Is it worth upgrading to i5 10400F?
Is it worth upgrading to i5 10400F?
Evaluating the upgrade to an i5 10400F depends on your needs. Your current setup with an i5 8400, RTX 2060, and 16GB RAM offers solid performance, but the i5 10400F could boost gaming speeds and frame rates. The exact FPS gain will vary based on games and settings.
Only 8th and 9th generation Intel Core chips are compatible. All Intel boards in the 400 series will work with 10th generation models like the 10400F, and the upcoming 11th gen Rocket Lake around early 2021.
Your upgrade choices depend on what you want to play, your budget, and how long you plan to use it. What games are you interested in? What amount are you willing to spend? How many years do you expect the hardware to last? What specifications do you currently have?
I’ve been enjoying Read Dead Redemption 2, AC Odyssey, GR Wildlands. My next plans are Valhalla and Cyberpunk. I’ve got this CPU for about three to four years.
No, get an i7-9700F if you think you need more cores or frequency. It's a cheap upgrade that leads to little waste. All-core should be around 4.4ghz, until it hits the power limit. That's 500mhz more than your 8400. Or just keep what you got. It should be fine paired with your existing GPU.
Consider the strengths of Rocket Lake (11th Gen) versus Comet Lake (10th Gen). Evaluate their features to determine which offers better performance, helping you make a more informed decision before purchasing.
microcenter once had $199 for a 9700k chip about two weeks ago, but I’m skeptical an upgrade would really help with the games you mentioned. You might be mistaken, though—checking benchmarks on YouTube could clarify this. These titles usually depend heavily on graphics cards, so swapping to a stronger GPU makes more sense. Boosting the CPU is rarely needed unless you’re into competitive games like League or Valorant. If you intend to play those in the future, a Ryzen 5000 would be better. Otherwise, it’s probably not worth upgrading your CPU right now.