Intel Core i5–11400F Processor Review: The Best Value Option
Recently Intel has debuted its 11th gen Rocket Lake desktop processor family. The new Intel 11th gen Rocket Lake desktop processors have three flagships starting from 6 Core/12 Threads Core i5 through to Core i7 and Core i9 both with 8 Core/16 Threads.
Today we bring you the Core i5–11400F SKU from the Core i5 flagship. This SKU is probably the most interesting model among the whole stack. The Core i5-xx400 SKU is often ignored among the past gen processors but is also the most popular among gamers. Some of these kinds of chips include i5–8400, i5–9400F, and i5–10400F. These CPUs feature the entire core i5 feature set at price under $200, even though it comes with lower clock speed and locked overclocking. Within these SKUs, Intel has introduced a sub-segment of chip denoted by “F” in the tail of the model number, representing that the lack of integrated graphics further cut down the cost of about $15-$20.
The Core i5 11400F start at just $160 and comes with a permanently disabled iGPU and locked multiplier, making it a value champ among gamers who use additional graphics cards and don’t need GPU. It has also enabled the support for memory frequency of up to DDR4–3200, which is now possible on even the mid-tier H570 and B560 motherboard chipsets.
The Core i5–11400F utilizes Intel’s new Rocket Lake microarchitecture which has brought up four key changes making it the company’s first major innovation for client desktop in several years. The first major modification is the introduction of a new “Cypress Cove” CPU core which promises up to 19% IPC gain over the previous generations. Second is the new UHD 750 integrated graphics powered by Intel Xe LP graphics architecture which promises up to 50% performance improvement over the Gen9.5 UHD 650 iGPU. The next up is the much-needed update for the processor’s I/O including PCI-Express 4.0 for graphics and a CPU-attached NVMe slot, and the last major change is the updated memory controller which allows much higher memory overclocking potential.
The Core i5–11400F features 6 cores and 12 threads design and each of these six Cypress Cove CPU cores includes 512 KB dedicated L2 cache shares 12MB of L3 cache. The processor clocks as high as 4.4 GHz which is a 10% reduction in the turbo frequency compared to Core i5 11600K and drop as low as 2.6 GHz as the TDP has been reduced to 65 watts. However, this limitation doesn’t apply when combined with MSI B560 Tomahawk as the MSI B560 Tomahawk without the TDP limits in a place like almost all Z590 motherboards do.
Listed at $170, the Core i5–11400F has no real competition from AMD. The Ryzen 5 3600 starts at around $200 and the company didn’t bother to get something cheaper in Zen 3 Ryzen 5 SKUs yet.
In short, the Core i5–11400F is the best value option in the Rocket Lake series, and combining it with a premium Intel B560 board like the Tomahawk will make the combo the value champ.
Now if you are living in the Middle East and wondering to buy these processors online, you may luckily get the one at gear-up.me. Gear-up.me is an online store where you can find a wide range of processors at affordable prices. So if you are looking for the one to build your own gaming rig, then visit gear-up.me and have a look at our huge collection of processors.
