AMD Ryzen 5 8400F vs. Intel Core i5 14400F: 230+ Benchmarks For Sub-$200 CPU Performance

This week AMD announced the Ryzen 5 8400F and Ryzen 7 8700F processors as new Zen 4 budget CPU contenders lacking any integrated graphics. While part of the Ryzen 8000 series, the 8400F also lacks the Ryzen AI support found in the higher-end SKUs. The Ryzen 5 8400F offers 6 cores / 12 threads, a 4.2GHz base clock and 4.7GHz boost clock, and a 65 Watt TDP while retailing for $169~189 USD. Here are some initial benchmarks of the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F in putting it up against 230+ benchmarks under Linux while also monitoring the CPU power consumption and comparing it to Intel's closest contender as the Core i5 14400F that retails for just under $200.

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F provides six Zen 4 cores plus with SMT means 12 threads and can boost up to 4.7GHz with a 4.2GHz base clock. The 8400F has a 6MB L2 cache and a 16MB L3 cache while having a 65 Watt TDP. Being a -F SKU means no integrated graphics support and this model also has no Ryzen AI NPU but has all of the other common Zen 4 features like AVX-512, Precision Boost 2, etc. The list price on the Ryzen 5 8400F is $189 while at some Internet retailers I've seen it as low as $169 or as high as $200 elsewhere.

In AMD's published press material on the Ryzen 5 8400F, they were typically comparing it against the Core i5 13400F that costs around ~$185 USD. Though that's a 13th Gen Core rather than the (slightly better) Raptor Lake Refresh 14th Gen Core.

From Amazon I was able to find the Core i5 14400F for $199 USD, so I bought that processor given the similar price and being Intel's latest wares rather than buying the older Raptor Lake i5-13400F. Both the i5-13400F and i5-1400F are 10-core processors made up of 6 P cores and 4 E cores to allow for a total of 16 threads. The P-cores on both generations have a 2.5GHz base frequency while the i5-1300F has a max turbo frequency of 4.6GHz while the i5-14400F can boost up to 4.7GHz. The i5-13400F with its E cores only boosts to 3.3GHz compared to 3.5GHz with the i5-14400F. Both CPUs have a 9.5MB L2 cache and 20MB L3 cache. So the i5-13400F/i5-14400F have a slight core/thread count advantage over the Ryzen 5 8400F while costing similar and having a similar boost/turbo frequency.

I've only had the Ryzen 5 8400F and Core i5 14400F for a few days, so in this article is just a preliminary comparison between the two. Especially with running 24+ hours of benchmarks on each processor with more than 270 benchmarks in total. A wider-range comparison with more desktop processors will be coming soon on Phoronix as I begin re-testing all the Intel/AMD processors on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS with the very latest kernel. Fresh data as always!

Both the i5-14400F and 8400F include the usual heatsink fans that get the job done fine if running at stock speeds.

For this Ryzen 5 8400F vs. Core i5 14400K comparison, 2 x 16GB GSKILL DDR5-6000 memory was used throughout, a 2TB WD_BLACK SN850X NVMe SSD, and Radeon RX 7900 GRE graphics. The same Ubuntu 24.04 LTS software stack was used both times. During the benchmarks the CPU power consumption was monitored using the PowerCap/RAPL interfaces for per-benchmark power monitoring.

Let's see how this AMD Ryzen 5 8400F is looking under Linux for a wide range of workloads.