SYSTEM ANALYZER

Rate My PC: Intel Core i5-12600K + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER

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

Build Configuration

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PROCESSOR (CPU)

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GRAPHICS CARD (GPU)

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92 Score

Top 8% Ranking

92 / 100

ULTIMATE READY

Apex Performer

Top 8% of systems. Capable of 4K Ultra gaming and advanced rendering.

4K 60+ FPSVR ReadyRay Tracing

System Balance Analysis

CPU vs GPU performance ratio

Well Balanced

CPU

88%

GPU

96%

PROCESSOR

Intel Core i5-12600K

27,578 Benchmark Score

Top 12% Market Ranking

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GRAPHICS CARD

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER

54,209 Benchmark Score

Top 4% Market Ranking

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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

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Optimal Performance

Your system is in the top tier. You can run any modern game at maximum settings.

4K Gaming Ready

Consider a 4K 144Hz monitor to fully utilize your hardware capabilities.

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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 i5-12600K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is a desktop combination that sits in an interesting spot in the benchmark data: a mid-tier processor from Intel's Alder Lake generation feeding one of the fastest Ada Lovelace GPUs NVIDIA has shipped. With a combined percentile of 83 against all tracked pairings, the CPU occupying the 79th percentile and the GPU the 86th, this build leans GPU-heavy — a configuration that raises immediate questions about where the ceiling lies and which workloads will hit it first. One point of transparency before diving in: the database contains no measured FPS rows for this exact pairing (`dataIsMeasured` is false and `measuredFpsUltraByGame` is empty), so every frame-rate discussion below is estimated from the benchmark scores rather than directly measured.

Upgrade Path and Platform

The platform story starts with Intel Socket 1700. That socket choice matters because it defines what a sensible next upgrade looks like: staying on this board means staying within Intel's newer desktop generations that share the socket, while a platform hop would require a board swap. Memory flexibility is a genuine strength here — the i5-12600K supports both DDR4 and DDR5 on a dual-channel bus, so builders can carry forward existing DDR4 kits or step into DDR5 depending on the motherboard. That dual-support window is one of the more practical platform features of the Alder Lake generation.

PCIe is where a mild tension appears. The CPU provides Gen 4 with 20 lanes (CPU only), while the RTX 4080 SUPER connects over a PCIe 4.0 x16 bus interface. The good news: the GPU's link requirement is fully satisfied by the CPU's Gen 4 capability, so there is no interface mismatch penalizing the graphics card. The 20 CPU lanes also leave room for a fast NVMe drive alongside the GPU. What the platform does not offer is Gen 5 bandwidth from the CPU, which is worth noting for anyone planning future storage upgrades.

Power headroom deserves attention. The CPU carries a TDP of 125 W and the GPU a TDP of 320 W, with NVIDIA suggesting a 700 W PSU for the graphics card alone. That suggested figure already accounts for a system around this class, but a builder pairing these two components should treat 700 W as the floor, not a target. The GPU draws through a single 16-pin power connector and occupies a triple-slot footprint — physical clearance matters as much as wattage here. The card measures 310 mm in length, 140 mm in height, and 61 mm in width, so compact cases are effectively out.

A sensible upgrade path? The data suggests the CPU is the first thing to outgrow. With the GPU at the 86th percentile and the CPU at the 79th, a stronger processor on the same socket would raise the combined percentile before a GPU swap would. The multiplier on the i5-12600K is unlocked, so tuning is an option before replacing anything.

Balance and Bottleneck

Which component limits which workload? The percentile spread tells most of the story. An 86th-percentile GPU feeding from a 79th-percentile CPU produces a combined percentile of 83 — almost exactly between the two, which indicates a reasonably balanced pairing rather than a severely lopsided one. But "reasonably balanced" is not the same as "GPU-bound everywhere."

Consider the CPU's threading behavior. Its 3DMark scaling is telling: 1016 single-thread, 3794 at 4 threads, 6144 at 8 threads, 7975 at 16 threads, and 7966 at max threads. Notice that the 16-thread and max-thread scores are essentially identical — within nine points of each other. With 10 cores and 16 threads, the CPU saturates at its thread count; there is no headroom beyond 16 threads. That flat ceiling means heavily threaded game engines and rendering workloads will stop scaling on the CPU side, and in gaming the implication is direct: once a title wants more than 16 threads of CPU work, the processor becomes the limiter regardless of GPU capability.

