SYSTEM ANALYZER

Rate My PC: Intel Core i3-12100E + NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000

Get a comprehensive performance analysis of your gaming rig with detailed benchmarks, bottleneck detection, and upgrade recommendations

87 / 100
HIGH-END

Power Build

Top 13% of systems. Excellent for 1440p Ultra or 4K High gaming.

1440p Ultra4K High

System Balance Analysis

CPU vs GPU performance ratio
Well Balanced
CPU
82%
VS
GPU
91%
PROCESSOR

Intel Core i3-12100E

16,853 Benchmark Score
Top 18% Market Ranking
View Full Specs →
GRAPHICS CARD

NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000

21,629 Benchmark Score
Top 9% Market Ranking
View Full Specs →

Market Position

How your build compares to others
Budget
0-30
Mid-Range
30-60
High-End
60-85
Enthusiast
85-100
Your Build

Game Performance Benchmarks

Real-world 4K FPS in popular titles
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Performance Insights

Tips to maximize your system

Strong Performance

Excellent for 1440p gaming. Most games will run at high/ultra settings smoothly.

Compatible Games See what you can play Compare CPUs Find upgrades Compare GPUs Find upgrades

Performance Tiers Explained

90-100

Ultimate

4K Ultra gaming, VR ready, ray tracing enabled, professional workloads

4K 60+ FPS VR Ready
70-89

High-End

1440p Ultra or 4K High settings, excellent for modern AAA titles

1440p Ultra 4K High
50-69

Mid-Range

1080p Ultra or 1440p Medium, great value for most gamers

1080p Ultra 1440p Med
30-49

Entry Level

1080p Medium settings, suitable for eSports and older titles

1080p Med eSports
0-29

Legacy

Basic gaming, older titles, consider upgrading for modern games

720p-1080p Low Older Games

Intel Core i3-12100E pairs with NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 in a desktop build that sits at the 69th percentile among all CPU+GPU combinations. This pairing combines a 4-core, 8-thread Alder Lake processor with a 16 GB Turing workstation GPU. No measured FPS rows exist for this exact combination in the database, so all frame rate discussion is estimated from the CPU and GPU benchmark scores rather than direct game testing.

Balance and Bottleneck

The balance between this CPU and GPU is asymmetric in a way that favors compute-heavy and professional workloads over pure gaming throughput. The Intel Core i3-12100E achieves a 70th percentile among all CPUs, while the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 lands at a 67th percentile among all GPUs. The combined percentile of 69 suggests neither component completely dominates the other, but the CPU’s single-thread performance is the stronger asset relative to its class.

Benchmark results indicate the CPU delivers a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1631 and a multi-core score of 11559. The single-core figure is nearly 14% of the multi-core result when scaled by thread count, which is typical for a 4-core part with decent boost behavior. In contrast, the GPU’s Passmark G3D score of 15616 places it close to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB, which scores 21856 on average, putting the Quadro RTX 5000 about 29% behind that rival in raw graphics benchmarks. This gap matters for gaming: the CPU can push high frame rates in lightly threaded titles, but the GPU will cap performance in graphically demanding scenes.

For CPU-bound workloads, the bottleneck shifts. The i3-12100E’s Passmark single-thread score of 3438 and Geekbench single-core score of 2202 are strong for its core count. However, the multi-threaded results tell a different story. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11559 is roughly 7x the single-core score, which is lower than the theoretical 8x scaling from 8 threads. This indicates thermal or power limits constrain sustained multi-core loads. The 60 W TDP is modest, and the data suggests the CPU will hit its ceiling in all-core workloads like video encoding or 3D rendering.

The GPU’s FP32 performance of 11.15 TFLOPS and memory bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s are substantial, but the Passmark DirectX 12 score of 59 is unusually low compared to the DirectX 11 score of 140. This suggests driver or architecture limitations in modern API workloads, which could show up as inconsistent frame pacing in DX12 titles. For gaming, the CPU’s 4.20 GHz boost clock helps maintain minimum frame rates, but the GPU’s 16 GB GDDR6 memory and 256-bit bus are better suited to large texture loads in professional applications than to high-refresh gaming.

