPU. Back in the AMD APU (A10) days AMD had a feature where their GPUs could crossfire with the integrated GPU as well. Could you investigate how this is similar and different and if there are actual performance benefits? I know there are some apps like premier that have always favored the Intel iGPU regardless of external GPU.
Excellent promo for your merch! You slipped that in very nicely.
A really nice wrap-up from 19:40. Thank you guys!
Intel is the only one releasing affordable products, and they are hitting home runs. The 12400f is $180 and performs like the $300 5600x. Their 12600kf is $260 and competes with the $380 5800x. etc. Its a bizarro world when INTEL is the savior of the PC gaming world, but thank god they are because AMD and NVIDIA greed is INSANE these days.
I'm trying really hard to be cautiously optimistic about their gpus too. As long as driver issues don't become too much of a fustercluck....I hope real world benchmarks are decent.
The problem with Intel at the moment, at least where I live, is the motherboard. Looking at total platform cost the 5600x and 12400 are within 10€. Intel need some cheaper B660 motherboards (B660 start at 175€, B550 start at 70€ with some good motherboards at around 100€) on the market in order to be a clear winner in my region.
5600x still better for gaming because of its cache though
12600k/kf plus z690 cost the same if not more than 5800x plus a B550 (at least in the US).
@@MrMeanh At least those boards just launched so there's a pretty good chance they drop in price soon (or lower budget versions of them release).
This is awesome, love to see the budget options. 130 CPU, 120 Mobo, 80 RAM, 80 SSD, 80 Case, 50 PSU. Thats all great pricing for what would give you a pretty great price to performance experience. Just waiting on that little old GPU market now.
Payed 85€ cpu (12100f) 68€ mobo (msi h610m-b) 58€ ram (32gb ddr4 3200cl16) 44€ ssd (1tb samsung 970 evo plus) 233€ gpu (msi RTX 3050 aero itx)
All brand new
Great review Gamers Nexus! This is a world-class overview of the chip for both gamers and people with a variety of workloads. For anyone wanting to put as much $$$ into GPU vs other hardware for a new Gaming PC build this video is for you and Gamers Nexus gives clear and concise advice on not just the CPU in the Video but other things to think about like Motherboards.
I really appreciate the stats and effort you all put into this review and look forward to the review of the IGP included variant.
Personally work with a variety of Small-Medium Business, Education and 'Data Analyst' clients in my day job and the stats on different workloads provided help me extrapolate where the best bang for buck is for them.
For example it's sounding like the IGP integrated variant (video to come I know) of this CPU in a NUC or similar mini-PC is going to work very well with SmartBoards in Classrooms and Boardrooms.
Whereas the higher end comparison helps me think about my clients working with high-end compute workloads. Well done!
I'm still running an I2100 in my streaming machine. It works just fine for that application. It's great to know that Intel is releasing new budget CPUs that can actually do something.
Would like to see some of these new cpu comparisons have a mildly overclocked 3600 figure to see how it compares with its legs stretched. Currently using the 3600, and still need to upgrade gpu before I can consider a new cpu option.
impressive results in games. more in line with expectations for prductivity. 12300 might be the best for budget productivity (if you're not looking to upgrade again soon) it'll probably stay good for longer
Wikipedia says 12300 is also a 4c/8t cpu did you mean 12400?
x300, x500 and non-k x600 parts never made sense to me
@@tyre1337 lol remember the i3-7350K? That confused the hell out of me
@@monke2361 intel must've been really bored during the days with no competition so they created stupid cpus
Great work :) Please make more videos about budget hardware
I was quite shocked by the end of the review, not only by the excellent and reassuring performance at the price point, it's just so rare these days to see GN excited and positive about a piece of computer hardware, it's a nice change from the other two, unnamed, abusive companies, really happy there's still some sanity and fairness left in a part of the market.
Keep up the inspiring and honest work, GN!
What kind of alternate universe is this where entry level hardware is being sold? Is this just a dream?
The internet? We bought it like 3 days after launch. It was readily available.
Entry level CPU is much much easier to find in-stock.