The GPU side shows no such cliff. A passmark G3D score of 34245 and an average benchmark score of 54209 place it in the top quintile of tracked GPUs, essentially tied with the RTX 4080 (deltaPct -0.1). At higher resolutions — where the render load shifts to the GPU — the pairing becomes GPU-bound and the CPU's limitations recede. At lower resolutions and high refresh rates, the CPU's single-thread figure of 1016 in 3DMark and 3926 in PassMark single-thread becomes the constraint.

So the bottleneck picture is resolution-dependent: GPU-limited at 4K, potentially CPU-limited at 1080p high-refresh scenarios. Without measured FPS rows for this pairing, that framing is inference from the score distribution rather than observed frame data — but the score distribution is consistent enough to support it.

Benchmark Performance

The numbers, in full. On the CPU side: 3DMark scores of 1016 (single-thread), 1989 (2 threads), 3794 (4 threads), 6144 (8 threads), 7975 (16 threads), and 7966 (max threads); Cinebench R15 multi/single of 2555/275, R20 of 9821/1386, R23 of 17491/1907; Geekbench multi/single of 12599/2190; PassMark multi-thread 27608 and single-thread 3926, plus physics at 1525. The CPU's average benchmark score is 27578, placing it at the 79th percentile against all tracked CPUs.

What does that average mean against rivals? The nearestRivals list is remarkably tight: the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X sits at an identical 27578 average (deltaPct 0), the Ryzen 7 5800 at 27535 (deltaPct 0.2), the Ryzen 5 7600X at 27636 (deltaPct -0.2), and Intel's own Core Ultra 5 125H at 27507 (deltaPct 0.3). All four rivals are within a fraction of a percent. In practical terms, the i5-12600K is statistically indistinguishable from this peer group in aggregate performance — choosing between them comes down to platform features, not raw throughput.

On the GPU side: 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 at 6600, Geekbench OpenCL at 219065, Vulkan at 260075, PassMark G3D at 34245, GPU compute at 19822, plus DirectX subscores of 381 (DX9), 301 (DX11), 193 (DX10), and 134 (DX12), and G2D at 1270. The average score of 54209 puts the card at the 86th percentile. The Vulkan score outranking OpenCL by roughly 41 thousand points suggests the architecture performs best under modern explicit APIs — relevant for both gaming and cross-platform compute work.

The combined picture: an 83rd-percentile desktop. That is a high-performance configuration with an identifiable tilt — the GPU is the stronger half, and the CPU, while no slouch, defines the ceiling in threaded and low-resolution workloads.

Who Should Build It

Gamers targeting high resolutions are the clearest fit. With the GPU at the 86th percentile and a 736.3 GB/s memory bandwidth figure backing 16 GB of GDDR6X, 4K ultra-settings gaming is the natural home for this pairing — the CPU's limits matter least exactly where this GPU is strongest. High-refresh 1440p players are also well served, though the CPU's single-thread scores suggest some ceiling in the most demanding competitive titles.

Content creators get a mixed but workable proposition. A Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 17491 and Geekbench multi of 12599 indicate capable rendering throughput for a 10-core part, and the GPU's 52.22 TFLOPS FP32 figure plus 320 tensor cores make GPU-accelerated encoding and AI-assisted workflows viable. Video editors working with high-bitrate footage will appreciate the 16 GB of VRAM; 3D renderers will find the Vulkan score of 260075 supportive of viewport work.

Developers benefit from the single-thread strength — a Geekbench single-core of 2190 and PassMark single-thread of 3926 mean fast compile times and responsive IDEs, while the multi-thread numbers handle parallel builds. Students and small-business workstation users get longevity from the platform's DDR4/DDR5 flexibility and the 20 Gen 4 lanes, though anyone needing ECC memory should look elsewhere: ECC support is false on this CPU. For office productivity alone, this build is dramatically overspecified — the passmark integer math score of 87776 would idle through spreadsheets.

CPU Analysis

The Core i5-12600K is a 10-core, 16-thread Alder Lake-S processor built on Intel's 10 nm process, with a 215 mm² die. Its hybrid-era design pairs cores in a configuration that yields 16 threads total. Base clock sits at 3.70 GHz with a 4.90 GHz boost — a meaningful boost range that shows up in the single-thread numbers. The cache hierarchy: 80 KB L1 per core, 1.25 MB L2 per core, and 20 MB of shared L3. That per-core L2 allocation is generous and helps explain the strong showing in latency-sensitive tests.