The data indicates a pairing where the CPU is rarely the limiting factor in GPU-bound scenarios, but the GPU is clearly the bottleneck in CPU-light games. Conversely, in heavily threaded tasks like Cinebench R20 multi-core (score 4854) or Passmark multi-thread (14271), the CPU becomes the constraint. The deltaPct values against nearest rivals show the CPU is within 0.5% of the AMD Ryzen 5 7235HS and AMD EPYC 7702, meaning small performance differences in either direction. The GPU’s nearest rival, the GTX 1060 6 GB, is 1% faster on average, so the Quadro RTX 5000 is not a gaming powerhouse by modern standards.

Usage Scenarios

High-refresh gaming: Estimated frame rates from the benchmark scores suggest this pairing is not ideal for 144 Hz or 240 Hz monitors. The GPU’s Passmark G3D score of 15616 is about 29% below the GTX 1060 6 GB, which itself is a mid-range card. The DirectX 12 score of 59 indicates poor scaling in modern APIs, so expect frame rates below 60 FPS at 1440p or 4K in demanding titles. The CPU’s single-core strength helps in esports titles, but the GPU will hold back high refresh rates.

Streaming: The CPU’s 8 threads and Passmark data encryption score of 8069 provide enough headroom for software encoding at 1080p, but the lack of AV1 or dedicated encoder hardware in the i3-12100E (only UHD Graphics 730) means reliance on x264. The GPU includes tensor cores (384) and RT cores (48), but those are not used for standard streaming encoders. The Passmark extended instructions score of 10814 suggests decent SIMD performance for encoding tasks, but multi-thread scaling is limited by the 4-core design.

Video editing: The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11559 and Passmark floating point math score of 31919 indicate competent 1080p editing and moderate 4K timeline performance. The GPU’s 16 GB VRAM and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth help with effects and color grading, but the FP32 11.15 TFLOPS is modest for heavy GPU-accelerated rendering. The Geekbench OpenCL score of 78999 shows the GPU can accelerate compute tasks, but the CPU will bottleneck multi-layer timelines.

3D rendering: This is the strongest scenario. The GPU’s 3072 shading units and 11.15 TFLOPS FP32 performance, combined with 16 GB VRAM, handle complex scenes in Blender or Maya. The CPU’s Cinebench R20 multi-core score of 4854 is adequate for viewport work, but final frame rendering will be slower than with higher-core CPUs. The Passmark GPU compute score of 6525 is low relative to the G3D score, indicating compute workloads are not the GPU’s primary strength.

Software development: The CPU’s Geekbench single-core score of 2202 and Passmark single-thread score of 3438 are excellent for compilation and code analysis. The Passmark integer math score of 40885 shows strong integer throughput, and the data compression score of 160112 handles build artifacts well. The GPU is irrelevant for most development tasks, but the 16 GB VRAM could be useful for local machine learning experiments.

Student and office work: This pairing is massively overkill for documents, spreadsheets, and web browsing. The CPU’s single-core performance ensures snappy UI response, and the integrated UHD Graphics 730 can handle basic displays. The GPU’s 230 W TDP and dual-slot size make this a poor choice for a quiet study machine, but the 60 W CPU TDP keeps idle power manageable. The Passmark G2D score of 709 is low, suggesting 2D desktop rendering is not a priority for this GPU.

CPU Analysis

The Intel Core i3-12100E is a 4-core, 8-thread processor based on Alder Lake architecture, built on Intel’s 10 nm process with a die size of 163 mm². It operates at a base clock of 3.20 GHz and boosts to 4.20 GHz, with a 60 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB L1 per core, 1.25 MB L2 per core, and 12 MB shared L3. This is a locked multiplier part (unlocked: false), meaning overclocking is not an option.

