Intel Core i5-12400 Desktop Processor 18M Cache, up to 4.40 GHz

Product Information

The Corona benchmark sees the 12400 delivering exceptional levels of performance, beating the 11600K and 5600X. Taking 117 seconds to complete the workload meant it was 9% faster than the 5600X, despite being 26% slower than the 12600K. You should plan on using a 600-series B- or H-series motherboard with the 12400, and there are a plethora of options available that support DDR4 memory. AMD's AM4 motherboard ecosystem is generally less expensive, but AM4's connectivity options have come a bit long in the tooth. All Alder Lake chips support DDR4-3200 or up toDDR5-4800 memory (odd DDR5 population rules apply). Unfortunately, these new technologies add cost to the 600-series motherboards that house the chips, and DDR5 memory is largely unavailable. However, plenty of DDR4-powered motherboard options are available, especially with the value-centric B- and H-series chipsets that make the most sense for this class of chips. AMD also has a robust ecosystem of affordable AM4 motherboards on offer. Interestingly, the 12400 was a lot slower than the 12600K in our Hitman 3 benchmark, trailing by an 18% margin. As expected, we don't see a significant difference between the 12400's different power/memory settings, which has more impact on threaded work and gaming, but the 12400 doesn't need much help. The chip is 2.3% faster than the Core i9-11900K, 6% faster than the 11700K, and an incredible 15.7% faster than the 11400.

In this market segment, I personally favor value and that's because if you're more performance-oriented you'd go with a more expensive CPU such as the Core i7-12700K or Ryzen 5 5800X. Intel processor numbers are not a measure of performance. Processor numbers differentiate features within each processor family, not across different processor families. See http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/processors/processor-numbers.html for details. Bear in mind that faster completion times and lower task energy are ideal. That means processors that are closest to the bottom left corner are best. It's easy to see that Intel has made a massive generational improvement here; the Core i5-12400 is far more efficient than the 11400. However, AMD still holds the advantage in all of the key power criteria, with the Ryzen 5000 models retaining the crown of the most efficient desktop CPUs that we've ever tested by a slim margin.The B660 chipset is here, and if you go for a DDR4 memory supporting version it is very affordable indeed. You also get PCIe 4.0 support from the chipset, too, for those speedy new SSDs. And I'm confident pricing of these boards will continue to drop, too. Obviously we need to take this with a good deal of caution, though, but it’s quite a startling result if genuine.

Then when power limited to the 65w spec, it matched the 5600X making it 8% slower than the unleashed configuration. Last up we have Cyberpunk 2077 and this game is mostly GPU bound, even with the slightly dialed down quality settings that we're using here. The 12400 was able to nudge a few frames ahead of the 5600X while trailing the 12600K by just 4%. Power ConsumptionThe TDP of the Core i5-12400 is an excellent way to determine the power supply's wattage requirement. The TDP indicates the CPU's power to draw under a heavy load at its max base speed. Too low of a wattage rating in a power supply can result in power throttling, which can cause the CPU to slow down, impacting performance. It's also important to note that the TDP only represents the CPU's power consumption, and other components, such as the graphics card, RAM, and storage devices, also require power. When it comes to code compilation performance, the 12400 is a beast, completing our test in 6070 seconds, making it 24% faster than the 5600X and 13% faster than the 11600K. In fact, it was only 8% slower than the 5800X, though it was 21% slower than the 12600K.

Next we have Rainbow Six Siege, and here the 12400 was slightly faster than the 11700K, 10700K, and 3700X, making it just 8% slower than the 12600K. That does make it quite a bit slower than the 5600X, to the tune of 17%, or 19% slower if we compare the 1% low figures. Still overall we're seeing strong performance from the 12400 and an excellent result in terms of cost per frame. The 12400 delivers solid performance in all manner of threaded productivity applications and beats even the highest-end Ryzen 5000 chips in single-threaded work. The Core i5-12400 also serves up incredible levels of gaming performance but at a much lower price point than any comparable AMD processor, setting a new bar for budget gaming chips. For gamers looking for the best value, the Core i5-12400 is now the uncontested best value CPU for gaming.Finally, all application and gaming data has been collected using the Radeon RX 6900 XT graphics card and the operating system of choice was Windows 11. That covers it, let's dive into the results... Benchmarks The savings are truly massive and it places Alder Lake roughly on par with Zen 3 for this comparison. Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics only: to use the Intel® Iris® Xe brand, the system must be populated with 128-bit (dual channel) memory. Otherwise, use the Intel® UHD brand.