[SOLVED] Which one should I go for? I3 10100F or I5 10400F?

cottoneyesergo

Honorable
Jun 30, 2018
42
0
10,530
Hello everyone, currently I'm saving up some money to upgrade my mobo and processor. I have 1050ti for GPU and I might upgrade it in the future again so I'm going for one of these processors in the title. Keep in mind that I'm not going to go for crazy powerful GPU's in the future. Maybe a 1070. 10100F is currently cheaper in some websites in my country but in some websites, it's close to I5 10400f in terms of price and 10100F sometimes goes out of stock in those websites and leaves me with more expensive 10100F's which are, as I just said, close to each other pricewise. Which one should I go for? Should I take the 10100F and spend the extra on some ram or ssd? Which one would be more, at least a little bit more, futureproof? Thank you guys for your answers in advance, have a nice one!
 
Solution
A cpu is expensive enough that it rarely gets upgraded, no matter the intentions at the time.

The biggest difference between the 2 cpus isn't price or performance, but longetivity. Simply put, the 10400F will be a viable cpu for longer.

For instance, you can get by with gaming on a 3rd Gen i7-3770K. 8 threads is enough to squeeze it into any game and OC'd does even better. Not so with the i5-3570k, the quad core seriously suffers in many games. Been this way for a couple years now and getting more obvious with every game release.

The 10400F will outlast the 10100F, which can potentially put you in the position of having to upgrade/replace far sooner than you'd wish to.

mxnty

Prominent
Mar 4, 2021
227
38
640
I’ll go out on a limb and help you the best I can. I’m not sure what you plan to do with your pc so I can’t help in that aspect. Personally, I would go for the 10400F for the extra performance (assuming you’re doing something more than likely CPU dependent) 1070 is a solid GPU, I have one in my prebuilt, but I would recommend upgrading to a 20 series card depending on what you use your pc for. Again, I can’t help much without that.
 

cottoneyesergo

Honorable
Jun 30, 2018
42
0
10,530
I’ll go out on a limb and help you the best I can. I’m not sure what you plan to do with your pc so I can’t help in that aspect. Personally, I would go for the 10400F for the extra performance (assuming you’re doing something more than likely CPU dependent) 1070 is a solid GPU, I have one in my prebuilt, but I would recommend upgrading to a 20 series card depending on what you use your pc for. Again, I can’t help much without that.

Hey man thank you for your advice, I was just going back and forth between those processors as pricewise and performance wise. Performancewise 10400F is superior I believe and actually all I want is to give me steady 60+ fps and want it to be futureproof in case I want to upgrade my GPU too. Prices here sometimes differ too much from website to website. In a website, 10100F is far cheaper than 10400F and in that website, it sometimes goes out of stock and the other 10100Fs that left in stock are almost the same price as the 10400F so I'd like to know that if it's worth to spend that extra on 10400F or just save it to buy an ssd or a stick of RAM maybe. That's what I want to know. I'm just a casual gamer I play maybe 2-3 hours a day at most, since I'm working.
 

cottoneyesergo

Honorable
Jun 30, 2018
42
0
10,530
An SSD (500 GB or so) can be installed for $65 at the time of your choosing later...

Get the 10400F or above now....

In my opinion, the 10100F is not quite high enough of a CPU starting point today.
I see, so you say 10400F is far more futureproof that 10100F as I understand. Thanks for your input man. Should I choose older gen's like 8 or 9? or 10 is the way to go?
 

mxnty

Prominent
Mar 4, 2021
227
38
640
If you want to future-proof, 10th gen would be it. You could wait for the 11th gen, but I would recommend the 10th gen for a setup like yours. And yes, it is far more future-proof due to the fact that as technology advances, you have more ability to upgrade, and you don't want your CPU to bottleneck your GPU per se. For gaming purposes, it would serve you better to upgrade to a 2060 Super, they are $400. You would easily get 60+ fps in demanding titles, as well as have ray tracing.
 
