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The Intel Core i5 14400F and i5 12400F are low-cost CPUs that are quite popular among budget gamers. But which is the best CPU among them?
The Intel Core i5 14400F and i5 12400F are two of the best budget CPUs for gamers. In fact, their non-F variants take 11th and 12th position on Amazon’s best seller list as of this writing. The only differences between the F and non-F variants are that the F model doesn’t have an iGPU and is cheaper. This wouldn’t affect most gamers as they rely on dedicated graphics cards anyway.
However, the Amazon ranking does show the popularity of these budget CPUs. That’s why we are going to compare the two most popular processors, Intel Core i5 14400F and i5 12400F, to find out which is better.
Note: Parts of this article are subjective and reflect the writer’s opinions.
Intel Core i5 14400F vs Core i5 12400F: Detailed Comparison
The Intel Core i5 14400F is based on the newer Raptor Lake Refresh architecture. On the other hand, the Intel Core i5 14400F is based on the Alder Lake architecture. There are more differences in terms of core count, cache size, and more. Let’s compare the two CPUs, starting with their specs.
Specs Comparison
Here are the specs of the Intel Core i5 14400F and Intel Core i5 12400F:
| Specifications | Intel Core i5 14400F | Intel Core i5 12400F |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Raptor Lake Refresh | Alder Lake Refresh |
| P-Core/Thread count | 6/12 | 6/12 |
| E-Core/Thread count | 4/4 | — |
| Total Core/Thread count | 10/16 | 6/12 |
| Max clock speed | 4.7 GHz | 4.4 GHz |
| L3 cache | 20 MB | 18 MB |
| RAM support | DDR4-3200 DDR5-4800 | DDR4-3200 DDR5-4800 |
| PCIe Gen support | Gen 5 | Gen 5 |
| Platform socket | LGA1700 | LGA1700 |
| Thermal design power (TDP) | 65W Typical | 148W Max | 65W Typical | 117W Max |
| Manufacturing nodes | 10nm | 10nm |
As per the specs table, the Intel Core i5 14400F has four more cores, which should greatly enhance multi-core performance. Therefore, productivity apps, such as Blender, Handbrake, Adobe suite of apps, and more, should run faster. But how fast will it be compared to the Intel Core i5 12400F, which is much cheaper?
Synthetic Performance Comparison
Here’s how the Intel Core i5 14400F and Intel Core i5 12400F perform in popular synthetic benchmarks:
| Benchmarks | Intel Core i5 14400F | Intel Core i5 12400F |
|---|---|---|
| Cinebench R23 (Single-Core) | 1816 | 1704 |
| Cinebench R23 (Multi-Core) | 16252 | 12047 |
| Geekbench 6 (Single-Core) | 2402 | 2300 |
| Geekbench 6 (Multi-Core) | 12600 | 9477 |
| Passmark CPU (Single-Core) | 3723 | 3477 |
| Passmark CPU (Multi-Core) | 25768 | 19488 |
The Intel Core i5 14400F is 6.1% faster than the Intel Core i5 12400F in single-core benchmarks. However, in multi-core benchmarks, the former is 33% faster on average than the latter, which is a substantial difference.
Game Performance Comparison
Here’s how the Intel Core i5 14400F and Intel Core i5 12400F perform in some of the popular games on the market:
| Games | Intel Core i5 14400F | Intel Core i5 12400F |
|---|---|---|
| Red Dead Redemption 2 | 173 FPS | 171 FPS |
| Rainbow Six Siege | 382 FPS | 358 FPS |
| Counter-Strike 2 (Low Settings) | 496 FPS | 489 FPS |
| Black Myth: Wukong | 176 FPS | 175 FPS |
| PUBG: Battlegrounds | 219 FPS | 206 FPS |
| Fortnite DX12 | 322 FPS | 308 FPS |
| Forza Horizon 5 | 225 FPS | 224 FPS |
| The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt | 273 FPS | 252 FPS |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 180 FPS | 173 FPS |
Note: The two CPUs were tested at 1080p resolution with the RTX 4090 GPU to eliminate any GPU bottleneck. All FPS numbers were sourced from the Hardware Tested channel on YouTube.
On average, the Intel Core i5 14400F is 3.8% faster than the Intel Core i5 12400F in some of the most popular PC games. This isn’t a very impressive number. We were hoping that the former would deliver much higher gaming performance, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Price Comparison
The Intel Core i5 14400F is currently selling for around $135.97 on Amazon. On the other hand, the Core i5 12400F is available for $109.99 on Amazon. Therefore, the former is 23.6% more expensive than the latter.
Final Verdict on Intel Core i5 14400F vs Core i5 12400F
The Intel Core i5 14400F has up to 33% more performance than the Intel Core i5 12400F in productivity applications. However, the gaming performance of the former is only 3.8% more than the latter. The Intel Core i5 14400F also costs 23.6% more, but it is worth considering given the multi-core performance improvements.
If you are planning on doing content creation, game streaming, and gaming, then the Intel Core i5 14400F is the better choice. However, if you only want to play games, the Intel Core i5 12400F should be enough. You can use the savings on some other PC component.
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