AMD Ryzen 5 7500F vs. Intel Core i5-12400F: What's the Best Budget CPU?

[Steve]

We compare the budget friendly Core i5 12400F and Ryzen 5 7500F to see which CPU still delivers the best value in modern games using updated hardware and consistent test conditions.

Read the full article here.

AMD Ryzen 5 7500F vs. Intel Core i5-12400F: What's the Best Budget CPU?

 

[Puiu]

Not a great day for budget builds

 

[Theinsanegamer]

The 12400f was a no brainer. Got it on sale for $109 and could reuse older DDR4 sticks. Since most budget builds dont use 5090s you'll likely never see any real world difference.

I will say the idle and media streaming power use is impressively low. My AM4 build idles at higher draw then the i5+4060 does streaming 1080p video.

 

[cfenton]

"Spending an extra $30 for the 7500F gets you about 20% more performance, so choosing the Ryzen seems like a no brainer."

But $165 is about 22% more than $135, so even on CPU price alone it's very close value wise. $30 doesn't sound like much, but it is as a percentage for components this cheap.

Also, unrelated to the review, it's absurd that the 8400F is significantly slower than the 7400F. That should never happen.

 

[BadThad]

Fun test Steven, thanks for the hard work! We may soon see the 12400 for <$100 around black friday. With some used DDR4 it makes for a pretty cheap system.

 

[sreams]

"Spending an extra $30 for the 7500F gets you about 20% more performance, so choosing the Ryzen seems like a no brainer."

But $165 is about 22% more than $135, so even on CPU price alone it's very close value wise. $30 doesn't sound like much, but it is as a percentage for components this cheap.

Also, unrelated to the review, it's absurd that the 8400F is significantly slower than the 7400F. That should never happen.

At this low pricing, does "percentage" even matter anymore? What if the Intel CPU was $1 and the AMD CPU was $1.22? A CPU should last you years. The price difference, as a dollar amount, is negligible.

 

[cfenton]

At this low pricing, does "percentage" even matter anymore? What if the Intel CPU was $1 and the AMD CPU was $1.22? A CPU should last you years. The price difference, as a dollar amount, is negligible.

It does for consistency. That's how they measure value in every other segment. Presumably if you're looking at these CPUs you are on a tight budget, so $30 might be significant if your budget for the whole build is $500.

 

[sreams]

It does for consistency. That's how they measure value in every other segment. Presumably if you're looking at these CPUs you are on a tight budget, so $30 might be significant if your budget for the whole build is $500.

Your example brings up a good point. The AMD CPU may be 22% more expensive than the Intel one, but choosing the significantly faster CPU really only adds 6% to your $500 build. Probably less considering futureproofing and Intel platform costs.

 

[thewelshbrummie]

At this low pricing, does "percentage" even matter anymore? What if the Intel CPU was $1 and the AMD CPU was $1.22? A CPU should last you years. The price difference, as a dollar amount, is negligible.

In terms of drawing valid conclusions for the purposes of this article, yes.

In terms of whether it makes a difference to what you may want to purchase? That's a different question only the purchaser can answer, based on how much they're willing to spend. tbh your point is entirely valid in my opinion but if you really can't spend the extra $30 and just need a working system, it's good to know that price to performance is equal for both parts.

That said, I've never had a CPU fail on me - and in terms of being relevant performance wise, I think both options will still likely be relevant for long enough that you'd probably only replace them when a full platform rebuild is likely to be needed.

 

[sreams]

In terms of drawing valid conclusions for the purposes of this article, yes.

In terms of whether it makes a difference to what you may want to purchase? That's a different question only the purchaser can answer, based on how much they're willing to spend. tbh your point is entirely valid in my opinion but if you really can't spend the extra $30 and just need a working system, it's good to know that price to performance is equal for both parts.

That said, I've never had a CPU fail on me - and in terms of being relevant performance wise, I think both options will still likely be relevant for long enough that you'd probably only replace them when a full platform rebuild is likely to be needed.

I would disagree that a given percentage performance increase is worth exactly the same percentage increase in price. The better CPU may very well mean the difference between a game being playable or not. It may mean that a game reaches your display's refresh rate... or does not. Is price/performance equal for both parts? Depends on the application.