What do the scores mean for real workloads? The single-thread figures — 1016 in 3DMark, 275 in Cinebench R15, 1907 in R23 — are the numbers that matter for most games and many applications, and they remain competitive. The multi-core numbers tell a scaling story: R15 multi of 2555, R20 of 9821, R23 of 17491, and PassMark multi-thread of 27608. Compare R23 multi (17491) to single (1907) and the ratio works out to roughly 9.2x on a 10-core/16-thread part — solid but not perfectly linear, consistent with a hybrid core arrangement.

The PassMark subsystem scores sketch the workload profile: integer math at 87776 and floating point at 67217 favor general compute; data compression at 344071 and encryption at 18485 are strong for file work; extended instructions at 22002 and physics at 1525 round out a well-rounded profile. The find-prime-numbers score of 91 is a niche figure but indicates the CPU sustains long-duration integer loads. The launch MSRP was $289, and the part remains in active production status. The unlocked multiplier means the 4.90 GHz boost is not necessarily the ceiling for tinkerers.

FAQ

Q: Does this build have measured FPS data in the database?

A: No. There are no measured FPS rows for this exact CPU+GPU combination; all frame-rate discussion is estimated from benchmark scores, and the database flags `dataIsMeasured` as false.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck?

A: It depends on resolution. The GPU (86th percentile) outclasses the CPU (79th percentile), so the build is GPU-bound at high resolutions and can become CPU-bound at low resolutions and high refresh rates, particularly in titles that want more than 16 threads.

Q: How does the i5-12600K compare to its rivals?

A: It is statistically tied with the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X (deltaPct 0), marginally ahead of the Ryzen 7 5800 (0.2%) and Core Ultra 5 125H (0.3%), and marginally behind the Ryzen 5 7600X (-0.2%) on average benchmark score.

Q: What PSU does this build need?

A: NVIDIA suggests a 700 W PSU for the RTX 4080 SUPER, which has a 320 W TDP; the CPU adds a 125 W TDP. Treat 700 W as the minimum sensible figure.

Q: Does the platform support DDR5?

A: Yes — the CPU supports both DDR4 and DDR5 on a dual-channel bus, so motherboard choice determines the memory type.

Q: Can the CPU be overclocked?

A: Yes, the multiplier is unlocked, with a stock boost clock of 4.90 GHz.

Q: Does the CPU support ECC memory?

A: No, ECC support is false, so this is not suitable as an ECC-requiring workstation base.

Usage Scenarios

High-refresh gaming: The GPU's 34245 PassMark G3D score and 86th-percentile standing can drive high frame rates, but the CPU's single-thread ceiling of 1016 in 3DMark and its flat scaling beyond 16 threads mean the most demanding competitive titles may hit a processor limit at 1080p. Estimates suggest excellent 1440p high-refresh play.

Streaming: Streaming adds encode overhead on top of gaming load. The GPU's 320 tensor cores can absorb encoding via hardware acceleration while the CPU's 16 threads handle game and broadcast logic — a reasonable split, though the max-thread score of 7966 leaves little spare capacity if software encoding is used.

Video editing: 16 GB of GDDR6X at 736.3 GB/s handles high-resolution timelines comfortably, and the GPU compute score of 19822 supports accelerated effects. The CPU's R23 multi of 17491 covers export passes when the GPU cannot take over. These figures are score-based estimates of capability, not measured edit benchmarks.

3D rendering: The Geekbench Vulkan score of 260075 and OpenCL score of 219065 indicate strong GPU rendering throughput, and the FP32 figure of 52.22 TFLOPS gives render engines substantial rasterization headroom. CPU-based rendering is mid-pack: 17491 in R23 multi.

Software development: Single-thread speed dominates compile-sensitive work, and the Geekbench single-core score of 2190 delivers. Parallel builds scale well to 16 threads, as the near-identical 16-thread (7975) and max-thread (7966) 3DMark scores confirm full utilization of the thread count.

Student and office work: Massively overspecified. Integer math at 87776 and a PassMark multi-thread of 27608 will make office suites trivial; the integrated UHD Graphics 770 even allows basic operation for troubleshooting if the discrete card is removed.

Build Overview

This is a desktop-class build (buildClass: desktop) pairing a 79th-percentile CPU with an 86th-percentile GPU for a combined percentile of 83 — a firmly upper-tier configuration. The two components come from different product eras: the CPU shipped in November 2021 and remains in active production, while the GPU launched in January 2024 and carries an end-of-life production status, with the GeForce 50 series as its successor and the RTX 4080 as its near-equal sibling (deltaPct -0.1). The GPU's launch MSRP was 999 USD. The character of the build is "strong GPU, capable CPU": the Ada Lovelace card does the heavy lifting in graphics work while the Alder Lake processor supplies competitive but not flagship compute — an asymmetry that defines where this pairing excels and where it runs out of room.

