Intel Core i5-13400 Review: Leading Value Gaming at $200
Mid-range gaming has a new champion.
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Reviews: Intel Core i5-13x00 series
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arandomguy
Veteran
The issue when discussing this chip is what price comparison points they are using. Also comparing via Intel Ark tray prices make it seem better than comparing against actual street prices.
The problem for the 13400/f is in terms of actual street prices it's much more expensive the 12400/f (which it isn't really much faster than outside of MT that uses the E-cores) and not really cheaper than the 12600k/f (which it is slightly slower than, along with some other disadvantages including a weaker GPUm locked SA, etc.).
Also being 13th gen while socket compatible with cheaper B660/H610 motherboards it still requires a newer bios on motherboards that won't support flashing without a CPU, so either you buy something more expensive with that capability or have to find some other way. Also the newer bios have some of their own issues (search up undervolting issue on newer Intel bios).
So ignoring the AMD and just keeping it Intel to Intel, based on current real pricing you'd want to still look at 12th gen parts as an alternative. If you want this over a 12400, why is the 12600k not an option at the same price difference (which has also been available at the current prices for months now)?
The problem for the 13400/f is in terms of actual street prices it's much more expensive the 12400/f (which it isn't really much faster than outside of MT that uses the E-cores) and not really cheaper than the 12600k/f (which it is slightly slower than, along with some other disadvantages including a weaker GPUm locked SA, etc.).
Also being 13th gen while socket compatible with cheaper B660/H610 motherboards it still requires a newer bios on motherboards that won't support flashing without a CPU, so either you buy something more expensive with that capability or have to find some other way. Also the newer bios have some of their own issues (search up undervolting issue on newer Intel bios).
So ignoring the AMD and just keeping it Intel to Intel, based on current real pricing you'd want to still look at 12th gen parts as an alternative. If you want this over a 12400, why is the 12600k not an option at the same price difference (which has also been available at the current prices for months now)?
I posted this in another thread regarding me having just ordered a 13600K.
Seems like 6 cores is fine but cache can be very important. The difference between 13600K and 13900K with 2 cores disabled is striking in these games. God of War 40+% faster on the 6 core 13900K vs the 13600K! But the 13900K loses practically nothing by disabling 2 cores. Meanwhile the 30MB 13700K is essentially tied with the 36MB 13900K, so it seems the 13600K is only coming up a few megabytes short.
Seems like 6 cores is fine but cache can be very important. The difference between 13600K and 13900K with 2 cores disabled is striking in these games. God of War 40+% faster on the 6 core 13900K vs the 13600K! But the 13900K loses practically nothing by disabling 2 cores. Meanwhile the 30MB 13700K is essentially tied with the 36MB 13900K, so it seems the 13600K is only coming up a few megabytes short.
Here an interesting test I haven't seen before.
www.techspot.com
I didn't know it was possible to entirely disable the P cores but that is what they claim to have done. 1% lows fall off a cliff when only using E cores, but 2P+2E is surprisingly decent. I would love to see Intel put out an i3 with 4P+4E.
Intel 12th-Gen Core Alder Lake Architectural Benchmark
As a follow up to our feature on how CPU cores and cache impact gaming performance, we're testing different Intel 12th-gen Core Alder Lake CPUs configurations to...
www.techspot.com
I didn't know it was possible to entirely disable the P cores but that is what they claim to have done. 1% lows fall off a cliff when only using E cores, but 2P+2E is surprisingly decent. I would love to see Intel put out an i3 with 4P+4E.
davis.anthony
Veteran
I was going 13400f shortly and overclocking it to hopefully 5.2 to 5.5Ghz but a 12700 with more cache (and an overclock) might actually be a better option for me.
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The 12700 is superior in every way, but it's also way more expensive where I live. The 13400F is repurposed Alder Lake, not Raptor Lake. It's basically a slightly downclocked 12600K as far as I can tell. Pretty excellent for $200.
I considered the 13400 but decided on the 13600K because it is Raptor Lake with a lot more L2 and a little more L3.
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arandomguy
Veteran
13th Gen locked CPUs have reported restrictions with respect to OCing via BCLK. It might be rather risky to proceed with that assumption unless you find some confirmation otherwise.
RIP, Overclockable Intel Non-K Chips, We Hardly Knew Ye
Intel blocks overclocking on locked chips by...doing nothing.
Also as mentioned the 12700 is better in every way barring possibly price as I'm not sure what the market is in your situation. Here for example new 12700's aren't even cheaper than 12700k's, which makes them kind of pointless.
13400F/12600kf can be looked at in that way but the 13400/12600k has a bit more differences due to the IGP. The 13400 has less EUs (24 vs 32) but a slight 100mhz high clock only so the 12600k should be around 10% faster still. Also it has 1 media engine vs 2 (12600k) but I haven't seen how this impacts things in practice (in terms of encode/decode perf).
There are also 13400/f CPUs that do use the newer Raptor Lake 8P+16E die with cache disabled and other things disabled. It's not clear what differences it would make.
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