SYSTEM ANALYZER

Rate My PC: Intel Core i3-12100TE + NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation

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

84 / 100
HIGH-END

Power Build

Top 16% of systems. Excellent for 1440p Ultra or 4K High gaming.

1440p Ultra4K High

System Balance Analysis

CPU vs GPU performance ratio
CPU Bottleneck
CPU
70%
VS
GPU
99%

Your CPU is limiting system performance. Consider upgrading to a faster processor to better utilize your GPU.

PROCESSOR

Intel Core i3-12100TE

2,475 Benchmark Score
Top 30% Market Ranking
View Full Specs →
GRAPHICS CARD

NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation

135,218 Benchmark Score
Top 1% 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
View All Games →

Performance Insights

Tips to maximize your system

Strong Performance

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

Bottleneck Detected

CPU Bottleneck - Upgrading the weaker component will improve overall performance.

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

The Intel Core i3-12100TE and NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation form a desktop pairing that sits at the 72nd percentile overall, combining a modest, power-efficient four-core processor with a high-end workstation graphics card. The data in this analysis is derived from synthetic benchmarks only; no measured FPS rows exist for this exact combination in the FACT PACK, so all gaming performance discussions are estimates based on the relative CPU and GPU scores.

CPU Analysis

The Intel Core i3-12100TE is a 12th Generation Alder Lake-S desktop processor built on Intel's 10 nm process, featuring four physical cores and eight threads. Its base clock is 2.10 GHz with a boost clock of 4.00 GHz, and it carries a 35 W TDP, indicating a strong emphasis on thermal efficiency rather than raw throughput. The chip uses the Intel Socket 1700 platform and supports dual-channel DDR4 and DDR5 memory, though ECC memory is not supported.

The cache hierarchy consists of 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and a shared 12 MB L3 cache. This configuration is typical of a low-power quad-core part, and the benchmark results reflect that positioning. In Cinebench R23, the processor scores 8,558 points in multi-core and 1,208 points in single-core. The multi-core result is the more telling figure: with only four physical cores, the chip relies heavily on hyper-threading to maintain responsiveness in threaded workloads, and the 8,558-point score places it in the middle of the pack for desktop CPUs.

Its average benchmark score of 2,475 puts it at the 49th percentile of all CPUs, meaning it is essentially a median performer. The nearest rivals show how tightly clustered this segment is: the Intel Xeon D-1540 scores 2,467 (0.3% slower), the Intel Core i5-9500T scores 2,493 (0.7% faster), the Intel Core i5-8600 scores 2,454 (0.8% slower), and the Intel Core i5-1155G7 scores 2,496 (0.9% faster). These deltas are all within a single percentage point, confirming that the i3-12100TE offers performance parity with a range of older mid-range and low-power processors. For real workloads, this means the CPU will handle everyday productivity and light threaded tasks without issue, but it will be the limiting factor in heavily multi-threaded rendering or compilation scenarios where higher-core-count parts pull ahead.

Benchmark Performance

The GPU side of this pairing is dramatically stronger than the CPU. The NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation is a workstation-class card based on the AD104 chip and Ada Lovelace architecture, fabricated by TSMC on a 5 nm process with 35,800 million transistors on a 294 mm² die. In Geekbench OpenCL, it scores 146,593, and in Geekbench Vulkan, it scores 123,842, yielding an average benchmark score of 135,218. That average places the GPU at the 95th percentile of all GPUs, a stark contrast to the CPU's 49th percentile.

The GPU's nearest rivals are all within a narrow band: the NVIDIA A10M scores 135,230 (0% delta), the AMD Radeon PRO W6800 scores 135,396 (0.1% slower), the AMD Radeon Pro W6800X Duo scores 135,774 (0.4% slower), and the AMD Radeon PRO V620 scores 136,472 (0.9% slower). This indicates that the RTX 4000 Ada Generation sits at the top of a competitive workstation segment, delivering performance comparable to other high-end professional cards while being slightly faster than most of them in compute benchmarks.

The combined picture is one of extreme imbalance. The CPU is a mid-tier, low-power part, while the GPU is a top-5% professional compute monster. In CPU-bound tasks, the i3-12100TE will cap overall system performance; in GPU-bound tasks, the RTX 4000 Ada Generation will deliver near-best-in-class results. The overall pairing percentile of 72 reflects this mix, weighted by the GPU's dominance. For synthetic benchmark purposes, the data shows a system that excels at graphics and compute acceleration but struggles to feed the GPU in scenarios requiring high single-threaded CPU throughput.