The benchmark scores reveal a processor that punches above its core count in single-threaded tasks. The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1631 is strong for a 4-core part, and the Geekbench single-core score of 2202 confirms this. The Passmark single-thread score of 3438 is within 0.5% of the AMD Ryzen 5 7235HS (which scores 16902 on average), showing the i3-12100E is competitive with mobile 6-core parts in single-thread performance.

Multi-threaded performance is less impressive. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11559 is about 7x the single-core score, which is lower than ideal for 8 threads. The Passmark multi-thread score of 14271 and the Passmark physics score of 1185 both indicate that the CPU hits power or thermal limits quickly under all-core loads. The data compression score of 160112 is decent, but the encryption score of 8069 is modest, likely due to the lack of AES-NI acceleration in some workloads.

The architecture uses DDR4 and DDR5 memory support with dual-channel memory bus, but no memory bandwidth figure is provided. The PCIe support is Gen 5 with 20 lanes from the CPU, which is forward-looking for a budget processor. The integrated UHD Graphics 730 provides basic display output, but it is not suitable for gaming beyond very light titles. The 2022 release date and launch MSRP of $125 position this as an entry-level desktop part, but the benchmark data shows it performs like a mid-range CPU from a few generations ago.

The nearest rivals show a tight cluster: the AMD Ryzen 3 7335U is 0.2% faster, the AMD Ryzen 5 7235HS is 0.3% faster, and the AMD EPYC 7702 is 0.5% faster. The Intel Core i5-1235U is 0.5% slower. This means the i3-12100E is within a rounding error of several very different processors, from a mobile APU to a server chip, which underscores how benchmark averages can mask real workload differences.

Who Should Build It

This build targets users who need professional-grade GPU compute with a modest CPU budget. The Quadro RTX 5000’s 16 GB VRAM and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are suited for 3D modeling, CAD, and scientific visualization, where large datasets reside in GPU memory. The CPU’s single-core performance ensures that viewport interactions and UI responsiveness remain fluid, while the 8 threads handle background tasks without stutter.

Gamers at 1080p with medium settings will find acceptable performance, but the GPU’s DirectX 12 score of 59 suggests that modern titles will not run smoothly at high settings. The CPU’s boost clock of 4.20 GHz helps maintain frame times in CPU-bound scenes, but the GPU’s 11.15 TFLOPS is not enough for high-refresh 1440p gaming. For 4K gaming, the 16 GB VRAM prevents texture swapping, but the raw throughput is insufficient.

Content creators who work in 1080p or light 4K will benefit from the GPU’s compute capabilities. The Geekbench OpenCL score of 78999 indicates strong OpenCL acceleration for effects in Premiere Pro or After Effects. However, the CPU’s 4 cores will lengthen export times compared to 8-core or 12-core alternatives. The Passmark floating point math score of 31919 helps with physics simulations in Blender, but the CPU is the weaker link.

Software developers who compile large codebases will appreciate the single-thread performance. The Passmark integer math score of 40885 and data compression score of 160112 speed up builds and package management. The 12 MB L3 cache helps with working sets, and the 20 PCIe Gen 5 lanes allow fast NVMe storage. The GPU is unnecessary for most development, but could be used for GPU-accelerated testing.

Students and small business workstations are not the ideal fit due to the GPU’s 230 W TDP and dual-slot size. The 550 W suggested PSU adds cost, and the card’s 267 mm length requires a mid-tower case. However, for engineering students running SolidWorks or AutoCAD, the Quadro RTX 5000 provides certified drivers and 16 GB VRAM for large assemblies. The CPU’s 60 W TDP keeps idle power low, but the system is not a quiet, low-profile office machine.

GPU Analysis

The NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 is a Turing architecture GPU built on TSMC’s 12 nm process, with 13,600 million transistors on a 545 mm² die. It features 3072 shading units, 192 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, along with 48 RT cores and 384 tensor cores for ray tracing and AI workloads. The base clock is 1620 MHz with a boost clock of 1815 MHz, and memory runs at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) across a 256-bit bus, yielding 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The 16 GB GDDR6 frame buffer is the standout specification for professional use.

