Intel Pentium Gold G6405 2-core LGA 1200

A cheap dual-core that's fine for email and YouTube, but don't ask it to do anything fun. If you need more than basic office work, spend a little more and get something with actual cores.

The single-thread score of 2299 in PassMark is actually the bright spot here, landing in the upper-middle of the pack. That 4.1GHz clock does some heavy lifting for everyday tasks like web browsing and document editing. But the multi-thread score of 3855 is a different story, sitting in the bottom third of CPUs we track. With only two physical cores, anything that wants real parallel work done is going to feel sluggish. The 58W TDP is fine, but the efficiency score of 44.7 out of 100 tells you this old architecture is sipping more power than it should for the performance it delivers.

The competitor list here is a bit of a joke, honestly. AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D and a Xeon E5-2637 V2 are not in the same universe as this Pentium. The 9800X3D is a flagship gaming chip that costs several times more, and the Xeon is a server part from a decade ago. The only real comparison that matters is against other budget options like a used Ryzen 3 3200G or an older i3-10100. Both of those give you more cores and better integrated graphics for similar or slightly more money. The G6405 only makes sense if you find it dirt cheap and need something that just works out of the box.

The value story here is all about what you need it for. In Canada, prices bounce between CAD 120 and CAD 151 across two listings, so shop around before you click buy. The cheaper listing is the obvious choice if you're set on this chip. But honestly, at that price point, you're paying for the convenience of integrated graphics and a boxed cooler more than raw performance. If you can stretch your budget even a little, a used Ryzen 3 or older i3 will run circles around this thing.

The Intel Pentium Gold G6405 is a budget dual-core that knows exactly what it is. Two cores, four threads, and a 4.1GHz base clock on the ancient 14nm process. It's not going to impress anyone with raw speed, but for a basic office box or a cheap home theater PC, it gets the job done without making your wallet cry. The integrated UHD 610 graphics mean you can skip a dedicated GPU entirely, which is the whole point of a chip like this.

If you're looking to do any real work, gaming, or content creation, this isn't it. Go grab a used Ryzen 3 3200G or an i3-10100 instead. You'll get double the cores and much better integrated graphics for not much more cash. This Pentium is strictly for basic browsing and office duty.

The Pentium Gold G6405 is a fine chip for a very specific job: a basic desktop that browses the web, runs Office, and maybe plays 1080p video. If that's all you need, it'll do the job without complaint. But if you have any ambitions beyond that, even light gaming or photo editing, this chip will frustrate you quickly. The two-core design is just too limiting in 2024. Buy it only if you find it at the low end of that CAD 120 to CAD 151 range and your expectations are firmly in check.