Intel Core i5-13400- Is it worth the price

The more budget-friendly 13th Generation Intel Core i5-13400 CPU is now more expensive and equipped with the “missing” Efficient-cores. In previous 12th Gen Core i5s, only the top-tier Core i5-12600K/KF have Efficient-cores, and other i5s lack them. 

Interestingly, Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake CPUs are ahead of AMD Zen 4 Ryzen 7000s CPU, especially in gaming. Without a doubt, Intel has always been on top of the best gaming CPU list. On the other hand, AMD is not showing interest in launching new CPUs in the more affordable and budget segment. 

Gaming

In 1080p and 1440p Game averages, the Intel Core i5-13400/F gives a significant 7% improvement over the 12th Gen 12400. Moreover, no considerable advantages in FPS while using DDR5 memory. However, AMD Ryzen 5 7600 is 7% faster than Core i5-13400.

With PBO (auto overclocking), the Ryzen 5 7600 offers 16% and 20% better FPS in 1080p and 1440p gaming than the Core i5-13400. Notably, the Core i5-13400 is retailing at $224 (₹22,600) and Ryzen 5 7600 at $229 (₹22,500). 

Additionally, Ryzen 7600X is up to 12% faster than the Intel Core i5-13400. But the 7600x is too pricey to compare. The Intel Core i5-13400F would be great for low-budget gaming. 13400F lacks an iGPU but offers similar performance to the 13400 at a lesser price.

Obviously, the overall platform cost would increase with AMD, as DDR5 is the only option. And DDR5 memory and motherboards are still expensive compared to DDR4. Intel offers both DDR4 and DDR5, which makes Intel a better choice in the affordable and budget segment.  

Games included in benchmarks are Cyberpunk 2077, Far Cry 6, F1 2021, Hitman 3, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2021, Red Dead Redemption 2, Warhammer 3, and Watch Dogs Legion. All the benchmarks are taken from Toms Hardware

Productivity

In multi-thread performance, the Core i5-13400 is 28% faster than the older i5-12400. Similarly, 13400 has outperformed Ryzen 5 7600 by 5% and 7600 PBO by 3%. Interestingly, the costlier Ryzen 5 7600X is only 2.5% faster than the 13400. 

Furthermore, in single-threaded workloads, the i5-13400 is ahead of the 12400 by 5%, while the Ryzen 5 7600 is ahead of the 13400 by a negligible difference. However, Ryzen 5 7600X offers 8% more performance than 13400. 

Specs

Intel Core i5-13400 is a 10 Core/16 Thread CPU (6 P-cores and 4 E-cores) with max P-cores boost frequency is 4.6 GHz while E-cores boost up to 3.3 GHz. The total L3+L2 cache is 29.5 MB (20+9.5). Moreover, the CPU base power consumption is 65W but can go up to 148W in turbo mode.  

Intel 13th Gen Raptor Lake is the more advanced 12th Gen with more Efficient-cores inside the chip. The 13th Gen CPU use Intel 7 process node.