Is upgrading from a Core i9-12900K to a 14700KF worth it for esports and programming?
Asked by
MellowOrbit42
I currently have a Core i9-12900K with DDR4 memory and a compatible motherboard. I can buy a Core i7-14700KF for around £290 and am wondering whether that would be a worthwhile upgrade. I mainly use my PC for esports gaming and programming. My current graphics card is an RTX 2080, but I plan to replace it with an RTX 5080. I game at 1080p now and expect to move to 1440p after upgrading the GPU. Would the processor upgrade provide a meaningful improvement, or would the money be better spent elsewhere?
Answers
It probably isn’t a great value upgrade. The 12900K is still very capable, and the performance difference between the 12th-, 13th-, and 14th-generation chips is relatively small for most gaming workloads. The 14700KF does offer more cores, which could help with heavily threaded programming tasks, but esports games generally won’t justify spending £290 on the swap. You’d likely get more noticeable results by tuning or overclocking the 12900K, improving cooling, or putting the money toward the graphics card and other upgrades.
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MellowOrbit42: I’m playing at 1080p currently, but I’m planning to move to 1440p once I replace the RTX 2080 with the newer graphics card.