Intel Core i5 13400F review
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(Image: © Future)
Our Verdict
Simply the best budget CPU to buy right now, on a platform that’s pretty cheap too.
For
- Superb gaming performance
- Ten cores for how much?!
- High clock speed
- Cheap motherboards available
Against
- Higher power draw than 12th Gen model
- No secret overclocking 🙁
- AMD’s cheapest Zen 4 CPUs best for content creation
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For a gaming PC, there’s no better value CPU than a Core i5. For most of 2022, we recommended the Core i5 12600K for the best gaming CPU and the Core i5 12400 as the best gaming CPU on a budget. Last year, the Core i5 13600K took over the top spot. And today, the Core i5 13400F pushes Alder Lake out of the runnings with an even more impressive specification for the money.
The Intel Core i5 13400F is a processor I’ve been waiting patiently to test since I first heard wind of it last year. You’ll understand why once you read these specs: A 10-core processor made up of six Performance-cores (P-cores) and four Efficient-cores (E-cores), the Core i5 13400F has a total of 16 threads. Its fastest cores will run up to 4.
6GHz out of the box, a clock speed that wouldn’t have seemed out of place on the box of a Core i7 only a few years back.
For that impressive spec, the Core i5 has been given an Intel-recommended price tag of $196. Consider the other options: that’s a handful of dollars more than the Core i5 12400 from last year, or $33 cheaper than AMD’s Ryzen 5 7600.
All of which means, as someone who has been happily running an Intel Core i7 6700K over the past six or seven years, and which now resides in a PC I built for my partner, this is the first time I’ve considered upgrading that chip for something newer.
Core i5 13400F specs
(Image credit: Future)
Cores (P+E): 6+4
Threads: 16
L3 Cache (Smart Cache): 20MB
L2 Cache: 9.5MB
Max P-core Turbo frequency (GHz): 4.6
Max E-core Turbo frequency (GHz): 3.3
Unlocked: No
Graphics: No iGPU
Memory support (up to): DDR5 4800MT/s, DDR4 3200MT/s
Processor Base Power (W): 65
Maximum Turbo Power (W): 148
RRP: $196
It really is seriously impressive on paper.
And in the test bench it continues to impress.
The Core i5 13400F is only a handful of frames shy of the Core i9 13900K in Total War: Three Kingdoms, Metro Exodus, and F1 2021. In Far Cry 6, this chip is significantly slower than Intel’s high-end processors, however, showing Far Cry 6 to be a more CPU-limited game than the others. To a lesser extent, the same is true for Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
Yet even in these two games where the Core i5 13400F falls off the pace of the faster 13th Gen processors, it remains quicker than last year’s best gaming CPU, the Core i5 12600K. It’s also significantly faster than the Core i5 12400, though is more power-hungry for it.
Gaming benchmarks
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(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)
The Core i5 13400F doesn’t support BCLK overclocking, however, and that was something we absolutely adored about the Core i5 12400.
Intel blocks multiplier overclocks with all but its K-series chips, meaning neither the Core i5 13400F or Core i5 12400 should have been able to do it, but a few motherboard manufacturers made BCLK overclocking available to non-K 12th Gen processors. With one such overclock in place, at 4.8GHz, the Core i5 12400 actually manages to top the Core i5 13400F in some games.
That said, I’d still take the Core i5 13400F for the extra cores any day, even if it meant giving up the illicit overclocking capabilities of its predecessor.
AMD has a competitive stack of Zen 4 chips to compete with Raptor Lake today. While its 3D V-Cache chips look set to be the most competitive versus Intel, they’re far too pricey for comparison with this Core i5. Instead, the i5 13400F is going head-to-head with the Ryzen 5 7600X, a $299 chip that’s more like $250 in today’s market, and the $229 Ryzen 5 7600.
Content creation and synthetic benchmarks
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(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)
Test rigs
Intel
Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix Z690-F Gaming WiFi
Storage: 2TB Sabrent Rocket 4.