Entry level graphics card or "entry-level" DDR5 RAM? Now, that's a pipe dream.
Its not entry level.. the i3 and a 2060 super can play pretty much any game on ultra settings at 1080p... why does anyone need to spend more, they dont... ive built PC since 2001, 20 years this was my cheapest build and most powerful ever, since the Pentium 2 350mhz and voodoo 3 3000.... I spent maybe 750 to 800 max, and got an entire rig, minus the case. 2060 super was 400 at walmart, and 99 for my intel i3 10100.. runs it all on ultra, no hiccups.
Yes
@@chrinaldi i think you missed the joke
Reminds me a bit of the i3 6100 release!
That i3 completely trashed the FX 8350/9590 in nearly every game and was a great ~$120 CPU for a budget build at the time.
Also because the i3-6100 required the next generation of RAM, DDR4. And now, we've come full circle with the 12100F and DDR5. (although I guess 12100F does work on DDR4).
So.... This 12100f is 6100/g4560 2.0 like CPU?
That's a bit different because the fx chips had really terrible single core performance to begin with so beating them wasn't really that impressive.
@@jebreggie4225 Right! Wasn't a large surprise. Although to be fair, the i3-6100 beat FX in Battlefield 1, which I would consider a modern multi-threaded title.
But It is great to see powerful low end Intel chips near the $120 range again.
One thing I'd like to see down the line is actually comparing budget builds instead a budget part inside a high end build. I know it's too soon for that right now because the cheaper mobos are not readily available, but when they are I'd like to see a price to performance comparison on actual budget builds using the cheapest mobo and ram that still make sense.
4:25 concerning the H610, would love to see a video comparing H610 and B660 to see if there's a real world difference for lower end chip like the 12100 and 12400
Would love to see stats of this cpu with the 3050 during its launch alongside the usuall data. Just seems interesting to look at value wise.
Good luck for fraction of second in which you will get a chance to order 3050 😂.
After that fraction of second 3050 will only available at 700$ price.
@@nitins3801 At least 6500 XT 4Gb will be available for only 500$
This is amazing to see. One of the most budget CPUs being a beast in gaming. Intel could have eaisly abandoned the low end market just like the other two big companies but instead they commit to having a full product line that benefits all consumers.
Seems to be the benefit of monolithic dies, the ones with higher failure rates can still be sold for a heavy discount instead of only making chiplet based high(er)-end processor like AMD.
Yeah I mean they had to win back some trust credits. Anyways, it's the cycle of commodification. This does look like a nice chip at a decent price and will take that in 2022!
Maybe a video explaining some of the benchmark statistics you use? Specifically, the 1% 0.01% stuff. Excellent content by the way!
It's pretty cool to see a real budget CPU like this be a good option for gaming. It definitely helps to make PC gaming more accessible. Just need the GPU market to stabilize a bit
Intel is now the budget king.. boy have things changed.
They were last year too.. thats why I researched for a month and choose the i3 10100.. runs everything ultra at 1080, and a simple 2060 super .. under 900 total cost last year bro... no lag ever.
they technically have been the budget king for nearly 2 years now, ever since the i3 10100F was introduced that CPU is pretty much the go to option for budget gamer, other countries outside of US and EU doesn't have the ryzen 5 1600 AF and 3300x was 50% more expensive than the 10100F($80 10100F and $120 3300x)so it was basically the best option for a cheap CPU especially when the 10100F is equal to the 3300x in games
@@dertythegrower no lag ever until you play very demanding games with lots of players
@@SweatyFeetGirl so like battle royales ?
@@user-jc2in3cp3g any modern title basically.
The 12400 looks like it is a great performer for the price also.
The 12400F at $180 makes the most sense at this point, from a mainstream gaming perspective.
In a world where games are increasingly using more cores, and 6 cores and 8 cores are becoming the mainstream base hardware, why would you spend $130 - $150 for 4 cores when you can have 6 for $180?
Unless the budget is that tight, the 12400F will be the go to CPU on Intel platform at least (for gaming)
Basically what the ryzen 1600 and ryzen 2600 used to be on the AMD platform
I think it is a great chip for the price.
