The problem is commonly called GAS. Whoever is affected by it wants just a confirmation of an idea he already has, not real suggestions. Everything else is refused That said, they are roughly the same CPU with roughly the same amount of wasted power and roughly the same computational power. Get the older one, less teething problem and 100$ still in your pocket
Thank you, that is a reasonable answer to my original question. I was hoping to get a more technical discussion of the 12th generation vs 13th generation Intel CPUs, and the Z690 vs Z790 chipsets, but so be it. This site is VERY good for information on Microsoft operating systems, but not so much on hardware. For those seeking good hardware based forums, after a bit of searching I can recommend the forums on Anandtech.
Specs comparisons about small details are usually pointless at least for people used to rebuild the whole PC each year or two. An added spec, usually matters when you keep your setup until it takes apart. Say when IVY bridge chipsets where released they introduced the native USB3 support, which was a notable addition. But aside that older sandy bridge chipsets usually were released with third party USB3 ports, at the time USB3 was almost useless. It become to be relevant after few years. Who bought IVY bridge mobos over the older ones (which were still compatible with 3rd gen CPUs), faced less mature USB drivers for some time, but spent way more. A decade later an IVY bridge MOBO is surely way better than a Sandy bridge one. And the story repeat itself since the days of first IBM PC. Get what you need NOW and in the foreseeable future, by the time you start to use a feature introduced today, likely you had already replaced the mobo twice (especially if you are on Intel platform), or you can add a missing port/connection/hdd controller using a PCI adapter. As for CPU Intel, albeit officially dropped it, is still following more or less the tick/tock improvements. Sandy bridge was a tick, ivi bridge was a tock (no revolutionary differences between them), it's the same for 12/13 gen. You need to wait to 14th to see some *really* relevant changes. It's more or less the same for windows. Win2000 was tick XP was tock, Vista was tick, 7 was tock. Win 8 was tick 8,1 was tock, 10 is tick, 11 is tock....
In case anyone is curious, I did get the new motherboard / cpu / ram combo at Microcenter. I went with the i9-12900k, which had actually dropped from $449 to $399, this for an i9-12900k cpu, Gigabyte Z690 motherboard, and 32 gigs of DDR5 memory. Everything is up and running, and I am well pleased. I have an offer of $300 for my old motherboard / cpu / ram, which will leave me out of pocket about $158. A rather inexpensive upgrade, and a nice new toy.