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Intel's new ‘no frills, just thrills’ budget gaming CPU leaked — Intel Core 5 120F finally brings Bartlett Lake to gaming rigs

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Intel wants to retake the budget gaming PC crown.

Intel leaked slide Intel Core 5 120F
(Image credit: @momomo_us / X)

A new budget gaming processor (via momomo_us), the Intel Core 5 120F, has appeared online. It is thought to be based on the upcoming Bartlett Lake architecture.

According to the image shared by popular hardware leaker, the Core 5 120F features six P-Cores, with a max turbo frequency of 4.5 GHz, while dropping all E-Cores. It also sports 18MB of L3 Cache and supports up to 192GB of DDR5-4800 memory. The Intel Core 5 120F is the supposed successor to the Intel Core i5-12400F, which features a similar configuration but only has a max turbo frequency of 4.4 GHz.

The Intel Core 5 120F brings back hyperthreading, which the company ditched for the latest Arrow Lake and Lunar Lake processors launched last year. Although this made Intel’s chips more efficient, they also suffered in gaming performance benchmarks, with the Core Ultra 200S trailing behind AMD and even previous-generation Intel processors. It also uses LGA 1700, meaning gamers who bought affordable 12th-generation Intel chips can upgrade to a more modern CPU without replacing their motherboard.

Team Blue is marketing this new chip to budget gamers, saying it is “the perfect choice for gamers who want to play hard without breaking the bank—no frills, just thrills.” It also said it’s built for eSports and AAA titles running at 1080p.

Intel Core 5 120F Specifications

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Header Cell - Column 0

Intel Core 5 120F

Intel Core i5-12400F

AMD Ryzen 5 8400F

AMD Ryzen 5600XT

Cores (Threads)

6 (12)

6 (12)

6 (12)

6 (12)

Base Clock Rate (GHz)

2.5

2.5

4.2

3.7

Boost Clock Rate (GHz)

4.5

4.4

4.7

4.7

L3 Cache (MB)

18

18

16

32

TDP (W)

65

65

65

65

Integrated Graphics

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

Launch Price

TBA

$167

$189

$194

Launch Date

TBA

January 4, 2022

April 1, 2024

October 31, 2024

AMD has dominated the gaming market with its Ryzen APUs, especially with the X3D processors, but it seems that Intel is making strategic efforts to shift the balance. While the Intel Core 5 120F won’t hold a candle to the Ryzen 7 9800X3D or its more powerful variants, it seems ready to compete against the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, which is a good mainstream gaming CPU that launched in 2020 (and updated to the AMD Ryzen 5 5600XT in 2024), or the Ryzen 5 8400F, which was initially a China-only chip before receiving a global launch in 2024.

Unfortunately, we don’t have pricing yet for the Intel Core 5 120F. But if Intel wants to gain ground in the mainstream market, it must price it competitively—probably around $100 to $150. If that happens, you can pair it with an Intel Arc B570, giving gamers on a budget a chance to build a decent modern gaming PC without spending an arm and a leg on new hardware.

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Jowi Morales
Jowi Morales
Contributing Writer

Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.

32 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    Now we know why AMD stealth launched the 5500X3D yesterday...
    Reply
  • lmcnabney
    Sigh, CPU costs are not the problem at all. I have been spending $200-300 for the CPU in my rigs since K6-2-400. That is almost 30 years ago. The problem with PC gaming costs is almost exclusively GPU cost.
    Reply
  • salgado18
    lmcnabney said:
    Sigh, CPU costs are not the problem at all. I have been spending $200-300 for the CPU in my rigs since K6-2-400. That is almost 30 years ago. The problem with PC gaming costs is almost exclusively GPU cost.
    Thsi is a CPU for tight budgets, where every dolar counts. Mid range is the way to go for value, but some people just need to go as low as possible. That's the market for it (and the lack of 4-core AM5 Ryzens makes it harder to do).
    Reply
  • mitch074
    salgado18 said:
    Thsi is a CPU for tight budgets, where every dolar counts. Mid range is the way to go for value, but some people just need to go as low as possible. That's the market for it (and the lack of 4-core AM5 Ryzens makes it harder to do).
    Quad cores are no longer enough, as Windows 11 requires 2 cores to run all its telemetry and spyware.
    No, the problem with AM5 is that you can't find a cheap mobo, when AM4 allows you to plug a 5500X3D in a brand new €65 B450 mobo and call it a day.
    Edit : oopsie.
    Reply
  • User of Computers
    mitch074 said:
    Quad cores are no longer enough, as Windows 11 requires 2 cores to run all its telemetry and spyware.
    No, the problem with AM5 is that you can't find a cheap mobo, when AM5 allows you to plug a 5500X3D in a brand new €65 B450 mobo and call it a day.
    5500X3D will perform on par with like a 14100F, let alone a 12400F or 7500F. 5500X3D is pointless. This, on the other hand, could have some legs if the price is right. Needs to be sub $120
    Reply
  • bit_user
    The article said:
    According to the image shared by popular hardware leaker, the Core 5 120F features six P-Cores, with a max turbo frequency of 4.5 GHz, while dropping all E-Cores. It also sports 18MB of L3 Cache and supports up to 192GB of DDR5-4800 memory. The Intel Core 5 120F is the supposed successor to the Intel Core i5-12400F, which features a similar configuration but only has a max turbo frequency of 4.4 GHz.
    This most likely is the i5-12400F, just up-spec'd to reflect greater maturity of their manufacturing node. The H0 stepping dies sold in models that clocked up to 4.8 GHz (i.e. i5-12600), so they really didn't need to change a thing to reach 4.5 GHz.

