Intel Working On Budget Core i5-12400F Processor

Many reviewers praise the i5-12600K as a great value option among the new Alder Lake-S processors. However, a better Intel solution may be available in a few months. Comptoir Hardware, a French review site, has revealed what appears to be a qualification sample for the unannounced i5-12400F processor. The test results already indicate that it is a formidable counterpart against AMD’s Ryzen 5 5600X, especially in terms of affordability.

The i5-12400F (no iGPU) is based on the smaller Alder Lake die, which lacks efficiency cores. Hence it only has the same 6 performance cores with hyperthreading similar to the i5-12600K. The base TDP is 65 W, while the maximum turbo power looks to be 117 W, as the cores can run at 800 MHz and a single-core boost can reach 4.4 GHz. However, it is important to note that sustained boosts fall to 3.4 GHz. This CPU was tested with a Radeon RX 6900 XT GPU and a DDR5-6000 RAM kit on Windows 11.

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With so many benchmarks, Comptoir Hardware’s evaluation is fairly thorough. In any case, the Cinebench R23 and overall gaming performance should gain much attention. In Cinebench R23, the i5-12400F still outperforms all Ryzen 5000 CPUs in single-thread mode. At the same time, it also outperforms the R5 5600X somewhat in multi-thread mode. When compared to the identical R5 5600X, it also receives a slightly higher average gaming-grade.

There is no official pricing information, but combining the current US$157 MSRP of the i5-11400F with the average price increase of US$20 from Rocket Lake to Alder Lake, we get something close to US$180 for an i5-12400F. This is US$120 less than the Ryzen 5 5600X, which has increased in price to US$300. While AMD may reduce prices even further in the meanwhile; it is unlikely to reach the US$180-200 barrier in the next two months.

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