[Test] Intel Core i5 10400F – a good compromise in gaming? |Specs | Price

Do not hesitate to consult our file on the evolution of the performances and the IPC of the hexacores of the Core i7-5820K to the Ryzen 5 5600X here!

Hi all !

Since the end of May, Intel has offered its 10th generation Core CPUs with the Core i9 10900K and its ten cores at the top of the list. Even if the latter clearly does not take the crown of the CPU with the best performance / price ratio, or even the most efficient in production in favor of AMD and its Ryzen 3000, it certainly remains ahead in games! For today’s test, Intel sent us a more timid CPU, the Core i5 10400F. Offered at a price of less than 200 €, it is much more affordable than its big brother 10600K (320 €). But does it hold up in practice? This is what we will see!

The Core 10000 range

As we have already seen in our report on the new Intel Core 10000 CPUs, the Core i5s remain hexacores but gain the HT, therefore increasing the number of available threads from 6 to 12. The Core i5 10400F is a castrated version to all levels of Core i5 10600K. On the one hand, the operating frequency during a 100% sustained load is announced at 2.9 GHz, for 4.3 GHz at most. This is therefore a significant drop compared to the respective 4.1 and 4.8 GHz of the Core i5 10600K. But in return, the TDP is greatly reduced because the Core i5 10400F is limited to a thermal envelope of 65 Watts. Like all Core 10000 hexacores, Turbo Boost 3.0 and TVB are not available. If you want to know more, do not hesitate to consult our article. On the other hand, and as we had seen for the Core i9 10900K, it is possible to exceed this value of 65 Watts (PL1) during the turbo period (Tau), 124 Watts (PL2) at most.

Ni overclocking, ni IGP

Of course, non-K series requires Intel, overclocking is not the game. You will therefore not be able, or very little, to influence the frequencies except by touching the BCLK (original at 100 MHz, but the 103 MHz are not out of range). Likewise, the Core i5 10400F is not intended for office use without a graphics card because it does not have an IGP. If you want to do without a dedicated GPU, it is necessary to turn to the Core i5 10400 available at around twenty euros extra. And since this mid-range CPU is therefore not really designed to be installed on an expensive Z490 motherboard, but rather on the B460, you will be limited to the memory speed of the DDR4 2666 MHz controller built into the CPU.