First, about Windows. Windows sets itself up according to the hardware and BIOS (and its settings) it detects during installation. The drivers you or Windows installs are also quite specific to the platform that was used, and won't be ideal or won't be active anymore with the new hardware. What's more, with the 12th gen Alder Lake CPUs, they contain a so-called Thread Director, which relies on Windows 11 to provide proper scheduling to the appropriate cores. This all leads to the outcome that entirely new hardware might not work in the optimal way when you just try to re-use your existing Windows. On Intel, anything further than a one-platform-gap (say, from Z390 to Z590) usually warrants a fresh install. I personally always do a fresh install with a new board+CPU, even when i just go to the very next platform.
Then, once Windows is installed, i install the drivers in this order: Always Intel Chipset driver first, then Serial I/O and Management Engine (all from MSI support site). Then
Intel LAN (Wired driver x64),
WLAN (Driver64),
BT drivers, then perhaps AMD/NVIDIA graphics driver from them, as well as Realtek audio driver from MSI. By that time you should be online and Windows Update can do the rest.
***I do see in MSI CENTER / LIVE UPDATE that it is advising me that I should update all those drivers you have mentioned. That being said, if I just install them to the current build will they in essence just install correctly and REPLACE the old drivers from the original build? If so, is there follow up that I'd need to do with regard to getting rid of the old drivers completely?***
About your 12900K, that is a very extreme CPU. Today's higher CPU models are as if Intel "stock-overclocked" them, meaning, Intel went above the point they should've gone on the voltage-per-frequency curve, in order to beat AMD in certain benchmarks. They exploited all the frequency potential and then some. So you can't really overclock them either. Not only that, even at stock settings they can cause a big headache for your cooling.
So not only is there no headroom anymore, but the higher you go in the model range, they already behave like overclocked CPUs, with increased power consumption and lowered efficiency (even if you don't change any setting at all). This goes so far that lowering the power limits - in other words, restricting the power draw - can regain some lost efficiency (or make it even possible to cool the CPU in the first place):
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i9-12900k-alder-lake-tested-at-various-power-limits/
It also helps to explain why the new top model 12900KS is such a power-hungry beast, has such bad efficiency as a result, and very bad price/performance to boot:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i9-12900ks/23.html
They allow the KS to draw way much power for a laughably small performance increase, just to keep the "fastest gaming CPU" crown. So this is the end product of the tendency during the last couple CPU generations of clocking the higher CPU models more and more aggressively, to exploit every last bit of performance that can be squeezed out of them. If the 12900K was already using brute force, then the KS uses sheer violence.
That development is why, even on a 12700K, let alone a 12900K, you can't substantially overclock anymore, unless you're willing to use brute force and throw calculation efficiency right out the window. But even if you're willing to do that, the skyrocketing power consumption and limited ability in removing that heat from the tiny CPU surface will stop you before there's really any relevant payoff in performance.
Over here you can read a thread where i helped someone lower the power limits on the 11900K to get it slightly more under control (even though we didn't find the optimal point yet, because at some point he was already satisfied):
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?...ns-solid-as-a-rock.377267/page-2#post-2137563
Something very similar has to be done with your 12900K if it runs into thermal throttling. Out of the box, the BIOS may default to "Water Cooler" (power limits maxed out) or you or someone else may have selected that, since you actually have a water cooler (presumably, you don't mention your actual cooler model). But this cooler selection is just a thinly disguised way of setting the power limits. When you let a 12900K off the leash like that, even some good water coolers cannot deal with it anymore for prolonged full load like Cinebench is creating.
In the link about the power limits, you will see that you can gain a lot of efficiency by lowering the limits. The CPU will spend less energy to complete a certain calculation (even though it may take slightly longer, but the performance drop is much lower than the efficiency gain), all the while staying much cooler. So in a way, you can revert the back decisions Intel made when they came up with the specs of this CPU, in that their only goal was to beat certain AMD CPUs in benchmarks, and didn't care about the efficiency. You can get it more towards Ryzen levels of efficiency.
*** I will certainly look into possibly undervolting, etc to help get temps under control. And yes, I do have an AIO. Its the Kraken x73 360 AIO***
As for hardware monitoring, they might simply read out different sensors. CPU package vs. individual core temps and so on. I swear by
HWinfo64 "Sensors", you can see all the sensors at once.
If you want further help, post all your hardware in detail (including PSU and case models), and post the same HWinfo64 sensor screenshot i talk about in the thread i linked.
I can help you find the best settings for your situation.
***Man that would be fantastic. When I go home today I will run HWMonitor and post those values. In the meantime, please see below for full system specs...
NZXT H710I CASE (custom front top and side panels with hexagon cutouts for maximum airflow.
12900K
MSI 3080TI GAMING X TRIO
MSI Z690 CARBON WIFI GAM8NG MOTHERBOARD
NZXT KRAKEN X73 AIO (FRONT MOUNTED WITH FANS AS INTAKE - AGAIN, PANEL IS CUSTOM FOR AIRFLOW)
BOOT DRIVE IS SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS NVME
OTHER DRIVES - CRUCIAL 2TB 2.5 SSD AND 2TB SEAGATE HDD
PSU IS EVGA 1000W SUPERNOVA G5