I saw hardware unboxed video on it and its good for the price
@@scroopynooperz9051 I think newbies that never built a PC before that already snagged a GPU (a big IF) would be quite satisfied with Intel Alder Lake. Especially with their B660 motherboards rolling around.
At least in my region, these things bought in bundle were better value than B550 + Ryzen 5000 series CPUs.
@@scroopynooperz9051 you know who would? Entry esports gamers
This review helped with a recommendation I made to a friend who was in the market for an upgrade. It was within his budget and he’s upgrading from a 7700. He was wary because it’s an i3.
Budget CPU and a Gamers Nexus review!? My morning coffee just got a lot better. Great work as always, Steve and team!
Very impressive. Good to see it being so competitive, especially at this price
I literally haven't been this excited for a budget tier CPU especially an i3 in forever! Super impressive results and now you can afford a decent CPU after laying down 1k for a GPU!
Hey, love the videos, im curious about how you do your benchmarking. When you test fps in games do you account for any updates that have made the game more stable or possibly run better in the time between tests? Do you not update any of the software used to test to account for this?
I'm not being critical, I am just curious.
They have done entire videos that discuss their testing methods in great detail. check em out. They are interesting.
The F series of CPUs would be an interesting test over getting the K versions or even the KF. I still like to see a comparison on the 12600k vs the 12700f given there is only a $30 price difference in the parts, and if the K version can overclock to be able to overcome the core differences. At this time though you are still paying a premium for the motherboards since the cheapest priced Z690 is just slightly more than the cheapest H670 or B660 board especially when looking at full size ATX boards.
NOTE: MicroCenter has a significant discount on the Alder Lake CPUs which is very interesting to see early on. This might be due to their lack of DDR4 motherboard selection and DDR5 memory selection adding to the low sales for the 12th gen parts.
I'm surprised it's that good of a gaming chip. Gotta admit, it's pretty damn good for the price.
It would be good if there were cheap boards. Heres hoping that they do end up with some because $170ish for a base tier board is savage for a "budget" CPU.
@@Jimster481lol budget. Might as well ask them to start making boards with only 4 usb ports wifi card and a gigabit port only. Maybe then you will see 100 dollar h610 boards
@@mikeymaiku Well there are a few of these boards.... In the AMD camp there are $60 B450 boards and $80 B550 boards... and they have everything except wifi (which is pointless anyway, as it can be added via USB in the future if you need it.
@@mikeymaiku Do you even know what budget means? Cheap to costly are all various levels of budget itself.
@@TheFourthWinchester Context matters. It's pretty much common knowledge that if you are "on a budget" you are typically looking to spend less money. However, "a budget" _can_ be any range of costs (obviously) like you pointed out. mike n was referring to "budget" in the same context as Jimster480 saying - "budget boards" which is again all within the same general meaning as "on a budget".
Genuinely wondering, have you not seen it used this way much if at all before? I see it used this way literally all the time (especially in computer hardware conversations) so I don't give it a second thought...
Would have loved to see the last 4c/8t CPU thrown in for generational improvement, anyway, glad there are some up to date low end CPU's floating around and hope this will give AMD a kick in the ass so they start competing here as well
I own both a 10100f and a 3500X and both are really fine for my minor workloads and gaming. Great to see nice successors coming up, 12100f/11400 would be compelling if I needed something affordable these days. Will be interesting to see what AMD can come up with.
12:46 That was an almost LTTstore level plug there ;)
This $130 CPU paired with a $1500 GPU would probably work out pretty well for 4K gaming. Wild.
it's a funny oxymoron, people who can afford 4k gaming will probably get like an i9 when it's completely unnecessary
@@tyre1337 Budgets do exist, even if they seem really high, like $2000. Previously, it might've made sense to spend something like $400 on the CPU, $1000 on the GPU, and $600 on other decent parts. Now to get the same performance, you spend $130 on the CPU, $1500 on that same scalped GPU, and $370 on the other parts being sold cheaply because people were forced to buy them in a GPU bundle.
