Ryzen 7 3700X vs Core i5-11400F

Gaming speed, cores and clocks

On our gaming index the Ryzen 7 3700X scores 50 and the Core i5-11400F scores 48, about 4% faster for gaming. That gap is small and mostly shows up at 1080p with a very fast graphics card.

The Ryzen 7 3700X has 8 cores and 16 threads, and the Core i5-11400F has 6 cores and 12 threads. The extra cores of the Ryzen 7 3700X help with video editing, streaming while you play and heavy multitasking more than with the game itself. Boost clocks are 4.4 GHz and 4.4 GHz.

Platform, power and price

The Ryzen 7 3700X uses the AM4 socket and the Core i5-11400F 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 Ryzen 7 3700X cost $329 and the Core i5-11400F $157, which gives 15.2 and 30.6 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 7 3700X can feed a card up to the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Laptop before it holds the card back by more than 10 percent. The Core i5-11400F reaches the Radeon RX 9060 XT 16GB. Both chips are in the same range for graphics card pairing.

Choose the Ryzen 7 3700X if you want the faster gaming chip and the same or more cores. Choose the Core i5-11400F if you would rather spend the difference on a graphics card, which does more for frame rates in most games.