    Somehow, I don't think I should have to point this out. Tech journalists who focus exclusively on this beat should be wise to Intel's rebadging games and should be the ones informing readers.

    If you look on ark.intel.com, check the listings for specific CPU models, and then click the Ordering & Compliance tab, you can see which stepping each uses. From this, you can deduce which is the actual silicon used. Other clues include things like per-core L2 cache, which changed between Alder Lake, Raptor Lake, and we have yet to see whether new silicon for Bartlett Lake will, as well.

    Here are 3 examples:
    https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/236774/intel-core-i3-processor-14100-12m-cache-up-to-4-70-ghz/ordering.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/230575/intel-core-i313100-processor-12m-cache-up-to-4-50-ghz/ordering.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/96149/intel-core-i512600-processor-18m-cache-up-to-4-80-ghz/ordering.html
    I'm just going to tag @PaulAlcorn , since I've never (knowingly) seen Jowi in the forums.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    lmcnabney said:
    Sigh, CPU costs are not the problem at all. I have been spending $200-300 for the CPU in my rigs since K6-2-400.
    While there are still CPUs that cost that amount, they now fall in a lower tier than what that money would've bought in about 2005, or even up until 2017.

    Once core counts started increasing, that's when we started seeing CPU price inflation. Now that desktop core counts have stagnated, prices are coming back down, but not to the same level they once were (at least, not before adjusting for inflation). Ever since Ryzen 5000, AMD has been dropping MSRPs, relative to the previous generation (comparing like-for-like models).

    However, I think motherboards are still more expensive than they used to be. Part of that is probably due to PCIe 5.0.
    Reply
  • Notton
    mitch074 said:
    Quad cores are no longer enough, as Windows 11 requires 2 cores to run all its telemetry and spyware.
    No, the problem with AM5 is that you can't find a cheap mobo, when AM5 allows you to plug a 5500X3D in a brand new €65 B450 mobo and call it a day.
    And to further compound the problem, budget GPUs, especially the 8GB models, require a PCIe 5.0 connection to not have insufferable 1% lows when they run out of VRAM and have to fetch from system RAM/SSD.
    Reply
  • bit_user
    Notton said:
    And to further compound the problem, budget GPUs, especially the 8GB models, require a PCIe 5.0 connection to not have insufferable 1% lows when they run out of VRAM and have to fetch from system RAM/SSD.
    That's a software problem of games just being wasteful with VRAM, IMO. Or, people just putting their settings too high.

    I don't know why people think it's okay if a GPU doesn't have enough shaders to render with high settings. But, if it's missing some VRAM needed to use higher settings, it's somehow a scandal? You bought a cheap card. You had to know there'd be tradeoffs. Deal with it.
    Reply
  • thestryker
    bit_user said:
    That's a software problem of games just being wasteful with VRAM, IMO. Or, people just putting their settings too high.

    I don't know why people think it's okay if a GPU doesn't have enough shaders to render with high settings. But, if it's missing some VRAM needed to use higher settings, it's somehow a scandal? You bought a cheap card. You had to know there'd be tradeoffs. Deal with it.
    The problem is that we're starting to see games where dropping settings isn't fixing it entirely. I agree that game makers could do a better job, but let's be real here 8GB VRAM has existed in a mainstream sense for almost a decade. It should only exist at the very bottom now not on $300+ cards.
    Reply