Balance and Bottleneck

The bottleneck analysis here is straightforward because of the massive gap between the two components' percentiles. The CPU sits at the 49th percentile, while the GPU sits at the 95th percentile. This 46-point difference indicates that the CPU will be the limiting factor in most latency-sensitive and lightly-threaded workloads. For example, in gaming scenarios where frame generation relies on a single main thread, the i3-12100TE's single-core score of 1,208 in Cinebench R23 will constrain the system well before the RTX 4000 Ada Generation's compute power is fully utilized.

In contrast, GPU-bound workloads such as 3D rendering, machine learning inference, or large dataset processing will see the RTX 4000 Ada Generation operating near its full potential, as these tasks scale across thousands of cores and do not depend on the CPU's four threads. The FPS scaling, estimated from the benchmark scores rather than measured data, would show a significant drop in frame rates at lower resolutions or with high-CPU-demand game settings, while at higher resolutions (where GPU load increases), the system would exhibit more balanced performance. The data suggests that for a system like this, the CPU is the clear bottleneck in interactive workloads, and the GPU is the bottleneck only in extreme compute-bound scenarios where the CPU has already completed its portion of the work.

Upgrade Path and Platform

The Intel Core i3-12100TE uses the Intel Socket 1700 platform, which supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration. The memory controller does not support ECC, so users are limited to consumer memory modules. The CPU provides PCIe Gen 5 with 20 lanes, which is a forward-looking feature that allows high-bandwidth connections to modern GPUs and NVMe storage. The integrated UHD Graphics 730 also provides a fallback display output, though it is not intended for gaming or compute tasks.

The GPU, meanwhile, uses a PCIe 4.0 x16 interface, which is fully compatible with the CPU's PCIe Gen 5 slots. The RTX 4000 Ada Generation has a 130 W TDP and comes with a suggested PSU rating of 300 W, which is modest for a workstation card of this performance tier. The single-slot design and 1x 16-pin power connector make it physically flexible for compact builds, and its 245 mm length (9.6 inches) fits most mid-tower cases. A sensible next upgrade for this platform would be a higher-core-count Socket 1700 processor, such as a 12th or 13th generation i5 or i7, which would better match the GPU's performance ceiling without requiring a motherboard change. The memory support for both DDR4 and DDR5 means users can choose based on existing inventory or price, though the CPU's quad-core nature limits the benefit of higher memory bandwidth in most workloads.

GPU Analysis

The NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation is a workstation GPU built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm TSMC process. It features 6,144 shading units, 192 texture mapping units, and 64 raster output units, alongside 48 RT cores and 192 tensor cores. The memory subsystem consists of 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 360.0 GB/s. The memory clock runs at 2,250 MHz, with an effective data rate of 18 Gbps.

The GPU's base clock is 1,500 MHz, boosting to 2,175 MHz under load. Raw compute throughput is substantial: 26.73 TFLOPS for both FP32 and FP16 (with a 1:1 ratio), a pixel rate of 139.2 GPixel/s, and a texture rate of 417.6 GTexel/s. These figures position the card for serious compute workloads, and the benchmark scores confirm this. The Geekbench OpenCL score of 146,593 is particularly strong, indicating high parallel processing capability. The Vulkan score of 123,842 is also impressive, suggesting good driver optimization for graphics APIs.

The 20 GB VRAM is a key feature for professionals working with large datasets or high-resolution textures, as it allows entire models or scenes to reside in GPU memory without spilling to system RAM. The 48 RT cores provide hardware-accelerated ray tracing, while the 192 tensor cores accelerate AI and deep learning tasks. The card uses a PCIe 4.0 x16 interface and supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. With its 95th percentile ranking, this GPU outperforms the vast majority of all graphics cards, making it suitable for demanding render farms, scientific computing, and high-end content creation.

FAQ

Q: What is the CPU's performance percentile compared to the GPU's?

A: The Intel Core i3-12100TE is at the 49th percentile of all CPUs, while the NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation is at the 95th percentile of all GPUs, indicating a significant performance gap between the two components.

Q: How much VRAM does the GPU have, and what is its bandwidth?

A: The GPU has 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 360.0 GB/s.

Q: What is the CPU's boost clock and TDP?

A: The Intel Core i3-12100TE has a boost clock of 4.00 GHz and a TDP of 35 W.

