Intel Core i5 11400F Review: The Best Mainstream Gaming CPU!

It's a dark time for PC components - not so much the quality of them, but the availability and prices. Enter the Core i5 11400F. Pair it with decent memory on a mid-range board and you have superb gaming performance - even with the supplied cooler! In some scenarios, it can even outperform Core i9 10900K. Rich has the lowdown.

[Dr.Dp]

And just think, with the money you saved buying this over a more expensive CPU, you'll be able to buy an even more kick ass GPU!!!....Oh, wait a minute.

[martinantelo]

I ordered this one last week to replace my 6700k. Quad Core is starting to become a bottleneck with certain games.

[hero_in_deepblu]

"readily available"
*Immediately goes to buy one and sees them going for $100 above MSRP already*
:/

[Ltemn]

My old Z390 motherboard died so I sold my i7 9700K and bought an i5 11400 and MSI Mag B560 Torpedo instead. I am very impressed with the gaming performance of this little chip even though my i7 was overclocked to 5Ghz. Some very CPU intensive games like CB2077 and BFV actually have better minimum framerates which is probably thanks to hyper-threading. They feel smoother too. And there's also an upgrade path to an i7 11700 in the future.

[IcebergTech]

"Cheaper motherboards"
Might be worth anyone considering this CPU look at Hardware Unboxed's coverage of B560 VRMs before choosing a motherboard

[thecontentfactory]

Hi Digital Foundry, is it now time to upgrade the 11400F? If so what do you recommend?

[youtubenewsreview]

Thank you for the work you do guys, it's nice listening to people who know what they are talking about talk about games and hardware, people who understand and appreciate the technical mastery required to make these things.

I listening to your videos to calm me down after listening to spoiled and ignorant YouTubers.

[JinroHz]

Thinking of replacing my 4770k with this one. Just need a temporary stop-gap till zen 4 in a couple of years.

[Dangerman-zgui]

Just wondering; what about the 11700F? Would be an interesting SKU to review.

[AdadG]

The performance of the 5600X is suspiciously low and does not correspond to what is shown on sites such as Gamers Nexus, Hardware Unboxed or Anandtech.
In some motherboards when memory is overclocked, the PPT is not enough for the processor to perform as intended. On my motherboard, the PPT from stock is 76 W, if I overclock the RAM the performance drops, I have investigated and found that on other motherboards the PPT is 88 W, so if I increase to 88 W with the overclock to RAM performance is as expected.
You should check that out.

[LewisHamiltonMSPR]

Hope you guys pay Assetto Corsa a revisit one day. I think you'll be fascinated by the absolute sheer overhaul the community has given that game.

[AA-vfjb]

10:35 Did he nearly crash into the Shard!?!

[brettlivingston]

Nice job Intel, this is why competition is important. Great review, keep it up.

[someone-wixl]

the music brings me back to late 2013 - early 2014 when i found Digital foundry to watch 780ti benchmark

<3

[JAYZ]

Just ordered mine yesterday, can’t wait to get rid of my 6600k

[CorbettK]

I got a prebuilt Alienware with one of these and a 3060ti for €1320 it's amazing

[blabo]

A recomended mother board for this CPU? I need a good companion for my RTX 2080s and send my old i76700k to retirement.

[SteelTumbleweed]

11400F not available anywhere/sold out everywhere in the US. Must be only a prebuilt OEM part for now. 11400 IS avaiable for $190 though.

[unitedfools]

I notice a lot of people STILL making the mistake of overclocking lower end cpus instead of buying higher end CPU with less effective cooling.

[Rex]

Looking forward to replacing my 3570 with this 11400.