Looking forward to the 12400 review, currently planning a budget upgrade of my i5-7600K ... and after this review, I'm quite tempted to go with a 12100🤔
Same here, and I am in the same boat but with a Ryzen 1600
Just installed 12400F, it is insane. If you are not doing video editing save money and get 12100F. I wish I did.
@@00_UU Definitely sounds like a nice experience. Will definitely be high on my list of upgrades for my pc.
glad to see that Budget builds might start to come back finally
A nice little gem from Intel!!! I would still recommend going with a 12400 or 12600 if you can, but it's great to have lower cost options.
The 10105f was a good bargin for a budget pc, these look even more impressive.
yep, I checked a comparison video and it seems the 12100f is about 10-15% faster for having the same MSRP as the 10105f
not to mention it easily outperforms the 7700k and as someone who is still running a 6700 non-k today I can safely say this cpu is crazy good for its price point
i have 10105f and it is very good for only 89$
i am really happy to see the reviewers (you, linus, jay, and many others) stand up to bully companies like nvidia, msi, gigabyte, and any one else who tries to manupulate the consumer unfairly. your videos are so well done.
Are jay and linus still reviewers? I feel like they do a short video on the stuff they get for free. Steve and Steve have been going through every alder lake cpu.
@@Superiorer lmao, only the steve's the one we need
Linus and all those other guys are scared to tell the truth they just push marketing BS.
On RUclips there's a handful of guys that are honest and GamerNexus is one of them. Project farm and Scotty Kilmer are the others.
@@XerxezsX I'm going to call your BS, Linus and Jay are constantly shitting on Nvidia and calling out MSI
@@fran2911 stopped weatching jay, he cames off as a 100% dickwad that i do not want around personally.
might be ok for a day but that is a man i do not want to interact with everyday unless it was 100% my job to do so.
I got my shirt today and I *love* it! Thank you very much for the Limited Disappointment!
Can’t wait - about to upgrade from 2nd gen i7-2600 to this and from ddr3 to ddr4 so yeah it’s gonna be good 👍
Damn it is nice to see a decent budget product. Let's hope AMD finds its way back to competing in this part of the market as well.
AMD could easily compete in this price segment. They just choose not to do that. I see 2 reasons for that. 1) limited production capacity at TSMC and AMD is already selling everything they can make. 2) Limited amount of engineers available to design new chips. They cannot make a quad-core out of an 8-core chiplet, because the cost to make them stays the same. They would have to design a new quad-core CPU. This takes time and AMD prefers to allocate their engineers to more important products, like Zen 4, Zen 5, next gen GPu’s, etc. Intel has its own fabs and has more engineers (Intel is 10x bigger than AMD) so it doesn’t have that problem. They can make more chips and have plenty of engineers to design multiple products in parallel. AMD has to compete with Intel and nVidia while being smaller than both of them. They HAVE to make choices and ignore certain markets.
@@janickpauwels3792 3) Greed.
@@janickpauwels3792 They have the 5300G which they only sell to OEM's. If they could just release that to the public would fix that 4c/8t hole. But no reason too as all the points you mentioned.
I hope that we can get some budget motherboards, I'd love to pick up a 12th gen i3 or i5 to go with a sub $100 board. I won't invest $150-200 in a board for a cheap CPU. Heck I don't even invest that money in expensive CPUs like my 3900x that I ran on an $80 x370 MSI pro Carbon for 3 years.
These results are amazing, given the price and power envelope. This has to be by far the best 4c/8t CPU ever, right? Would have liked to see a Sky/Kaby Lake i7, 3300X, and/or 10100/10105 in those charts, but understand ya'll can't test everything. We can always check old videos to get a close-enough idea. Thanks as always for the excellent content!
the i3 12300 should be the best 4c/8t technically I suppose
Dude the 3300X is blown away by the i3 10100, fart processor compared to 12100f.
