Intel Core i5-12400F

The Intel Core i5-12400F is a value-for-money processor. It can easily beat its competitors like Ryzen 5 3600 and I5-11400F. This CPU gives you much better Gaming Performance. Though it was also a 6-core and 12-threats CPU, it has better single-core and Multicore performance. Its stock cooler is not very useful for gaming or Productivity uses. We would strongly recommend you to use an Air cooler or AIO.

The Core i5-12400F offers the best value of all the processors we've tested so far. Given that price point, it's really hard not to recommend this CPU. AMD's Ryzen 5 5600X is considerably more expensive. The Core i5-12400F at its current price point is exactly what Intel needed to restore competitiveness against AMD's Ryzen. Remember, this segment has huge volume, we're talking millions of CPUs.

Naturally if you went DDR4 then you're giving up a little bit of futureproofing down the road, but if your budget is that tight then it's likely that by the time there is enough affordable DDR5 in the world we'll be on to the Z790/B760 chipsets. Similarly the Core i5-12400F is amazing, but if you've already invested in a Core i5-11400 then there isn't enough extra here to make the upgrade worthwhile.