Blog

With the Core Intel Core i5 11400F, which has a reported price of about 157 USD, we again reduce from eight to six processing cores and twelve threads. This CPU might be regarded as offering the most value in Intel’s Rocket Lake-S lineup. Street prices are currently listed at 160–170 USD. You will learn from this evaluation that if you’re looking for a processor for a game computer that is also affordable, this one might be it.

One of the top 11th Generation desktop CPUs is the Intel Core i5 11400F, which is also one of the most affordable six-core, 12-thread processors available. The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X(opens in new tab), which has the same number of cores, costs half as much, but offers far better gaming performance.

Therefore, the Bizarro CPU World has indeed materialized. In this odd new world, AMD is the dominating CPU player, offering PC gamers the priciest, most potent chips on the market, while Intel offers the more affordable but still strong alternatives.

The lack of an integrated graphics processor (iGPU) in the Core i5 11400F processor package is not a bad thing for a low-cost gaming CPU because it often signals a less expensive chip. However, given that those embedded GPU cores are now active, the Core i5 11400 is the exact same CPU as before. It should cost more, but is currently available for a lot less money.

Since the two variants of the 11400 silicon should perform nearly equally, you can almost choose whatever is the least expensive and be satisfied with your decision. the Intel Core i5 11400F is a fantastic low-cost gaming CPU.

Intel Core i5 11400F Specs

The core of Intel’s 11th Gen Core desktop processor line is the new Rocket Lake microarchitecture. Some of Intel’s most recent CPU and iGPU designs will be made available on the desktop platform thanks to this architecture. Additionally, it adds AVX-512 and Deep Learning Boost AI acceleration to this form factor. With Rocket Lake, Intel hopes to bring back double-digit single-threaded CPU performance gains after a five-year absence, as well as a significant improvement in iGPU performance.

The Rocket Lake-S die is constructed using Intel’s 14 nm silicon production technique, which is presumably in its last stages of development. Nobody knows why Intel chose 10 nm SuperFin instead. With the new node, the company is now giving priority to mobile and enterprise processors while still appearing to be in the transition between 14 nm and 10 nm-class nodes. Intel pays a premium for continuing with 14 nm that goes beyond only power and thermal expenditures that are comparable to 10th Gen Comet Lake. Due to the LGA1200 package’s constrained fiberglass substrate surface, CPU cores are likewise limited to a maximum of eight.

Five significant design improvements over the previous generation are combined in Rocket Lake. The new Gaussian Network Accelerator (GNA) 2.0—a hardware element that enables the Deep Learning Boost (DLBoost) AI acceleration feature—AVX-512, the new Cypress Cove CPU core, the new Gen12 Xe LP integrated graphics, the new Gaussian Network Accelerator (GNA) 2.0, and, finally, the updated platform I/O that adds PCI-Express 4.0 and a chipset bus that is twice as wide as the previous generation.

Finally, Intel has significantly improved Rocket Lake’s I/O capabilities compared to the previous generation. New PCI-Express 4.0 version released. There are 28 lanes in the processor’s PCIe root complex. 16 of these are routed to the PEG port, which is the primary x16 graphics slot, 4 are directed toward an M.2 NVMe Gen 4 slot that is wired directly to the processor (just like on AMD Ryzen platforms), and 8 are directed toward the DMI x8 chipset-bus, which has doubled the bandwidth over the previous generation. Because Gen 4 is not supported by the 500-series PCH, these lanes continue to run at PCIe Gen 3 bandwidth. The memory interface has not changed much since Comet Lake.

Essential information

Product Collection	11th Generation Intel® Core™ i5 Processors
Code Name	Products formerly Rocket Lake
Vertical Segment	Desktop
Processor Number	i5-11400F
Status	Launched
Launch Date	Q1’21
Lithography	14 nm
Recommended Customer Price	$173.00 – $183.00
Use Conditions	PC/Client/Tablet

Intel Core i5 11400F specifications

Total Cores	6
Total Threads	12
Max Turbo Frequency	4.40 GHz
Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 Frequency	4.40 GHz
Processor Base Frequency	2.60 GHz
Cache	12 MB Intel® Smart Cache
Bus Speed	8 GT/s
TDP	65 W

Memory specs

Max Memory Size (dependent on memory type)	128 GB
Memory Types	DDR4-3200
Max # of Memory Channels	2
Max Memory Bandwidth	50 GB/s

Intel Core i5 11400F gaming & performance

The Intel Core i5 11400F completely outperforms the comparable Comet Lake i5 10400F in our basic tests utilizing Intel’s recommended power restrictions for single threaded performance. That merely emphasizes where the advantages of the Cypress Cove core over the Skylake core at the core of the remainder of Intel’s 14nm devices show.

However, the slower base clock speed limits it in multi-threaded testing.

But as soon as you unlock those artificial power constraints and turn the hypothetical BIOS switch—which is what most of us would do to unleash the full capability of the CPU in our rigs—that argument is rendered moot. The Cinebench R20 multi-threaded score then increases to 3,869 from its initial 2,741 result, narrowly edging out the 5600X and 11600K in terms of performance.

We’ll begin by running Flight Simulator 2020.

My buddy and coworker Alex Battaglia’s low-flying London flight path for Flight Sim is presented first. The amount of data that needs to be streamed in and out during this nighttime run necessitates a test that exclusively evaluates CPU performance at 1080p and 1440p. Surprisingly, the 11400F outperforms even the 10900K here, outputting roughly 38 fps versus 36 fps over the duration of a six-minute flight. The 11600K and 11900K perform even better, with the 11600K being about 10% and the 11900K being almost 20% quicker, respectively. The 11400F lags a little behind the other Ryzen 5000 processors we’ve tested here, but it effectively ties the 5600X.

Normality is partially restored at 1440p because the 10900K sits between the 11600K and 11900K, but the 11400F still produces a respectable performance of about 33 frames per second. Notably, Ryzen performs similarly to the high-end 11900K at 1440p, though somewhat better.

Conclusion on Intel Core i5 11400F

What have we discovered after all the testing have been completed? The (£150/$175) Core i5 11400F is, in a nutshell, really excellent.

It frequently outperforms the (£190/$215) 10600K, a CPU that cost about $100 more when it was released last year, and it occasionally outperforms the (£399/$459) 10900K (!) in games where single-core speed is more important than large core count designs. Most of the time, the 11400F is comparable to the (£220/$259) 11600K, and if you start playing games in 1440p or 4K, you might as well get the less expensive 11400F since there isn’t much of a difference in many titles.

However, for laptops that will just be used for gaming, there is a pretty strong case to be made for the 11400F—one that you couldn’t really make with past-generation designs at this price range. The 11600K and (£549/$589) 11900K still perform better overall, especially in content production.

Therefore, the 11400F is evidence that Intel’s most competitive CPUs are now among its more affordable options. The 11400F generally outperforms Ryzen 3000 and the majority of Intel 10th-generation CPUs in terms of gaming performance while being significantly less expensive than the Core i5 11600K and 11900K. There are undoubtedly millions of people for whom gaming is the major priority, but AMD’s Ryzen 5000 CPUs and the Core i9 10900K continue to be the best options for mixed use, which includes both content creation and gaming. The value of the 11400F is unmatched for these people.