0 Plus
Cooler: Asus ROG Ryujin II
PSU: Gigabyte Aorus P1200W
AMD
Motherboard: ASRock X670E Taichi
Storage: 1TB WD Black SN850
Cooler: Corsair h200i RGB
PSU: NZXT 850W
Shared
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z5 Neo DDR5-6000 CL30 2x 16GB
Graphics card: Nvidia RTX 3080 10GB
In our testing, neither the Core i5 13400F or Ryzen 5 7600X can claim an outright win across the testing suite, though when AMD’s chip is faster, it is quite a bit faster. AMD’s chip does come out as the clear winner on the productivity and content creation side of things, but it is that much more expensive for it. AMD-compatible motherboards also fall on the expensive side versus the cheaper Intel-compatible 600-series boards, so overall costs will probably tack on around $100 more for the X-series AMD option. That said, the Core i5 13400F is around $210 on Newegg at time of writing, and the Ryzen 5 7600 is only $229.
Intel’s platform is surprisingly cheap for the inclusion of both the latest 700-series motherboards and older 600-series motherboards.
Similarly, we’re saving a little cash here on the ‘F’ designated model. The ‘F’ denotes the Core i5 13400F’s lack of integrated graphics, which isn’t a deal breaker by any stretch of the imagination. Generally, that integrated GPU isn’t going to come much in handy for gaming, and even today’s cheapest discrete graphics card will outperform it by a country mile.
I would recommend pairing this CPU with either AMD’s RX 6600 or RX 6600 XT , two GPUs that have mightily improved in standing due to recent price cuts. A recent price cut to Intel’s Arc A750 means you could also go all-Intel on a budget and see some impressive 1080p performance, too. But make no mistake, a higher-end GPU will still perform well with the Core i5 13400, as per our benchmark results using an RTX 3080.
Thermals and power draw
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(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)(Image credit: Future)
There is something else to say on the Core i5 13400F.
Unlike the other 13th Gen processors we’ve reviewed so far, the Core i5 13400F doesn’t utilise all the benefits available to the new Raptor Lake architecture. It’s complicated.
Intel is using both new Raptor Lake and old Alder Lake dies for the Core i5 13400F. The final product is the same, regardless of which die is under the hood, but this does mean that you don’t see the L2 cache increase that Intel introduced with Raptor Lake on the Core i5 13400F. But before you think this is only an Alder Lake chip in disguise, while that’s technically true, the Core i5 13400F does come with more cache than the Core i5 12400F as a result of having more cores. It just doesn’t include more L2 cache per core like the higher-end Raptor Lake chips.
A reminder of the difference in cache per core between Alder Lake and Raptor Lake:
- Raptor Lake: 2MB L2 per P-Core + 4MB L2 per E-core cluster
- Alder Lake: 1.25MB L2 per P-Core + 2MB L2 per E-core cluster
(Image credit: Future)
To try and put it more plainly, the Core i5 13400F is either a Core i5 12600KF in a downclocked disguise or made to look like one.
It’s fairly immaterial which you actually receive, but you can find out whether you have a Raptor Lake or Alder Lake die from the CPU revision listed in applications such as CPU-Z. A B0 stepping is Raptor Lake and a C0 stepping is Alder Lake. Our review sample is a C0 chip.
With that out of the way, let’s get back to the good stuff: the Core i5 13400F. This chip is officially the good stuff. There’s a lot to like about this processor, from its speedy gaming performance to the 10 cores under the hood, enough to make any older four-core CPU feel extremely outdated. While the Core i5 13600K remains the pick for the best gaming CPU, and AMD is very competitive in the ~$275 market, Intel’s Core i5 13400F is a shoe-in for the best budget gaming CPU in 2023.
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Intel Core i5 13400F
Simply the best budget CPU to buy right now, on a platform that’s pretty cheap too.
Jacob earned his first byline writing for his own tech blog from his hometown in Wales in 2017. From there, he graduated to professionally breaking things as hardware writer at PCGamesN, where he would later win command of the kit cupboard as hardware editor.