@@mineatomtr lol duh, good point, thanks
@@Tekillyah ruclips.net/video/6tEMDOq-8wA/видео.html
GN's testing says otherwise. According to that video, the 3300X and 7700k were both better than the 10100 (though not by huge margins), and traded blows for best 4c/8t chip. The 12100 stomps them all, as far as I can tell when comparing those results to these.
@@sandmann521 My bad not blown away but on par. I'm basing my opinion on Odin Benchmarks.
New content day by day, refreshing! Aaahhhh
Love the cpu mounted to the coaster!
I like the fact that Intel's lowest-end desktop processor also consumes the least amount of power.
This is contrasted heavily by its highest-end processor which draws far more power than any other CPU on the market.
One can say that this processor is a good monetary decision both for initial cost as well as for total cost of ownership - so long as lower efficiency in office-based applications does not offset the savings.
Just installed 12400F, it is amazing and it feels like an overkill for casual gaming. If I was buying again I would go for 12100F. Amazing thermals and power consumption.
I got the 12100f in a ASRock B660M PRO RS.
I also have a system with an I9 10850k.
Cpuz bench on single core
i910850k = 557 points
12100f = 650 points
Stock clocks
€400 vs €100
It also matches the Ryzen 9 5950x in single core performance = 648
😎
@@fufu1128 12100F is amazing value and amazing thermals. It is around 120 dollars here, easy and cheap upgrade if you keep your DDR4 memory.
Thanks for including CSGO in the test, I feel like most youtubers forget about it and it is a very popular game and very CPU bound so it makes total sense to include it in CPU tests!
And if I may be a bit picky, you may want choose a more recent clip for the next time though, the one on the video features images almost 10 years old, the game looks nothing like that today!
I forgot to research the cpu before buying my computer. It hasn't arrived yet, but this video gives me hope that it will run games pretty well.
Not enough cores for gaming in 2021, price is irrelevant, needs 12-cores MINIMUM!
Anything below 256 cores is totally unacceptable in 2022.
For the dumb ones out there, this comment is sarcastic.
2022 will require 16 cores MINIMUM, anything less is obsolete
Good work fellow gamers, spread the word far and wide.
@@Hardwareunboxed yes
Hahaha
This can be a good deal if you're building a pc from the ground up. In case you just upgrade, then the deal is not so sweet as with this cpu, you have to invest in a new motherboard and likely a new cooler as well since the mounting is different and with such VRM heatsinks (especially in itx boards), it might not fit.
As for the results, it's nice performance for the price. Yet Intel finally beating Ryzens was very much expected by now, since those came out 1.5 YEARS AGO. Their original adversaries were the 10th gen. It took Intel 3 gen and a whole new socket to finally catch up to something that came out in 2020 still on AM4 - congratulations. And we all know it won't last long as Ryzen new gen will be released soon, but even on AM4 we'll see some interesting results when the 5800x3D will drop.
Great info, thank you.
Looking forward to the 12400 review!
16:53 nice one, gave me a good laugh!
Intel could never get away with what AMD has done completely ignoring entry level. They have too many contracts with the big OEMs (HP, Dell, Lenovo, etc.) that need a full stack of SKUs to meet many price targets.
amd cares about how to cater more marginal products, they don't give a damn about entry sku
@@bsh7390 amd unable to supply the market themself, they have no capacity to done sone.
this is true on both desktop, laptop and server market
The i3 12100F is currently on eBay selling for $125 which is a steal for modern budget CPUs.
But now that Intel's i3's are on the market, I wonder if the rumored Renoir-X from AMD will make an appearance.
I do a bit of geographical mapping using Civilo and Arcmap. Would this i3 be suffice for a budget working computer?
H610 isn't single channel its just 1 dimm per channel so 2 total sticks of ram. The spec pages of released h610 boards confirm this. So you still get dual channel performance with h610
Yes, thanks, a lot of people have already said that and it was an error on Intel's original slide.
This is seriously a "value for money" CPU right now.
just bought this to build my next pc. thank you for the concise video. i look forward to playing with this. gonna pair this with a 6650XT!
