Intel Core i5-8400 Processor Review

Intel Core i5-8400 Intel Core i5-8400

Final Thoughts
The Core i5-8400 is a rather interesting part, and one that many people might overlook, but they really shouldn’t. If you read my Core i7-8700K review you know I said it was about time we had a 6-core Core i7 chip, but we also have a 6-core Core i5’s! That really shakes things up and brings the mid-tier mainstream market to the next level. In our testing it is very competitive with AMD’s Ryzen 5 1600, and you have to remember that is a 6-core, 12-thread part. To our surprise it beat our the Core i7-7700K in a couple of tests too. Remember that was Intel’s previous flagship mainstream processor. Adding those two cores really makes a difference and you can see that in our test results. Unfortunately we did not have a 7th Generation Core i5 on hand to test against, it would have been nice to see the performance difference between the two.

Now while this chip does have 6 cores like the Core i7 chips it lacks HyperThreading so you are stuck with a 6-core, 6-thread chip. Also this is not a “K” series chip so there is no overclocking. If there is one good thing that comes out of that you have a lower TDP of only 65W.

As far as gaming is concerned this chip has great results. It is actually a great choice if you are building a gaming rig. And we do have to say it, at least in our tests Intel processors still come out on top in gaming tests.

With 8th Generation you will need to buy a new motherboard as the chips are not compatible with current Z270 motherboard. This is sort of a bummer, but technically the pin-layout is different so it had to be done.

I think that if you are building a new PC and you want to save some money to put towards a better graphics card or memory this chip is a solid choice and we can totally recommend it. Especially if you aren’t going to be doing any overclocking. Right now you can pick up this chip at our favorite online retailer for $187.

TC award recommended

Pros:
– 6 cores in a Core i5
– Great performance
– Very competitive against Ryzen 5 parts
– Price
– Lower TDP and operating temperatures

Cons:
– No HyperThreading
– No Overclocking