Intel Core i5-12400 Installation
Installing our Intel Core i5-12400 and DDR5 went smoothly, with no issues. We are using an LGA 1700 mounting kit that came with our MSI MEG CORELIQUID S360 AIO Cooler that we reviewed which has full compatibility with Alder Lake CPUs. We will be using this same AIO for all CPUs in this review. We are using the latest official BIOS for this motherboard, which is 7D28v11 dated 12-7-2021. We also installed the latest Intel Chipset drivers from the website which is version 10.1.18836.8283. In addition, we installed the optional drivers for this motherboard including Intel Management Engine Driver and Intel Serial IO Drivers.
CPUz and HWiNFO64 show all the right information, and we are running at DDR5-5200 in Gear 2 mode by default with XMP profile 1 enabled.
Our Comparison
To give you a very comprehensive and thorough evaluation, we lined up three 6 Core/12 Thread AMD CPUs to see where the Intel Core i5-12400 fits. We are including a Ryzen 5 3600X, which is a 6 Core/12 Thread Zen 2 based CPU with a TDP of 95W that launched in 2019 at $249 MSRP. It will be interesting to see how the 12400 compares since both are 6 Core/12 Thread, but the 3600X is on the previous Zen 2 architecture since both are about $50 apart.
We are also including a Ryzen 5 5600X, which is a 6 Core/12 Thread Zen 3 based CPU with a TDP of 65W that launched in 2020 at $299 MSRP. Yes, the MSRP is much higher, but online pricing has dropped to around $260 for this CPU today (and around $230 at Microcenter), and it will be interesting to see how the 12400 compares against it since it is on the newest Zen 3 architecture and the same core and thread count with a low TDP.
In addition, we are also going to compare the 12400 to AMD’s newest, latest 6 Core/12 Thread CPU release, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G APU. The AMD Ryzen 5 5600G APU is also a 6 Core/12 Thread CPU based on the Zen 3 architecture, and it also has a TDP of 65W, but a few lower specs than the 5600X on frequency and cache. While its MSRP is $259, you can actually find it cheaper online at around $220, and even at $199 on Microcenter. This pricing puts it very close in competition with the Intel Core i5-12400 on current pricing and makes it a must to include in any comparison with the 12400.