Gaming Performance

To restate the caveat clearly: the database holds no measured FPS results for this specific combination, so the following is estimated from benchmark scores rather than recorded gameplay data.

What do the scores imply? The GPU's 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6600 and 86th-percentile ranking indicate class-leading rasterization performance — this is a card statistically tied with the RTX 4080 and ahead of the Radeon Pro W5700X (deltaPct -1.1), RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (-2.7), and Radeon 8060S (-2.8) in the rivals list. At 4K ultra settings, estimates point to high frame rates in modern AAA titles, with the 16 GB VRAM buffer and 736.3 GB/s bandwidth preventing memory pressure at that resolution.

At 1440p, the GPU remains comfortably in its element, but the CPU begins to matter more. The DX12 PassMark subscore of 134, alongside DX9 at 381, DX11 at 301, and DX10 at 193, shows the card performing across API generations; older DX9/DX11 titles tend to be CPU-sensitive, and here the i5-12600K's single-thread numbers (1016 3DMark, 3926 PassMark) set the frame-rate ceiling rather than the GPU. At 1080p high-refresh gaming, that ceiling arrives sooner — the flat 3DMark scaling from 16 threads to max threads (7975 to 7966) confirms the processor has nothing left to give beyond its thread count.

The honest summary: for high-resolution gaming this pairing should be estimated as excellent, and for extreme-refresh low-resolution gaming the CPU is the probable limiter. Measured data for this exact combination would firm up where those crossover points sit.

GPU Analysis

The RTX 4080 SUPER is built on the AD103 chip, fabricated by TSMC on a 5 nm process, packing 45,900 million transistors into a 379 mm² die — a transistor density of 121.1M per mm². The specification sheet reads like a flagship-tier card: 10240 shading units, 320 texture mapping units, 112 render output units, 80 RT cores, and 320 tensor cores.

Clocks run from a 2295 MHz base to a 2550 MHz boost, with memory clocked at 1438 MHz (23 Gbps effective). That memory subsystem — 16 GB of GDDR6X on a 256-bit bus — delivers 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth, which is what keeps the shading array fed at 4K resolutions. Theoretical rates: 285.6 GPixel/s of pixel fill and 816.0 GTexel/s of texture fill, with FP32 compute at 52.22 TFLOPS (FP16 at 1:1, also 52.22 TFLOPS).

What do the benchmark scores mean for rendering? The 80 RT cores matter for ray-traced workloads and the 320 tensor cores for AI upscaling and denoising — in practice, this hardware is what allows the card to sustain ray-traced rendering at playable rates where older architectures struggle. The Vulkan score of 260075 versus OpenCL at 219065 signals where compute performance is best harvested: modern explicit APIs. The GPU compute score of 19822 and the DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) API support, alongside Vulkan 1.4 and OpenGL 4.6, round out a software profile aimed squarely at current-generation rendering engines. Display connectivity — one HDMI 2.1 and three DisplayPort 1.4a outputs — supports multi-monitor high-refresh setups.

The verdict from the data: an 86th-percentile GPU that is effectively interchangeable with the RTX 4080 in aggregate performance, with the raw specifications to justify that standing, and with enough VRAM and bandwidth to remain the stronger half of this build for years of high-resolution rendering work.

Rate My PC: Intel Core i5-12600K + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER

Apex Performer

System Balance Analysis

Intel Core i5-12600K

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER

Market Position

Game Performance Benchmarks

Cyberpunk 2077

Red Dead Redemption 2

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Control

Call of Duty: Warzone

Fortnite

Performance Insights

Optimal Performance

4K Gaming Ready

Performance Tiers Explained

Ultimate

High-End

Mid-Range

Entry Level

Legacy

Upgrade Path and Platform

Balance and Bottleneck

Benchmark Performance

Who Should Build It

CPU Analysis

FAQ

Usage Scenarios

Build Overview

Gaming Performance

GPU Analysis

4K Gaming Performance

Cyberpunk 2077

Red Dead Redemption 2

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Control

Call of Duty: Warzone

Fortnite

1440p Gaming Performance

Cyberpunk 2077

Red Dead Redemption 2

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Control

Call of Duty: Warzone

Fortnite

1080p Gaming Performance

Cyberpunk 2077

Red Dead Redemption 2

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Control

Call of Duty: Warzone

Fortnite

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