The benchmark scores are mixed. The Passmark G3D score of 15616 places this GPU at the 67th percentile, which is respectable but not exceptional. The nearest rival, the GTX 1060 6 GB, is 1% faster on average, which is damning for a card that launched at 2,299 USD. The RTX A4000 Mobile is 1.2% slower, and the Radeon HD 8970M is 1.8% slower, meaning the Quadro RTX 5000’s average performance is within a few percent of much older or mobile parts.

The DirectX scores reveal a significant weakness. The DirectX 11 score of 140 is decent, but the DirectX 12 score of 59 is less than half, indicating poor optimization for modern APIs. The DirectX 10 score of 113 and DirectX 9 score of 195 are legacy results. The Vulkan score from Geekbench is 92309, which is better than the OpenCL score of 78999, suggesting Vulkan is the preferred API for this GPU.

The pixel rate of 116.2 GPixel/s and texture rate of 348.5 GTexel/s are moderate figures. The FP32 performance of 11.15 TFLOPS is solid for compute, but the FP16 of 22.30 TFLOPS (2:1) is not as impressive as newer cards. The Passmark GPU compute score of 6525 is low compared to the G3D score, which suggests that compute-heavy workloads like machine learning inference will not see the same relative performance as gaming.

The 16 GB VRAM is the main reason to choose this GPU. For 3D rendering with large textures or simulations, the memory capacity prevents out-of-memory errors. The 448.0 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient for 4K textures, but not for 8K. The 48 RT cores provide hardware ray tracing, but the Turing implementation is slower than Ampere or Ada Lovelace, so expect lower ray-traced frame rates.

FAQ

Q: Is the Intel Core i3-12100E good for gaming?

A: The CPU’s single-core performance is strong, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1631 and Passmark single-thread score of 3438. This translates to good frame rates in CPU-bound games, but the GPU will limit overall gaming performance.

Q: How much VRAM does the Quadro RTX 5000 have?

A: It has 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This is ample for large textures and professional workloads.

Q: Can this build handle 4K video editing?

A: The GPU’s 16 GB VRAM and 11.15 TFLOPS FP32 performance can accelerate effects and color correction, but the CPU’s 4 cores (Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11559) will slow down export times and multi-layer timeline scrubbing.

Q: What is the difference between this CPU and the AMD Ryzen 3 7335U?

A: The Ryzen 3 7335U has an average benchmark score of 16827, which is 0.2% higher than the i3-12100E’s average score of 16853. The performance difference is negligible in synthetic benchmarks.

Q: Is the Quadro RTX 5000 good for ray tracing?

A: It has 48 RT cores, but the Turing architecture is older. The DirectX 12 score of 59 suggests that modern ray-traced games will run poorly, and the GPU is better suited for professional rendering with RTX acceleration.

Q: Does the CPU support overclocking?

A: No, the multiplier is locked. The base clock is 3.20 GHz and boost clock is 4.20 GHz, and these are fixed.

Q: What power supply is required?

A: The GPU’s TDP is 230 W and the suggested PSU is 550 W. The CPU’s TDP is 60 W, so a 550 W unit provides adequate headroom.

Benchmark Performance

The CPU’s average benchmark score is 16853, placing it at the 70th percentile among all CPUs. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11559 and single-core score of 1631 show a balanced profile, with the single-core result being particularly strong for the price. The Geekbench multi-core score of 7661 and single-core score of 2202 confirm this. The Passmark multi-thread score of 14271 is lower than expected for 8 threads, but the integer math score of 40885 and floating point math score of 31919 are robust.

The GPU’s average benchmark score is 21629, placing it at the 67th percentile among all GPUs. The Passmark G3D score of 15616 is the primary gaming metric, and it trails the GTX 1060 6 GB by 1%. The Geekbench Vulkan score of 92309 is the best compute result, while the OpenCL score of 78999 is also strong. The DirectX 12 score of 59 is the weakest point, indicating poor scaling in modern games.