Nowadays, as senior hardware editor at PC Gamer, he spends his days reporting on the latest developments in the technology and gaming industry. When he’s not writing about GPUs and CPUs, however, you’ll find him trying to get as far away from the modern world as possible by wild camping.
Intel Core i5 — Advantech
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| Part Number | Description | CPU | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part Number | Description | CPU | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
96MPI5A-1.  9-18M17
|
CORE I5 1.9G 18M 6C 1700P I5-12500TE |
6 |
Alder Lake |
Embedded |
FCLGA1700 |
|
|
96MPI5A-2.5-18M17 |
CORE I5 2.5G 18M 6C 1700P I5-12400 |
6 |
Alder Lake |
Embedded |
FCLGA1700 |
|
|
96MPI5A-2.9-18M17 |
CORE I5 2.9G 18M 6C 1700P I5-12500E |
6 |
Alder Lake |
Embedded |
FCLGA1700 |
|
|
96MPI5A-3.0-18M17 |
CORE I5 3G 18M 6C 1700P I5-12500 |
6 |
Alder Lake |
Embedded |
FCLGA1700 |
|
|
96MPI5C-2.1-9M11T |
CORE 2.1G 9M 1151P 6CORE i5-8500T |
6 |
Coffee Lake |
Desktop |
FCLGA1151 |
|
|
96MPI5C-3.0-9M11T |
CORE 3G 9M 1151P 6CORE I5-8500 |
6 |
Coffee Lake |
Desktop |
3 GHz |
FCLGA1151 |
|
96MPI5CO-2.  3-12M12
|
CORE I5 2.3G 12M 1200P 6C I5-10500TE |
6 |
Comet Lake |
Embedded |
FCLGA1200 |
|
|
96MPI5CO-3.1-12M12 |
CORE I5 3.1G 12M 1200P 6C I5-10500E |
8 |
Comet Lake |
Embedded |
FCLGA1200 |
|
|
96MPI5CR-2.2-9M11T |
CORE 2.2G 9M 1151P 6C I5-9500TE |
6 |
Coffee Lake Refresh-S |
N/A |
FCLGA1155 |
|
|
96MPI5CR-3.0-9M11T |
CORE 3G 9M 1151P 6C I5-9500E |
6 |
Coffee Lake Refresh-S |
N/A |
FCLGA1151 |
|
|
96MPI5K-2.7-6M11T |
CORE 2.7G 6M 1151P 4CORE I5-7500T |
4 |
Kaby Lake |
Desktop |
LGA1151 |
|
|
96MPI5K-3.4-6M11T |
CORE 3.4G 6M 1151P 4CORE I5-7500 |
4 |
Kaby Lake |
Desktop |
LGA1151 |
|
|
96MPI5S-2.3-6M11T1 |
CORE 2.3G 6M 1151P 4 CORE I5-6500TE |
4 |
Skylake |
Embedded |
LGA1151 |
|
|
96MPI5S-3.2-6M11T |
CORE 3.2G 6M 1151P 4 CORE I5-6500 |
4 |
Skylake |
Desktop |
LGA1151 |
|
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Comparison of different generations of Intel Core i5 processors
Once a great sage in captain’s uniform once said that a computer cannot work without a processor.
Since then, everyone considers it his duty to find the very processor, thanks to which his system will fly like a fighter.
Since we simply cannot cover all known science chips, we want to focus on one interesting family of the Intelovich family — Core i5. They have very interesting characteristics and good performance.
Why this series and not i3 or i7? It’s simple: excellent potential without overpaying for unnecessary instructions that the seventh line sins with. Yes, and more cores than in Core i3. You will quite naturally start arguing about Hyper Threading support and you will be partially right, but 4 physical cores can do much more than 2 + 2 virtual ones.
History of the
series Today we have a comparison of different generations of Intel Core i5 processors on the agenda. Here I would like to touch upon such pressing topics as the technical process, the socket, the heat pack and the presence of solder under the lid. And if there is a mood, then we will also push especially interesting stones together with our foreheads.
So let’s go.
