I'm comparing Intel's Core 5 120F with the i5-14400F for a gaming PC using 32GB of DDR4-3200 memory and an Nvidia RTX 5060. I found the Core 5 120F at a very low price, but there are hardly any independent benchmarks available. Since the i5-14400F costs up to $150 more, would the performance difference be noticeable in actual games, or would I be better off spending that money on a faster graphics card?
3 Answers
At 1440p, you’ll be GPU-limited in most games, so the cheaper processor should perform very similarly. Even at 1080p, the 120F should be perfectly capable unless you’re targeting extremely high refresh rates in CPU-heavy games. Put the savings toward a stronger GPU if possible; that upgrade will be more noticeable.
The 14400F makes sense only if the price gap is small or you need extra CPU performance for productivity and multitasking. For a normal gaming-focused build, the 120F is a reasonable bargain, assuming the motherboard BIOS supports it and the processor is actually priced far below the 14400F.
The Core 5 120F is essentially a rebranded or slightly adjusted i5-12400F. The i5-14400F is faster because it has higher clocks, more cache, and four additional efficiency cores, but the gaming difference usually won’t justify paying $150 more with an RTX 5060.
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