What ram will you using? Im planning on getting the same cpu but with a 3060 ti or 3070
@@Litt02 going with ddr4 16 gigs 3200mhz cl10. Thinking about going Corsair. They’re all floating between 40 and 60 bucks. I don’t care about RGB so I’ll save a few bucks there to go toward my air cooler. Deciding which mobo to go with tho. I’ll probably end up with a gigabyte b660 board.
@@qreqorious cl0? Is that stock or do you tweak it?
@@Litt02 stock
hey i really appreciate your work. is it possible to put the shards on your website, so if i look for a part i see a quick comparison i can start on for a deeper look, would be great
Seeing a comparison with this versus 6700K/7700K would be interesting
8700K level it has.
As someone who turns their primary gaming machine into a secondary machine/server when I upgrade, this chip shortage has taught me to NEVER buy a CPU without an IGP if I can help it.
I was always a min/max budget kind of guy. i5 KF every time I bought Intel (which was most of the time).
But it has been hell trying to find a cheap GPU simply for video-out in 2020-2021.
Also, neither EPYC nor Xeon have an IGPU and I need a node that can transcode. This left me having to shell out $200 for an OLD Quadro for HEVC transcoding which I wouldn't have had to do if my 3rd node had an IGPU. (It would have been cheaper to sell my current CPU and buy one with an IGPU, but at this point I'm keeping the Quadro for the 4x display-ports *just* *in-case*)
You can buy a GT 710 for less than $100 if you only want video output.
I totally agree, my current ATX build has a IGP and I plan on refurbishing and cleaning it up, taking out the GPU and giving it to someone I know who could use it for homework / light browsing and mediacenter. The 20$ you save getting the F basically remove any future the system might have.
@@EvernooBE Thing is, that is not really true. You don't need a GT710 costing 80 or so dollars to get a video out - there are plenty of old GPUs on ebay going for less than 20 dollars that can easily output some video, especially if we're talking about a server, where you'll mostly spend time looking at text in a desktop environment. (Not to mention there's 710s that go for that cheap as well.)
@@gurjindersingh3843 Not in Jan-2021 you couldn't. And if you need HDMI/DP then you would have to buy an adapter from DVI.
And that still wouldn't have helped me since I needed some sort of hardware transcode like NVEC or QuickSync.
No ECC support.
I just got a new budget build job for a friend, and this is perfect timing to match it up with my old reliable GB Windforce 1060 6G. Will be my first intel build since 2017. Damn.
can you please do a test on a h610 class board? i would like to know how much the memory channels and dmi affect performance?
The cheapest H610 mobo is sold for $110 in my area right now. Hopefully there will be cheaper options by the end of the year for people with a small budget.
Same here, only one b660 sku is available at $250, the same price as an entry level z690
This actually seems insane for the money
i3 10100 was the best gaming CPU of 2021, for sure.. and it was 99, and i got it, runs it all on ultra settings with a 2060 super... one year ive had it, crushes and everyone else spending more FOR SURE overpaid and doesnt max their system out on anything normal
I've heard from many sources that the H610 chipset actually does support dual channel memory, including product information from MB manufacturer product pages etc. Supposedly that intel Chipset SKU listing has a typo. Can you confirm from intel?
Great review Steve, this new 12100 is really exciting for gamers! I also saw a headline that his CPU is the most powerful Quad Core ever made haha! I had one question though, I am assuming that all your game testing results in this video is in DDR4 for the 12100? I look up at the top and it says 'DDR5 specs in video', so not sure what that statement means? I saw on RDR2 it said DDR4 at the top, the beside it said DDR5 noted in video. I just wanted to clarify with you! :)
I love this. Intel really is blowing up this time.
And so are their motherboards.
Would have liked to see the i3-10105F in the comparison which can be bought for significantly less than the i3-12100, and the also can use a cheaper to obtain motherboard.
For budget pc builders it would also be nice to know how both i3 cpu's compare to an i5-10400f with a cheaper b560 motherboard (so ram can use it's full speed).
Super exciting to see the advancement this gen!
Wish you'd have added the 10100F too for comparison, seems relevant. But great stuff as always. Thanks Steve.