It has been three years since Intel launched the Core i5 10400F in the Comet Lake family but the fact that this processor is still surviving in the market tells us that it is still relevant.
The Core i5 10400F was one of the most successful budget CPUs under $200 and can be currently found for around $110. This makes it a good value chip despite the availability of newer generations. As it features 6 cores and 12 threads on a budget, it is not only capable of providing a decent gaming experience but can possibly do productivity tasks satisfactorily.
It’s quite obvious that it will be mostly used by budget gamers as it helps cut the overall cost of the PC build when it comes to purchasing motherboards and aftermarket cooling solutions. However, there should be no compromise on the graphics card because the CPU-GPU combo is what matters entirely.
The i5 10400F is quite capable of handling most budget and even mid-range GPUs AMD, Nvidia, and Intel have to offer these days, and here are the top 5 GPUs you can consider going with.
Best GPUs for Core i5 10400F
Intel ARC A750
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Intel ARC A750 matured a lot since its launch and this is mostly due to the frequent driver updates Intel releases every other week. The ARC A750 might not be the best choice for a budget build but it is surely a compelling one these days due to its price-to-performance ratio.
The card can easily play most games on ultra settings at 1080p which is exactly what you need. It even competes with the similarly priced competitors from Nvidia and AMD which makes it a worthy GPU to combine with the 10400F.
It comes with 8GB GDDR6 VRAM on a 256-bit memory bus which is rare these days at a price of around $200. 8GB of memory is currently sufficient for modern AAA titles but if you ever plan to play at 1440p, then it’s better to lower down some texture settings.
AMD Radeon RX 6600
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The Radeon RX 6600 is one of the best budget graphics cards at the moment due to being inexpensive while delivering an impressive 1080p gaming performance.
This card is easily a top-notch choice for gaming builds that range from $500-$700 and will go very well with Core i5 10400F. It comes with 8GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus and 1792 Stream processors. Compared to the A750, it has better driver support and performs better in some games.
Nvidia Geforce RTX 3060 12GB
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RTX 3060 is a direct competitor to the RX 6600 but performs a little better in some titles. However, the biggest advantage of the RTX 3060 is its capability of performing very well in Ray Tracing scenarios.
In simple rasterization, the comparison between the two makes the RX 6600 a better choice when it comes to pricing but when the Ray Tracing is turned on, things change pretty quickly and the 3060 takes a significant lead in RT-supported titles.
The RTX 3060 comes with 8GB/12GB of VRAM on a 128/192-bit bus. As the latter has more VRAM and wider memory bus, I recommend going with the 12GB edition which will not only perform better at 1080p but also at 1440p resolution.
AMD Radeon RX 7600
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Considering the latest gen graphics cards, the RX 7600 is currently the cheapest offering from AMD that was launched for $269. Due to the availability of RX 6600 at a much cheaper price, the RX 7600 can be found for as low as $250.
Therefore, the RX 7600 is an ideal choice for this price as it performs 30-35% better than its predecessor. It comes with 8GB of VRAM on a 128-bit bus and 14% more Stream processors.
Moreover, it comes with AV1 encoding support out of the box which can be beneficial for some users.
Nvidia Geforce RTX 4060
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From Nvidia, we have the all-new RTX 4060 in the Ada family. This is definitely not the best GPU for its price but it is still a good competitor when we consider its Ray Tracing performance.
It not only comes with better Ray Tracing capability but also supports DLSS 3 and frame generation which is beneficial in DLSS 3-supported games if you want to play with higher frame rates.
Had it featured more VRAM or higher bandwidth, it could have been a good upgrade over the RTX 3060. However, this is just wishful thinking and you will get the same memory configuration as of the RTX 3060.
