Intel Core i5-12400F Available For $150 US at Newegg, Pair It With a $100 US B660 Motherboard & You Got Yourself An Awesome Budget PC
The Intel Core i5-12400F is a very popular budget CPU for several reasons but the biggest is the value it offers in terms of price to performance. With an MSRP of under $200 US, the 12400F was already a great choice for budget builders who want great gaming performance along with very capable multi-threading capabilities. So giving a recap to the specs, the Intel Core i5-12400F is a 12th Gen Alder Lake chip that is based on the 10nm ESF process node. It features 6 cores and 12 threads, all based on the Golden Cove P-Core architecture, 18 MB of L3 cache, 25.5 MB of Smart Cache (L2+L3), and clock speeds of up to 4.4 GHz. The CPU also features a base TDP of 65W and a maximum boost TDP of 117W. The CPU comes bundled with an Intel Laminar R1 series CPU cooler too. So what’s the price? Currently, the Intel Core i5-12400F can be bought for just $149.99 US, a $25 US cut from its original price of $179.99 US (after applying Newegg’s Promo code: FTPBU8562). This is not the cheapest 6 core that you can get for under $200 US. There are several other options too such as AMD’s Ryzen 5 5500 for $138.19 US but it is definitely one performer that even surpasses the Ryzen 5 5600X in performance. The Ryzen 5 5600X is also down to $174.99 US, making it a great drop-in upgrade for existing AM4 owners. At $149.99 US, you can either go for H610 motherboards which start at $79.99 US, or B660 boards which should offer you better features and power delivery for a slightly higher starting price of $95 US. Combined with some decent DDR4 16 GB kits, you are looking at approximately $250-$300 US for the main components. So you are looking at a modern budget build around $600-$700 US with an RTX 3060 (Used pricing starts at $240 US at eBay). Just a few months ago, a similar priced PC was around $1000 US or above but with prices falling down, $500-$600 US builds are back in business. With that said, the standard AMD & Intel CPU lineup is also available at some good rates right now. Following is the full list of chips along with their prices at Newegg:
Intel Core i9-12900K - $539.99 US Intel Core i7-12700K - $349.99 US Intel Core i5-12600K - $249.99 US AMD Ryzen 9 5950X - $554.00 US AMD Ryzen 9 5900X - $399.00 US AMD Ryzen 7 5800X - $274.99 US
Both AMD and Intel have new CPUs coming out later this year which will be targetting the high-end segment-first so mainstream users can expect even further discounted deals on existing parts.
