Intel and AMD CPUs have got their fair share of deals over the past few months but today, we will be focusing on the budget segment where products such as the Core i5-12400F could make for an excellent budget build.
Intel Core i5-12400F Available For $150 US at Newegg, Pair It With a $100 US B660 Motherboard & You Got Yourself An Awesome Budget PC
The Intel Core i5-12400F is a very popular budget CPU for several reasons but the biggest is the value it offers in terms of price to performance. With an MSRP of under $200 US, the 12400F was already a great choice for budget builders who want great gaming performance along with very capable multi-threading capabilities.
So giving a recap to the specs, the Intel Core i5-12400F is a 12th Gen Alder Lake chip that is based on the 10nm ESF process node. It features 6 cores and 12 threads, all based on the Golden Cove P-Core architecture, 18 MB of L3 cache, 25.5 MB of Smart Cache (L2+L3), and clock speeds of up to 4.4 GHz. The CPU also features a base TDP of 65W and a maximum boost TDP of 117W. The CPU comes bundled with an Intel Laminar R1 series CPU cooler too.
So what’s the price? Currently, the Intel Core i5-12400F can be bought for just $149.99 US, a $25 US cut from its original price of $179.99 US (after applying Newegg’s Promo code: FTPBU8562). This is not the cheapest 6 core that you can get for under $200 US. There are several other options too such as AMD’s Ryzen 5 5500 for $138.19 US but it is definitely one performer that even surpasses the Ryzen 5 5600X in performance. The Ryzen 5 5600X is also down to $174.99 US, making it a great drop-in upgrade for existing AM4 owners.
At $149.99 US, you can either go for H610 motherboards which start at $79.99 US, or B660 boards which should offer you better features and power delivery for a slightly higher starting price of $95 US. Combined with some decent DDR4 16 GB kits, you are looking at approximately $250-$300 US for the main components. So you are looking at a modern budget build around $600-$700 US with an RTX 3060 (Used pricing starts at $240 US at eBay). Just a few months ago, a similar priced PC was around $1000 US or above but with prices falling down, $500-$600 US builds are back in business.
With that said, the standard AMD & Intel CPU lineup is also available at some good rates right now. Following is the full list of chips along with their prices at Newegg:
Both AMD and Intel have new CPUs coming out later this year which will be targeting the high-end segment-first so mainstream users can expect even further discounted deals on existing parts.
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