Intel Core i5-13400F

The i5-13400F posts a 3,630 single-thread PassMark score, putting it in the 88th percentile for gaming performance at a price that starts around USD 149. It's power efficient, runs cool, and owners rate it 4.7 out of 5 stars across 1,203 reviews. The stock cooler is noisy and weak, but that's an easy fix.

The 13400F's single-thread score of 3,630 is a standout, landing in the 88th percentile. That's the number that matters most for gaming, and it shows. The hybrid architecture with 6 P-cores and 4 E-cores handles background tasks without stealing cycles from your game. The 20MB of L3 cache and 9.5MB of L2 cache keep things snappy too.

Multi-thread performance is strong but not chart-topping. The 24,923 PassMark score puts it in the 81st percentile, which means it'll chew through productivity workloads, video encodes, and multitasking without breaking a sweat. The 65W base TDP jumps to 148W under turbo, so it sips power at idle and only pulls real wattage when you're pushing it. DDR5 support up to 128GB gives you room to grow, and PCIe 5.0 is there for future GPUs and SSDs.

Against the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, the 13400F loses on raw gaming performance, but the 9800X3D costs significantly more and targets a completely different tier. The 13400F's 3,630 single-thread score is close enough for most gamers at 1440p or 4K where the GPU does the heavy lifting. Compared to older Xeon and Core i9 X-Series chips in our database, the 13400F actually beats many of them in single-thread performance while using a fraction of the power. The efficiency score of 91 out of 100 is the real story here. You're getting modern Raptor Lake performance without the power bill or cooling headaches of older high-core-count parts.

This is where the 13400F earns its reputation. With USD prices ranging from USD 149 to USD 235 across four listings, the spread alone tells you to shop around. At the low end, you're getting 88th percentile single-thread performance for less than the cost of a decent motherboard. Even at the high end, it undercuts most competitors with similar gaming chops. The included cooler adds a bit of value, though many owners end up replacing it. If you can snag it near USD 149, it's one of the best price-to-performance ratios in our entire CPU database.

The Core i5-13400F posts a 24,923 PassMark multi-thread score and a 3,630 single-thread score. That puts it in the 81st percentile for multi-thread and 88th for single-thread among all CPUs in our database. For a chip that regularly sells between USD 149 and USD 235, those are numbers that make you double-check the price tag.

You get 10 cores split into 6 P-cores and 4 E-cores, 16 threads, and a 4.6GHz boost clock. There's no integrated graphics, so you'll need a discrete GPU. The boxed Laminar RH1 cooler is included, which is nice, but owners have some opinions about it. More on that below.

If you're building a system without a discrete GPU, skip this chip entirely. No integrated graphics means no video output without a graphics card. If you're planning to run heavy all-core workloads like rendering or compiling for hours at a time, the 148W turbo draw and the weak stock cooler will have you shopping for an aftermarket cooler immediately. And if you're chasing the absolute highest frame rates at 1080p with a high-end GPU, the 13400F's multi-thread score of 24,923, while solid, isn't going to keep up with pricier options in the 90th percentile and above.

The i5-13400F is the budget gaming CPU to beat right now. A 4.7-star average across 1,203 reviews backs up what the benchmarks tell us. The single-thread performance is genuinely impressive for the price, and the efficiency numbers mean you can run it on a modest cooler and a budget motherboard without worry. The stock cooler is the weak link, and the lack of integrated graphics means you're committed to a discrete GPU from day one. But if you're building a mid-range gaming rig or a productivity machine on a budget, this chip delivers where it counts.