Intel Core i5-10400 Gaming Performance Review

Before we proceed with our final thoughts, let’s give some insights about pricing. The Core i5-10400 is around Php9600. The variant without the IGP, the Core i5-10400F goes for cheaper at around Php8000. An B460 motherboard would start around Php4000. Then our memory of choice is the single stick 16GB stick. Again, we went with a DDR4-2666 stick because it’s the cheapest around at Php3790. For the power supply, we’re going with a 500W PSU from a trusted brand that would run us around Php2500. That’s just a hair below Php20k for our foundation. Now let’s compare that with an AMD system:

The Core i5 build here is 1:1 of our test bench except for the case and cooler and the Ryzen build is replica of our test bench, which is a couple of tens of thousands much more expensive than this build but will still provide the same feature which shouldn’t limit the tests.

So let’s start our analysis: the Ryzen build is 9% more expensive on current market prices but in general, its ultimately only 7.45% faster in all of our tests at 1080p.This grows even smaller at 1440p and at 4K, is pretty much at nearly 0% difference.

Now, going back to our beginning statement: the argument against Intel has always been its upgradeability but let’s take a closer look at the games here. The only recent games we have are Valorant and Cyberpunk 2077, one is an esports title and one is a AAA title. Both games show extremely playable gaming performance and focusing on them alone, at 1080p the difference is only 5% in Valorant, a 20FPS difference on a game that runs at 380FPS AVERAGE on the Core i5-10400 with an RTX 3070. The Ryzen does 400FPS, which at this points is pretty meaningless. The same goes for Cyberpunk 2077 which only 0.44% faster than the i5. ZERO POINT FORTY FOUR. That is a 0.3 FPS difference, which again. Is highly negligible. Going back to history, aside from Call of Duty and NBA 2K, not a lot of gamers get released on an annual basis and as long as you have a decent CPU, all you need is a capable graphics card and you can pretty much play anything.

Focusing on the Intel Core i5-10400, its holding its own at this level, even paired with an RTX 3070. Its only real limitation is from the motherboard, if you constrain yourself to a non-Z board, you loose the ability to use faster memory. That said, the market is ripe with Z490 boards for below Php10,000 so if you want a clear upgrade path, this is a good argument to go for. Given that we’ve given the AMD build a beefier board, its only fair for the Intel to have the same option. On a Z-board, we have the option to go all the way with memory which should give us around 10% in performance. What it also gives us is an upgrade path. The option to buy in newer generation Intel or a higher current-gen is a rich option. But again, for purely gaming purposes, the Core i5-10400 is capable enough.

So to conclude, the Intel Core i5-10400 6-core CPU isn’t a show stealer in terms of performance, but at its price and availability, it makes for a compelling argument for people that want a fixed set for the next 4 years to play all the modern games they want without feeling the limitation in performance even with a high-end GPU.

Its purely a situational choice and PC building is rife with choices and choices are always good. Talk to me about your PC and gaming plans in the comments or Facebook and I’ll be happy to help you out.

Intel is also extending their promotion for Intel Core i3 and Core i5 buyers where they get the chance to win up to Php100,000 in Paymaya credits, check out this link for more info: Intel 10th-Gen CPU Promotion: Up to Php100,000 of Paymaya credits + Gaming Gears – Back2Gaming