I would like to start by saying that only desktop processors will be considered, and not laptop options. There will be a comparison of mobile chips, but another time.
The output periodicity table is as follows:
| Generation | Year of manufacture | Architecture | Series | Socket | Number of cores/threads | Level 3 cache |
| 1 | 2009 (2010) | Hehalem (Westmere) | i5-7xx (i5-6xx) | LGA 1156 | 4/4 (2/4) | 8 MB (4 MB) |
| 2 | 2011 | Sandy Bridge | i5-2xxx | LGA 1155 | 4/4 | 6 MB |
| 3 | 2012 | Ivy Bridge | i5-3xxx | LGA 1155 | 4/4 | 6 MB |
| 4 | 2013 | Haswell | i5-4xxx | LGA 1150 | 4/4 | 6 MB |
| 5 | 2015 | Broadwell | i5-5xxx | LGA 1150 | 4/4 | 4 MB |
| 6 | 2015 | Skylake | i5-6xxx | LGA 1151 | 4/4 | 6 MB |
| 7 | 2017 | Kaby Lake | i5-7xxx | LGA 1151 LGA 2066 |
4/4 | 6 MB |
| 8 | 2018 | Coffee Lake | i5-8xxx | LGA 1151 v2 | 6/6 | 9 MB |
2009
The first representatives of the series were released back in 2009.
They were created on 2 different architectures: Nehalem (45nm) and Westmere (32nm). The brightest representatives of the line should be called i5-750 (4 × 2.8 GHz) and i5-655K (3.2 GHz). The latter additionally had an unlocked multiplier and the possibility of overclocking, which indicated its high performance in games and not only.
The difference between the architectures lies in the fact that Westmare is built according to the 32 nm process technology and has 2 generation gates. Yes, they use less energy.
2011
This year saw the light of the second generation of processors — Sandy Bridge. Their distinguishing feature was the presence of an integrated video core Intel HD 2000.
Among the abundance of i5-2xxx models, I would especially like to highlight the CPU with an index of 2500K. At one time, it made a splash among gamers and enthusiasts, combining a high frequency of 3.2 GHz with Turbo Boost support and low cost. And yes, there was solder under the cover, not thermal paste, which additionally contributed to the high-quality acceleration of the stone without consequences.
2012
Ivy Bridge debuts 22nm process, higher frequencies, new DDR3, DDR3L and PCI-E 3.0 controllers, and USB 3.0 support (but i7 only).
Integrated graphics evolved to Intel HD 4000.
The most interesting solution on this platform was the Core i5-3570K with an unlocked multiplier and a frequency of up to 3.8 GHz in boost.
2013
The Haswell generation didn’t bring anything supernatural except for the new LGA 1150 socket, the AVX 2.0 instruction set and the new HD 4600 graphics. In fact, all the emphasis was on energy saving, which the company managed to achieve.
But a fly in the ointment is the replacement of solder with a thermal interface, which greatly reduced the overclocking potential of the top i5-4670K (and its updated version 4690K from the Haswell Refresh line).
2015
The release of Broadwell added several mobile chips to the i5, as well as one desktop 5675C, which was not widely adopted by users.
In fact, this is the same Haswell ported to the 14 nm architecture.
2016
Sixth iteration named Skylake brings updated LGA 1151 socket, DDR4 RAM support, IGP 92nd generation, AVX 3.2 and SATA Express instructions.
The i5-6600K and 6400T stand out among the processors. The first was loved for high frequencies and an unlocked multiplier, and the second for its low cost and extremely low heat dissipation of 35 W despite Turbo Boost support.
2017
The Kaby Lake era is the most controversial, as it brought absolutely nothing new to the desktop processor segment other than native USB 3.1 support. also, these stones completely refuse to run on Windows 7, 8 and 8.1, not to mention older versions.
The socket remains the same — LGA 1151. And the set of interesting processors has not changed — 7600K and 7400T. The reasons for people’s love are the same as for Skylake.
2018
Goffee Lake processors are fundamentally different from their predecessors.