Core i5-12400 vs Core i3-12100
Compare the Core i5-12400 and Core i3-12100 on real gaming and productivity benchmarks, full specifications, live retailer prices and performance-per-dollar, then jump straight to the cheapest in-stock option.
The short answer
The Core i5-12400 is the better buy here: it's both faster for gaming and gives more performance per dollar.
- Core i5-12400 is about 10% faster for gaming at 1080p (gaming index 53.0 vs 48.0).
- Core i5-12400 is roughly 39% faster in multi-core work, an edge in rendering, encoding and compiling.
- Core i3-12100 is the cheaper chip right now, by roughly 2%.
- Core i5-12400 delivers about 9% more gaming performance per dollar.
- Core i5-12400 has more cores (6C/12T vs 4C/8T), which helps in heavily threaded workloads.
Gaming performance
CPU-bound gaming score: a geometric mean of in-game frame rates at 1080p, normalized so the fastest gaming CPU we track = 100.
Does the CPU matter at 1440p or 4K? Much less. At higher resolutions the graphics card sets the frame rate, so the gap between two CPUs shrinks — often to nothing. The 1080p figure above is the demanding case, where the CPU is stressed and the difference actually shows.
Performance per dollar
Gaming index divided by the current lowest price — higher is better value. This moves with the market as prices change day to day.
The Core i5-12400 gives about 9% more gaming performance per dollar at today’s prices.
Full platform cost
A CPU’s real cost includes the cheapest in-stock motherboard that can run it and, when the chip doesn’t bundle one, a cooler that can handle it. Here is the lowest-priced complete platform for each, and the gaming performance you get per platform dollar.
- Platform total
- $341.77
- Platform total
- $338.17
Cheapest complete platform (lower is better)
Gaming performance per platform dollar (higher is better)
Specs head-to-head
Productivity & compute
Efficiency
Gaming performance per watt (gaming index per 100W of TDP) — higher means more frames for the heat and power.
Where to buy
Core i5-12400from $241.59
| Retailer | Availability | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | In stock | $241.59 |  |
Core i3-12100from $237.99
| Retailer | Availability | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon | In stock | $237.99 | |
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