Intel 10th generation will be released soon, perfect for upgrading your brother's PC.
Intel 10th generation will be released soon, perfect for upgrading your brother's PC.
Already released, but upgrading isn't possible without a completely new motherboard since it's now LGA 1200 instead of LGA 1151. It doesn't justify the cost except possibly for the 10900K; otherwise, Ryzen remains superior in most areas unless you specifically need an integrated graphics card.
Gamers' Nexus has provided a thorough review of the i5-10400. It's a challenging CPU to market. You're limited to DDR4-2666 memory on this chip, and speed drops considerably. The comparison between DDR4-2666 and DDR4-3200 is significant—about 15 to 20+ FPS less; that’s a noticeable gap. While you can pair it with a Z490 motherboard, the performance will still be constrained. Once you reach $200–$250+, the value doesn’t justify the purchase. Switching to a budget i5-10400 might work, but upgrading to the i5-10600K is a better choice. If you're looking at boards like i5-10400 + H410, B460, or H470, consider going with Ryzen 3300X or Ryzen 3600 instead. Pairing them with DDR4-3000 and 3600 RAM will likely underperform the i5-10400. For Intel 10th Gen platforms, opt for i9-10900K or i5-10600K. If you're on an 8th or 9th generation CPU and mainly play games, upgrading to 10th Gen isn’t necessary.
The mATX motherboard you linked is designed for an ASRock B450M PRO4, not a Ryzen 3600. It may not support the Ryzen processor.
Some B450 boards come with Ryzen support right away, but others require a BIOS upgrade and an older processor model. Based on other users' experiences, this board does offer Ryzen support by default, though it's not confirmed on the official product page and there are no assurances about the included BIOS version.
The Intel 10th generation chip is available now, or your sibling might have to wait a bit longer for Zen 3.