Intel i5-9400F with 3060Ti 10 games tested in 1080p, 1440p

When it comes to the Intel Core i5 9400F, there should be a few bargains floating around over the deal season. With Amazon Prime Day now packed up and Black Friday on the way, plenty of us will be flocking to the interwebs to find the CPU of our dreams, and we might finally complete that build we’ve been pining over on PC Part Picker. So, if you’re trying to establish whether an Intel Core i5 9400F would throw up bottlenecks for your new GPU, or are just perusing the wares, we at PC gamer have put together a simple, straightforward guide to help you make the important decisions when choosing components. There are so many things the Intel Core i5 9400F is lacking, yet it still managed to make it into our best CPU for gaming list thanks to its affordable mid-range gaming performance. It’s one of those where considering a purchase really hinges on whether you’re looking toward the future of gaming or just want something to tide you over in the current gaming generation—we’ll get to why in a moment. The Core i5 9400F is built on Intel&Coffee Lake microarchitecture, and is a 6 core, 6 thread CPU—no Hyper Threading here. It throws up boosts of 4.10 GHz and a base clock of 2.9GHz, making it a hint faster than its predecessor, the Core i5 8400. However, the locked multiplier means no overclocking, and there are no integrated graphics with this model, (that’s what the F stands for), meaning you’ll be in need of a dedicated graphics card. Though, you should have one anyway if you’re...