Intel Core i5 Comet Lake i5-10400 BOX

Why pay more?

The Core i5-10400 is perhaps the most interesting processor in the Comet Lake family. And this is not surprising, because its predecessor i5-9400 looked like the most interesting chip in the line of the last generation. The novelty has the same 6 physical cores that operate at a nominal frequency of 2.9 GHz, however, the maximum speed in the turbo boost has increased, there is more third-level cache (12 MB versus 9 MB) and, most importantly, 6 physical cores have been added to 6 virtual.

Hyper-threading support

In tests, the Core i5-10400 showed a tangible superiority over the solution of the previous generation thanks to support for twice as many threads. Despite the presence of Hyper-Threading, its temperature performance is at an acceptable level under CBO, not least due to the low frequency at maximum load. But Turbo Boost, which proved to be cool in older models, is softer here and rarely keeps the processor at maximum frequency.

The best processor for a mid-range gaming PC

What about AMD? Both in terms of characteristics and positioning, the new product from Intel is destined to fight the Ryzen 5 3600. And you know what? If last year and the year before last the processors from the blue camp frankly did not shine, now we can talk about plus or minus equal forces. In games, the i5-10400 is ahead of the Ryzen 5 3600 by 4-7%, in resource-intensive applications it is 8-12% behind. Intel sells for a little more at launch, but price self-regulation is only a matter of time. Therefore, for a mid-range gaming PC, this is almost an perfect processor, but for a work PC, we would prefer the Ryzen 3600.