Intel Core i3 10105 4-core LGA 1200

The Intel Core i3-10105 is a budget desktop CPU that delivers excellent price-to-performance for office work and light gaming. With 4 cores, 8 threads, and a 4.4GHz boost clock, it handles everyday tasks and even 1440p gaming when paired with a discrete GPU. Owners love it, and at around USD 112, it's one of the best value chips on the market right now.

The i3-10105 posts a PassMark multi-core score of 8282 and a single-core score of 2605. In plain English, that means it'll chew through browser tabs, office apps, and light photo editing without making you wait. The 4.4GHz boost clock helps with snappy responsiveness, and the 6MB of L3 cache keeps frequently used data close to the cores. For a chip in this price bracket, those numbers are solid, middle of the pack overall but genuinely impressive when you factor in what you're paying.

Gaming is where this little quad-core surprises people. Paired with something like an RX 6600, owners report smooth 1440p gaming in plenty of titles, which is wild for a budget CPU. The 8 threads help with modern games that actually use them, and while it's not going to max out a high-refresh 4K monitor, it's more than capable for 1080p and 1440p at reasonable settings. The integrated UHD 630 graphics are fine for office work and video playback, but nobody should buy this expecting to game on the iGPU alone.

Stacked against the AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, the i3-10105 looks like a toy, but that's not a fair fight. The 7800X3D is a high-end gaming monster that costs several times more. The real comparison is against AMD's budget Ryzen 3 and older Ryzen 5 chips, where the i3-10105 holds its own on single-thread performance but falls behind on multi-core workloads. The Dell Xeon E5-2637 V2 is an older server chip that beats the i3 in some multi-threaded tasks but draws more power and lacks modern platform features. The be quiet! Ryzen 3 Dark Rock Pro 5 isn't even a CPU, it's a cooler, so that's a weird one for our database to flag as a competitor. And the DAKboard CPU v4 is a niche embedded thing that doesn't really compete in the desktop space.

For actual desktop buyers, the i3-10105's closest real-world rivals are AMD's Ryzen 3 3300X and Ryzen 5 3600. The 3300X trades blows on gaming performance, while the 3600 pulls ahead in multi-threaded productivity. But the i3-10105 often wins on price, especially in the US market, and the included cooler sweetens the deal.

At USD 112 in the US, the i3-10105 is a genuinely good deal. European buyers should shop around though, because the spread is real: EUR 152 to EUR 192 across four listings in Germany, Spain, France, and Italy. That's a EUR 40 gap for the exact same chip, so check the store names before you click buy. Canadian shoppers face an even wider range, from CAD 138 to CAD 228, which is a CAD 90 difference. The cheapest CAD listing is the obvious move if you're north of the border. Compared to AMD's budget options, the i3-10105 often undercuts them on price while delivering comparable real-world performance for office and light gaming use.

The Intel Core i3-10105 sits in that sweet spot for budget desktop builds, a 4-core, 8-thread Comet Lake chip that's been quietly doing the heavy lifting for office PCs and entry-level gaming rigs since it dropped. It runs on the LGA 1200 socket, sips power at 65W, and comes with a boxed cooler in the box, which is honestly more than you get from some pricier options these days. At around USD 112 in the US and EUR 152 to EUR 192 across European retailers, it's aimed squarely at people who want a functional, reliable CPU without selling a kidney.

People searching for a cheap CPU for gaming or a budget processor for office work will find a lot to like here. The i3-10105 handles everyday tasks without breaking a sweat, and our database shows it landing in the 74th percentile for single-thread performance, which means it's well above average for the price class. The integrated UHD 630 graphics won't run Cyberpunk, but they'll push a spreadsheet or a YouTube tab just fine.

And here's the thing: user sentiment for this chip is sitting at the 99th percentile. That's the absolute best right now. Owners genuinely love this thing, and that's not something we say often about a budget CPU from a few generations back.

Skip the i3-10105 if you're doing serious multi-core work like video editing, 3D rendering, or running a home server. The server performance score of 46.5 is a real weak spot, and the 4 cores will choke on heavy parallel workloads. Content creators and streamers should look at a Ryzen 5 3600 or a newer Intel i5 instead. Also skip it if you want integrated graphics for gaming, the UHD 630 won't cut it. And if you're planning to upgrade your CPU in a couple years, the LGA 1200 platform is a dead end, so you'd be better off investing in a newer socket from the start.

Should you buy the Intel Core i3-10105? If you're building a budget PC for office work, school, or light gaming, yes. It's stable, easy to install, and delivers performance that punches above its price tag. The 99th percentile user sentiment isn't a fluke, people who buy this chip tend to be genuinely happy with it. The stock cooler is quiet, the power draw is modest, and it just works.

But if you need serious multi-core muscle for video editing, streaming, or heavy productivity, this isn't your chip. The server performance is weak, and the platform is a dead end. You'd be better off saving for a Ryzen 5 or a newer Intel i5. For everyone else, the i3-10105 is one of the best budget CPU values we've seen in a while.