Ryzen 5 5600 vs Core i5-12400F

Gaming speed, cores and clocks

The Ryzen 5 5600 and the Core i5-12400F are within a few percent of each other for gaming. In a game, you will not see the difference.

The Ryzen 5 5600 has 6 cores and 12 threads, and the Core i5-12400F has 6 cores and 12 threads. Core counts are the same, so cache size and clock speed decide the difference. Boost clocks are 4.4 GHz and 4.4 GHz.

Platform, power and price

The Ryzen 5 5600 uses the AM4 socket and the Core i5-12400F uses LGA1700, 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 Ryzen 5 5600 cost $199 and the Core i5-12400F $167, which gives 28.1 and 32.9 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 Ryzen 5 5600 can feed a card up to the Radeon RX 7900 GRE before it holds the card back by more than 10 percent. The Core i5-12400F reaches the Radeon RX 7800 XT. Both chips are in the same range for graphics card pairing.

Choose the Ryzen 5 5600 if you want the faster gaming chip and the same or more cores. Choose the Core i5-12400F if you would rather spend the difference on a graphics card, which does more for frame rates in most games.