Core i5-9600 vs Core i5-10400F

Gaming speed, cores and clocks

The Core i5-9600 and the Core i5-10400F are within a few percent of each other for gaming. In a game, you will not see the difference.

The Core i5-9600 has 6 cores and 6 threads, and the Core i5-10400F has 6 cores and 12 threads. Core counts are the same, so cache size and clock speed decide the difference. Boost clocks are 4.6 GHz and 4.3 GHz.

Platform, power and price

The Core i5-9600 uses the LGA1151 socket and the Core i5-10400F uses LGA1200, so they need different motherboards, and often different memory. When you compare prices, count the board as well as the chip.

Rated power is 65 W for the first and 65 W for the second. That is close enough that cooling needs will be similar.

At launch the Core i5-9600 cost $213 and the Core i5-10400F $157, which gives 20.2 and 26.8 points of gaming performance per $100. Today's prices will differ.

Which graphics cards each one can feed, and which to buy

At 1080p the Core i5-9600 can feed a card up to the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Laptop before it holds the card back by more than 10 percent. The Core i5-10400F reaches the GeForce RTX 4060 Ti 16GB. Both chips are in the same range for graphics card pairing.

Choose the Core i5-9600 if you want the faster gaming chip and the same or more cores. Choose the Core i5-10400F if you would rather spend the difference on a graphics card, which does more for frame rates in most games.