Buy the less expensive option available to you.
Both processors will turbo up to 4.3 which is quite decent.
The difference is that the 10400f will have 12 threads vs. 8.
Most games do not make effective use of more than 4-6 threads.
If you play multiplayer games with many participants, only then would the 12 threads come into play.
I3-10100 is a very good gaming processor. Your results will be more limitec by your graphics card.
Here is a review:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i3-10100/15.html
 
  • Like
Reactions: cottoneyesergo

jtk2515

Distinguished
Hello everyone, currently I'm saving up some money to upgrade my mobo and processor. I have 1050ti for GPU and I might upgrade it in the future again so I'm going for one of these processors in the title. Keep in mind that I'm not going to go for crazy powerful GPU's in the future. Maybe a 1070. 10100F is currently cheaper in some websites in my country but in some websites, it's close to I5 10400f in terms of price and 10100F sometimes goes out of stock in those websites and leaves me with more expensive 10100F's which are, as I just said, close to each other pricewise. Which one should I go for? Should I take the 10100F and spend the extra on some ram or ssd? Which one would be more, at least a little bit more, futureproof? Thank you guys for your answers in advance, have a nice one!

Thats a really good question. If it was me I would get the 10400f even if that meant I could only afford 1 stick of 8gb DD4 and a HDD. I would look on Facebook market place and search for HDD's. Used college 1tb HDD's on there alot for 10-15$. Then just add another stick or memory and a SSD ina few months.
 
Last edited:

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
A cpu is expensive enough that it rarely gets upgraded, no matter the intentions at the time.

The biggest difference between the 2 cpus isn't price or performance, but longetivity. Simply put, the 10400F will be a viable cpu for longer.

For instance, you can get by with gaming on a 3rd Gen i7-3770K. 8 threads is enough to squeeze it into any game and OC'd does even better. Not so with the i5-3570k, the quad core seriously suffers in many games. Been this way for a couple years now and getting more obvious with every game release.

The 10400F will outlast the 10100F, which can potentially put you in the position of having to upgrade/replace far sooner than you'd wish to.
 
  • Like
Reactions: cottoneyesergo
Solution

cottoneyesergo

Honorable
Jun 30, 2018
42
0
10,530
Buy the less expensive option available to you.
Both processors will turbo up to 4.3 which is quite decent.
The difference is that the 10400f will have 12 threads vs. 8.
Most games do not make effective use of more than 4-6 threads.
If you play multiplayer games with many participants, only then would the 12 threads come into play.
I3-10100 is a very good gaming processor. Your results will be more limitec by your graphics card.
Here is a review:
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/intel-core-i3-10100/15.html
Thank you so much for your input sir, I'll weigh the options when I have the money and I'll buy which one is less expensive at that time. But I'll probably go with the 10400F if the price difference is less than I imagine. As the link you provided shows, there's virtually no performance difference between them, thank you again good sir, for your help!
 

cottoneyesergo

Honorable
Jun 30, 2018
42
0
10,530
A cpu is expensive enough that it rarely gets upgraded, no matter the intentions at the time.

The biggest difference between the 2 cpus isn't price or performance, but longetivity. Simply put, the 10400F will be a viable cpu for longer.

For instance, you can get by with gaming on a 3rd Gen i7-3770K. 8 threads is enough to squeeze it into any game and OC'd does even better. Not so with the i5-3570k, the quad core seriously suffers in many games. Been this way for a couple years now and getting more obvious with every game release.

The 10400F will outlast the 10100F, which can potentially put you in the position of having to upgrade/replace far sooner than you'd wish to.
I'll try to buy the 10400F if the price difference between them is negligible, if it's huge, I don't think I can afford it, but regardless, as you said, longevity is a big concern in my eyes, so I'll try to ugrade to which will go longer without it need replacing, that means it will be 10400F lol. I'll try to save up more if I have to! Thank you so much for your input sir, very much appreciated!