I5 8400 good?

[ceejaysurio]

Is 2.8ghz as base clock good? And what do I have to do to achieve the 3.8 boost of that processor. and also, is 3.8boost good?

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Yes it's a very good CPU.

Intel Core i5-8400 Coffee Lake 6-Core 2.8 GHz (4.0 GHz Turbo)

It will use TURBO Mode when it's stressed enough.

 

[R_1]

2.8 is good for a CPU with such high instructions per clock.
to achieve 3.8 the CPU will need a single threaded workload, when a single thread is the only demand the CPU will disable/turn off the other 5 cores and increase the speed on the active core.
all you need to do is turn on the ability in the BIOS/UEFI and the CPU will do the rest when it can.
again with such high IPC 3.8 is good.
I have been stuck at 3.2 for 9 years and my IPC is lower than the 8400. the 8400 is a good chip.

 

[Barty1884]

The 8400 is a great chip, for Gaming. Productivity workloads, it's not the best IMO.
Still a very good option for the money.

Boost clock is automatic. When one core is in use, the 8400 will boost to 4GHz, 3.9GHz for 2-4 cores, 3.8GHz for 5-6cores in use.

Clock speed is not linear, so you cannot directly compare two chips (unless identical in other ways) and say X GHz is better than Y GHz.
3.8GHz though, on a modern Intel CPU with good IPC, is a pretty good chip, yes.

The 'problem' with the 8400 though, is limited motherboard availability. You have to buy a Z370 board, making a 6 core (no overclocking + Overclocking capable board) a ~$300-$350 investment.


Relatively comparable AMD offerings offer a lower IPC generally, but offer 6core/12thread for around $250.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($197.79 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: MSI - B350 PC MATE ATX AM4 Motherboard ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $257.78
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-01-19 19:19 EST-0500

Heck, you can have 8core/16thread for comparable(ish) money to an 8400.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 1700 3.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($288.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: MSI - B350 PC MATE ATX AM4 Motherboard ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $348.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-01-19 19:20 EST-0500

It'll all depend on your specific workloads as to what constitutes a "good" buy.

 

[nikoli707]

ive read that the 8400 will actually turbo higher than 4.0ghz depending on the motherboard and situation. otherwise its base clock is hardly used when stressed and it will run at much higher clocks all around. for the price it is one of the best cpus you can buy right now along with the r5 1600 and r7 1700.