The combined percentile of 69 means this pairing outperforms 69% of all CPU+GPU combinations in the database. The CPU’s 70th percentile is slightly higher than the GPU’s 67th, so the CPU is the stronger component relative to its peers. However, the GPU’s nearest rivals include the GTX 1060 6 GB (1% faster) and RTX A4000 Mobile (1.2% slower), showing that the Quadro RTX 5000 is not a high-end gaming card by current standards.

The data shows a system that excels in synthetic benchmarks for single-threaded CPU tasks and memory-heavy GPU workloads, but falls short in multi-threaded CPU scaling and modern API gaming. The Passmark data encryption score of 8069 and data compression score of 160112 indicate solid general-purpose performance, but the physics score of 1185 is low, suggesting poor performance in physics simulations that rely on CPU multi-threading.

Build Overview

This is a desktop build (buildClass: desktop) that combines an Intel Core i3-12100E with an NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000. The CPU is from the Core 12th Gen series, based on Alder Lake architecture, and the GPU is from the Quadro Turing line. The overall tier is the 69th percentile, meaning it sits above average but below high-end gaming or workstation rigs.

The CPU’s 4 cores and 8 threads are entry-level by modern standards, but the single-thread performance is competitive with mobile 6-core parts. The GPU’s 16 GB VRAM and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are workstation-grade, but the raw compute is only slightly better than a GTX 1060 6 GB. This mismatch defines the build: it is a professional GPU bolted to a budget CPU.

The launch MSRP for the CPU is $125, and the GPU had a launch MSRP of 2,299 USD. The GPU is end-of-life, so actual market prices may differ, but the data does not provide current values. The build is not balanced for gaming, where the GPU’s DirectX 12 score of 59 will cause stutters, but it is acceptable for professional applications that leverage the 16 GB VRAM.

The production status of the CPU is active, while the GPU is end-of-life. This means the CPU is still available for new builds, but the GPU may be harder to source. The combined percentile of 69 indicates that most users would be better served by a more balanced pairing, such as a 6-core CPU with a mid-range GPU, unless the specific need for 16 GB VRAM is critical.

Upgrade Path and Platform

The CPU uses Intel Socket 1700, which supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory through a dual-channel bus. The PCIe support is Gen 5 with 20 lanes from the CPU, which is future-proof for fast NVMe drives and next-generation GPUs. The 60 W TDP leaves ample headroom for a more powerful CPU on the same socket, such as a 12th Gen Core i5 or i7, without changing the motherboard.

The GPU uses a PCIe 3.0 x16 interface, which is backward compatible with the CPU’s Gen 5 slots. The 230 W TDP and 550 W suggested PSU mean that a more power-hungry GPU would require a PSU upgrade. The power connectors are 1x 6-pin and 1x 8-pin, which is standard for mid-range cards. The dual-slot design and 267 mm length fit most mid-tower cases, but check clearance.

A sensible next upgrade would be the CPU, since the motherboard and memory can support higher-core Alder Lake parts. The 12 MB L3 cache and 4 cores are the main limitations, and moving to a 6-core or 8-core CPU would improve multi-threaded performance significantly. The GPU, despite being end-of-life, has enough VRAM for most professional tasks, so upgrading the CPU first is the logical path.

For the GPU, the successor is Workstation Ampere, but the data does not provide specific models. The 16 GB VRAM is the key asset, so upgrading to a newer GPU with similar memory capacity would be necessary for large datasets. The PCIe 3.0 interface is not a bottleneck for this GPU, but newer cards with PCIe 4.0 would benefit from the CPU’s Gen 5 support.

The memory support for DDR4 and DDR5 means users can choose either platform. DDR4 is cheaper and mature, while DDR5 offers higher bandwidth but at a premium. The dual-channel bus is standard, and the lack of ECC support means this is not for error-correcting workloads. The overall platform is flexible, but the CPU’s 4 cores will remain the ceiling for all-core tasks unless upgraded.