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Intel’s Core i5-12400F Might Be a Bit Pricier Than Expected, Still Worth the Asking Price

Intel’s Alder Lake series of processors has garnered quite a lot of attention and, well, it’s easy to understand... | 10. November 2021

Intel’s Alder Lake series of processors has garnered quite a lot of attention and, well, it’s easy to understand why: they’re both immensely powerful but also mighty expensive and tend to run quite hot (to put it mildly). Most of us are still awaiting the release of the i5-12400F as that particular CPU is bound to offer the utmost “bang for the buck.”

Unfortunately, however, it’s probably to be a fair bit more expensive than previously expected. A Canadian retailed has just put up its prices and, well, they’re not as palatable as we had hoped.

The “standard” i5-12400 is listed for 287 CAD ($230), with the i5-12400F variant (the one without an integrated graphics card) going for 249 CAD ($200). Both models will therefore retail at higher prices than their direct predecessors ($187 and $157, respectively) which isn’t necessarily a surprise given their vast architectural differences, but we had still hoped that Intel would release these Alder Lake variants for about the same price and, in doing so, better compete with AMD.

Intel Alder Lake Non-K Series Pricing in Canada, Source: Videocardz

Core i5-12400F — Still Worth It

Even though Intel’s “mid-range” i5 is probably going to cost more than expected, it’s still going to be a mighty good deal if its initial benchmarks end up being correct.

Its smaller Alder Lake die won’t feature any efficiency cores (or E-cores, as Intel calls them), but it’s still more than powerful enough to beat AMD’s Ryzen 5600X — despite costing a hundred dollars less (give or take). It has a base TDP of 65W and will pull around 120W if you push it to its extreme. Clock-wise, its single-core boost will run up to 4.4Ghz and then normalize around 3.4Ghz. All of this results in the i5-12400F being better than the 5600X in both single- and multi-core.

That’s quite an impressive feat, all things considered. You can check out its preliminary Cinebench scores down below, courtesy of Comptoir Hardware.

Now, in all fairness, we’re only observing this in a vacuum. To harness the full (presumed) potential of the i5-12400F, you’ll need an appropriate motherboard. DDR5 memory doesn’t seem to be all too alluring at this point in time, so you’ll be able to get by with a sufficiently speedy kit of DDR4 RAM. We also don’t know how good of an aftermarket cooler we’ll need to keep its temperatures under check, so there are multiple questions lingering in the air.

Does the i5-12400F have a ton of potential? Without a doubt, but it’s not a home run just yet. In any case, we’ll find out soon enough as it expected to hit the shelves sometime next January!