The Intel Coffee Lake CPUs have launched, unleashing six core mainstream chips with all the 14nm processing goodness Intel can carry to bear towards AMD’s most interesting. But whereas the Ok-series Core i7 8700K could be grabbing all of the headlines, with its Ryzen-beating multi-threaded efficiency and 5.2GHz overclocking chops, it’s the Core i5 8400 which is de facto one of the best CPU for players.
And meaning we’ve obtained a brand new winner on the prime of our listing of the best CPU for gaming…
It’s regular for the Core i5 chips in a brand new era to be those we find yourself recommending for players – traditionally, the HyperThreading tech solely provides slightly further gaming efficiency with the Core i7 – however that is the primary time I’ve really useful ditching the Ok-series processors of their entirety.
The Core i5 8400 can also be one of many few Coffee Lake chips you may truly purchase proper now, fortunately it is also one of the best one for purestrain players. It’s additionally an absolute cut price, and the most cost effective hexcore round at simply $187 (£172). Shame there are not any cut price motherboard chipsets round but…
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Intel Core i5 8400 specs
The Core i5 8400 remains to be a six-core CPU, however with out HyperThreading it stays caught at six threads of processing energy. It’s additionally been saddled with a comparatively low 2.8GHz base clockspeed, however is able to hitting a most Turbo velocity of 4GHz. That is, nonetheless, solely on a single core, with the chip typically sticking to a three.8GHz frequency throughout normal utilization.
That would appear to make it very a lot the poor cousin to the Core i5 8600Ok. That’s nonetheless a resolutely six-core chip, however with an all-core Turbo of four.3GHz (or four.6GHz for those who go for a belligerent Asus board that flouts Intel’s Turbo rankings), and is able to overclocking to an enormous 5.1GHz with out a lot effort in any respect.
But the i5 8400 has nonetheless obtained the identical 9MB of L3 cache, a lower-rated TDP of 65W – versus the Ok-series’ 95W TDP – and actually performs like an absolute hero.
We’ve beforehand gone into depth on the Coffee Lake structure, however suffice to say, it’s kind of the identical 14nm design we’ve seen in Skylake and Kaby Lake, the sixth and seventh Gen, architectures.
This time, nonetheless, there isn’t a choice for backwards compatibility. The new Coffee Lake chips, resembling this ‘ere Core i5, will only function within the confines of a 300-series chipset. And, until next year, your only option on that front is the high-end Z370 chipset. The H370 and B360 motherboards won’t be right here for some time. That does take a number of the shine out of this comparatively budget-oriented hex-core CPU, because the costly Z370 function set isn’t actually crucial with the 8400 and it’s locked down multipliers.
Intel Core i5 8400 benchmarks
Intel Core i5 8400 efficiency
Back at midnight previous Kaby Lake days of early 2017 there was solely a modicum of gaming efficiency distinction between the Ok-series Core i5 7600Ok and the Core i7 7700Ok. It was a no brainer, then, for us to advocate players eschew the costlier HyperThreaded chip in favour of the Core i5.
There was a non-Ok Core i5 – the i5 7400 – which had basically the identical core configuration, however with a barely decrease clockspeed. Sound acquainted? But it was typically effectively off the tempo of the 7600Ok in our gaming benchmarks so we largely ignored it. That was why I used to be much less excited in regards to the prospect of the Core i5 8400, regardless of its further couple Coffee Lake cores. After all, for those who wished to save lots of a number of quid, and bag a hexcore chip no matter its gaming efficiency, then AMD had you coated with the Ryzen 5 1600.
With the brand new Coffee Lake processors, nonetheless, there’s zero distinction in gaming efficiency between both of the Core i5s and the top-spec Core i7. And that continues to be the case whether or not you’re working the chips at inventory speeds or hitting 5GHz+ with the Ok-series CPUs. The efficiency of the 8400 is genuinely fairly beautiful for a processor that’s presupposed to price lower than AMD’s least expensive six-core Ryzen 5. Then there’s the truth that it’s able to delivering gaming body charges which might be larger than both the i7 7700Ok and i7 7800Ok.
Outside of the realm of gaming issues are clearly totally different. The larger frequency of the overclocked i5 8600Ok, and the additional thread-count of the R5 1600 and 1600X, imply that they’re much better decisions for something that calls for critical multi-threaded CPU efficiency.
Intel Core i5 8400 verdict
Forget all of the headline-grabbing overclocking figures, that is the Coffee Lake chip for players. Sure, the tantalising prospect of getting your Ok-series i5 working at a heady 5.1GHz, with out melting by means of the layered PCB of your motherboard, is sort of a siren name to us PC individuals, but when it’s not delivering something tangible for video games that hardly issues.
We’re going to see an entire lot of gaming machines constructed across the Core i5 8400 within the coming yr, and rightly so. It’s a severely highly effective little gaming chip for the cash, and it’s positively grabbed my consideration.
As I mentioned earlier, for those who want high-performance CPU energy for $250 or much less, then the Ok-series Coffee Lake and the six-core, 12-thread AMD Ryzen 1600, or 1600X, shall be nice shouts. But, for us players, it’s all in regards to the Core i5 8400. It’s an extremely good worth chip delivering unprecedented gaming efficiency for the cash.
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