Wait for an i7 13700K or take an i9 12900K?
Wait for an i7 13700K or take an i9 12900K?
What are you working on right now? When someone asks for help, make sure they know what hardware you have and what the game is actually doing beyond just playing. Many posts go to the wrong spot, so I'm asking this again to be clear.
Keep in mind that the 12900 gets way too hot compared to the 12700, so if you plan on playing a lot of very intense games or have hot rooms, you need good airflow and a strong CPU cooler. Just like Lutfij wisely said, I can't give perfect advice without knowing your exact needs and other parts you want. I think this PC is going to be for gaming mostly since that's where you posted it. If you care about opinions on current hardware, the 12600 was my original choice, but now the 12700 looks like the best fit because it has more cores for future games. I've never been a $500+ CPU type person anyway. That's just so you know. Even though I love hardcore gaming and want to run high settings on all games, most of them rely way more on the graphics card (GPU) than the processor (CPU). There are very few games that use the CPU as much. For example, Valorant uses the CPU a lot. If my build doesn't happen until 2024 with Intel's new 13th-gen CPUs (which seems likely), I might even consider the 13700 if DDR5 RAM is cheaper and faster now, which it usually is for new generations. People say there will still be cheap options on DDR4 RAM for Raptor Lake too. The good thing about this generation is that Intel isn't just going to boost the old 12th-gen CPUs with higher speeds like before. They are actually adding "more cores, more connections, a totally new chip design, support for ultra-fast SSDs, and maybe even a peak speed of up to 6.0 GHz." Plus, the 13700 has almost twice as much cache as the 12700. It has the same number of fast performance cores, but they are bigger (see below). Source: 13th-Gen Raptor Lake... So that sounds pretty good, as long as they don't get too hot. I say that because it seems like they are sticking with a small process (10nm), but refining it to make the performance cores bigger and the efficiency cores smaller. That could very well mean more heat, unless this new design is actually better at moving data quickly. I'd be happy if we got the same temperatures but much better performance, which seems to be their goal. It's understandable that Intel are swinging for fences with Raptor Lake. They were the first ones to mix different types of CPU cores in gaming PCs, and they no doubt want to prove they are #1 before AMD can challenge them. It's really hard to answer your question yet though, because even if we knew all about you and how you used the PC, the prices for these new CPUs have not come out yet. Intel, like Nvidia, usually doesn't tell people until just before they release. So that info will come in Q4 of 2022 when they say Raptor Lake is coming out, or maybe later this November around holiday shopping time. Of course, everything here is pure guesswork.
I am using an Asus RTX 3080 Rog Strix v2 OC for my graphics card, an i7 9700k processor for the computer's brain, a Z390-e motherboard to connect everything, 32gb of Tridentz Z memory in pairs with Samsung SSDs for storage, Windows installed on a 500GB Samsung drive, an Asus Thor power supply that provides enough energy, an NZXT Kraken F73 fan for cooling, Lian Li L120 for airflow, and the case is named Helios. The monitor is an Alienware AW3821DW.
It's still tricky to give advice because we don't even know if you play the game at all or what specific one you choose. If you do pick a title, there are some upcoming ones coming out that might interest you too. I assume since you've got a fairly high-res ultrawide screen, you probably want to run everything at its native resolution. Plus, it has a pretty fast 144Hz refresh rate, which is good for games where you're trying to hit that mark in frames-per-second (not always easy to do on every title). It all comes down to figuring out how much stress your PC will get when you use the software and what kind of stuff you put on it.
I play video games and want to run most new games at ultra settings with speed over 90 frames per second. I know that high-resolution games use more of your graphics card, but I still need a strong processor so it doesn't get too slow when my graphics card changes later. So what should I do?
I'm kind of thinking about getting the 4080 too, but it might take a little while for me because I was hoping to wait for the price to drop. It wouldn't be such a bad idea to wait for the 13700k either, but I would suggest asking vendors how much stock they have and what they can get on the alternative. Like I said, my plan is the 12700k, but I don't usually play CPU-hungry games. Even if you do though, the 13700k might run cooler than a 12900 and cost less. As I was saying before, it's hard to give advice on things like this when we haven't even seen what the price or performance of the 13700k is yet. What I would use as a deciding factor is whether you are having any problems with games on your current CPU, especially if you play big, CPU-heavy games like Valorant. If not, it looks like my system could carry me over until I actually need a better one and GPU.