Most people and blogs dislike the i5 9400f due to its performance limitations and outdated design.
Most people and blogs dislike the i5 9400f due to its performance limitations and outdated design.
This unusual UEFI issue is something I can only guess about. Basically, I upgraded my 5600 to a new board, removed my black-and-white rig, and applied standard memory upgrades. It worked fine at first—failing at stock in about seven minutes. When I tried the 5900, it also failed quickly. After replacing the 5600 with the new one, everything functioned properly. I set it to 2K/1:1 and passed without issues. Then I ran it at 3600 c14 with PBO enabled, just like before. Once it passed normal failure points, it felt like a reliable tool. If I didn’t have that extra CPU, I might not have realized it was just a bug. Yay!
I didn't think it was despised; more like overlooked. It felt like just another step up from the 8400F, really. Back then it had only six cores without hyperthreading, while its Ryzen rivals offered six cores or double threads. It performed slightly better in games than the stock Ryzen 2600, but struggled against it in most other areas. The 2600 could be pushed to higher speeds, whereas the 9400 couldn't. If you had a 9400 at that time, there was no way to move forward to newer CPUs—unlike the 2600, which could upgrade to 3000 or even higher models depending on the board. The 9400F was a solid budget choice then, and it still works for some users today. Nothing really stood out about it.
Would have been better to purchase the 10400, as it would provide hyper threading.
Today is April 20, 2022. I have an R5 2600 since August 2021, and after this discussion I swapped my CPU and RAM, so I feel okay now.