Q: Does the CPU support ECC memory?

A: No, the Intel Core i3-12100TE does not support ECC memory, despite its workstation-oriented GPU counterpart.

Q: What is the GPU's average benchmark score and its nearest rival?

A: The GPU's average benchmark score is 135,218. Its nearest rival is the NVIDIA A10M with an average score of 135,230, showing a 0% delta.

Q: What is the combined percentile of this CPU+GPU pairing?

A: The combined percentile for this desktop build is 72, reflecting the CPU's mid-tier position and the GPU's top-tier position.

Q: What is the suggested power supply wattage for the GPU?

A: The suggested PSU for the NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation is 300 W, which is low for its performance level.

Usage Scenarios

High-refresh gaming: This pairing is not ideal for high-refresh gaming. The CPU's 49th percentile ranking and single-core score of 1,208 in Cinebench R23 will bottleneck frame generation in most titles, preventing the GPU from reaching its full potential. Estimated FPS at 1080p or 1440p will be limited by the CPU, while 4K gaming would shift the load to the GPU but still suffer in CPU-heavy scenes.

Streaming: Streaming involves both CPU encoding and GPU rendering. The i3-12100TE's four cores and eight threads can handle a single stream at moderate settings, but the RTX 4000 Ada Generation's 192 tensor cores could offload encoding via NVENC if the software supports it. The CPU's low TDP and 49th percentile performance suggest it will manage, but not excel, at simultaneous gaming and encoding.

Video editing: Video editing benefits from a strong GPU for effects and rendering, and the RTX 4000 Ada Generation's 26.73 TFLOPS of FP32 compute will accelerate timelines and exports. However, the CPU's 8,558-point Cinebench R23 multi-core score will slow down timeline scrubbing and encoding tasks that rely on CPU threads, making this a GPU-accelerated but CPU-limited workflow.

3D rendering: This is a strong scenario for the GPU. The RTX 4000 Ada Generation's 95th percentile ranking and 20 GB VRAM will handle complex scenes with large textures and ray-traced lighting efficiently. The CPU's role is limited to scene preparation and physics, where its 49th percentile performance is adequate but not exceptional. For GPU-based renderers, this system will perform near the top of its class.

Software development: Compilation tasks are typically CPU-bound and multi-threaded. The i3-12100TE's 8,558-point multi-core score is below average for modern development workstations, leading to slower build times. The GPU will accelerate some tasks like shader compilation or running local AI models, but the overall development experience will be constrained by the processor.

Student and office work: This system is overkill for standard office tasks. The CPU's 49th percentile performance is sufficient for word processing, spreadsheets, and web browsing, while the GPU's 95th percentile power is wasted on these workloads. The 35 W CPU TDP and 130 W GPU TDP make it an energy-efficient choice for a workstation, but the cost and size of the GPU are unjustified for basic productivity.

Build Overview

This build pairs the Intel Core i3-12100TE, a low-power quad-core desktop processor, with the NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation, a high-end workstation GPU. The system is classified as a desktop build, and its combined percentile of 72 places it above the majority of all systems, driven almost entirely by the GPU's 95th percentile ranking. The CPU is a mid-range part at the 49th percentile, offering balanced performance for general tasks but lacking the core count for heavy multi-threading. The GPU is a professional-grade compute accelerator with 20 GB of VRAM and 26.73 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, making it suitable for rendering, AI, and scientific workloads. The pairing is highly unbalanced, with the GPU vastly outperforming the CPU, which will limit overall system performance in CPU-bound scenarios.

Who Should Build It

This system targets users whose primary workloads are GPU-accelerated. 3D artists and animators using GPU-based renderers will benefit from the RTX 4000 Ada Generation's 95th percentile performance and 20 GB VRAM, allowing them to render large scenes without memory constraints. Data scientists and AI researchers can leverage the 192 tensor cores for model training and inference, though the CPU's 49th percentile ranking may slow data preprocessing. Video editors working with high-resolution footage will see accelerated effects and exports, but should expect CPU bottlenecks in timeline operations. Small business workstations handling CUDA-accelerated tasks, such as CAD or product simulation, will find the GPU's compute power transformative. However, gamers seeking high-refresh experiences at 1080p or 1440p should look elsewhere, as the CPU will hold back the GPU's frame output. Students and office workers will find the system vastly overpowered for their needs, making it a poor cost choice for general productivity.