With the end of the year just around the corner, it’s time for some to take stock and for others to begin calculating their annual assessments. The end of December is often the time when younger people start to make a theoretical assessment of how much money they’re going to spend on a new PC over the holidays. While the choice of GPUs will be quickly evacuated (or postponed), there are a lot of questions to be asked about CPUs.
We’ve put together a summary of both our tests and articles written this year, in order to give you an idea of the 5 best CPUs which you can buy at this moment. We hope that it will help you deciding which is the right CPU according to your needs. But before we start, let’s have a a few words about the context surrounding CPUs … 
Intel returns miles from nowhere.
A year cannot be reduced to the impression of the last few weeks. For many months now, AMD has been gaining a considerable foothold in the market by imposing its Ryzen family of processors. Each new generation has brought significant performance improvements while maintaining a high level of compatibility on its platforms. This is the opposite of what Intel has been doing for the last few years. However, against all odds, Team Blue have come back from the dead to disrupt a situation which seemed to be clear to everyone.
A year in which availability is also an argument of choice.
But this comeback by Intel is not the only presence in our ranking. Indeed, during this year 2021, AMD has suffered heavily from shortages and has had to make choices. One of these choices was to concentrate its production on the most profitable CPUs. This is how the Team Red have gradually disappeared from the entry level of gaming CPUs traditionally occupied by the Ryzen 5 2600 and Ryzen 5 3600, leaving room for the Intel Core i5s, which are now competitive again thanks to their availability, and their performance to price ratio.
[nextpage title=”Best value CPU”] Best Price to performance ratio : Intel i5-10400F / i5-11400F
Let’s face it, Intel i5-10400F does not make one dreams. However, it’s settled in throughout the year for three reasons:
- It has been regularly available.
- Its price has been stable.
- The competition has disappeared from this price segment.
While AMD kept its range alive by maintaining the Ryzen 5 2600, Ryzen 5 3600 and even the Ryzen 5 1600AF on the market, Team Red have decided to “pull the plug” on these references (meaning they are no longer available, or hardly available). However, an interesting alternative was offered with the Ryzen 3100 and 3300X… Both these CPUs were noticeable by their lack of availability among vendors. In these circumstances, we have seen more and more configurations based on i5-10400F or 11400F on the market.
When you see the “F” at the end of the model, it indicates that this line of CPUs do not have integrated graphics (more precisely, the intergrated graphic chip was disabled during the binning process). If you find an i5-10400 or i5-11400 “non-F” at the same price, they will offer the same kind of performance.
Intel 10400F / 11400F : A few things to consider
While the i5-10400F (or 11400F) is a wise choice in these times of scarcity and increasing prices, we must not forget that it also has some drawbacks :
- First, we are dealing with an almost architecture, if not dead. As a consequence, you will not be able to upgrade later on as Intel’s platform have changed radically with the arrival of the twelfth generation. If you don’t want to put your hands under the hood anymore, it won’t be a problem. However, if you want to make your setup scalable with time, the CPU / Motherboard / Ram platform won’t be future-proof.
- Secondly, Don’t get the wrong motherboard. A 10400F does not “require” a super advanced board to achieve its full potential. More often than not, a H410/H510 will do the trick just fine.
- Finally, you should not neglect the cooling solution. Indeed, without being too harsh, we must say that the aircooler supplied with these i5s is pretty light and rather noisy.
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Best mid-range « Gaming » CPU :
AM4 Upgrade : Ryzen 5 5600X /Â New build : Intel Core I5-12600K
Big dilemma with the recent arrival of Intel’s Alder Lake. Whether to go for a 5600X or a 12600K will depend on your philosophy and especially on your financial budget.
- Ryzen 5600X : the right of reason in case of an upgrade.
If you are considering an upgrade while keeping costs down and you are starting with a recent (or not) AM4 platform, the 5600X will bring you satisfaction without destroying your budget. If you can’t keep your AM4 card, you can always find a recent version that can run this CPU. There is no need to go for the overkill references of the biggest X570s of the moment. You will make the right choice going for a B450 chipset motherboard, which is extremely cheap and will perfectly run your CPU and the other parts of your previous setup.
You can pair this CPU with the excellent B450 AORUS Elite to create a coherent computer.
- Intel Core i5-12600K : the undeniable first choice for a new PC
Still a bit difficult to find, the i5-12600K has a very good price positioning and is clearly troubling AMD. In our case, we will pair it with a graphics card, so we will be looking at the KF version (without integrated graphics).
-> Intel Core i5-12600K prices
The comparison with the 5600X (and even its bigger brothers) is painful in terms of performance. On the other hand, Intel is charging a lot its new platform with only Z690 cards available during this time of the year.
[irp posts=”149360″ name=”Test: Alder Lake Intel i9-12900K and i5-12600K”]
The difference is going to be the platform, and for the moment, there’s no way around the Z690. If you also want to have DDR5, the price will climb even higher. The other thing is that even in 10nm, these Alder Lake Ks will all need good liquid cooling…
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Best All-round CPU (creativity / gaming) : Ryzen 9 5950X
We chose to ignore the Threadripper and Xeon platforms because of the uncertainties about their short and medium term viability.
Clearly, AMD’s Threadripper platform is very powerful, especially if you’re doing video editing, 3D and the like. However, it has been at the end of its life for many months now and AMD keeps pushing back its evolution to the point that many believe it is doomed. The situation is almost similar at Intel where the pantagruelic Xeon W3175X is at the end of its life and the arrival of a new HEDT platform is also very hypothetical in the short-term.
In these conditions, the choice of the Ryzen 9 5950X is obvious to us. Here again, as with the 5600X mentioned above, the choice of platform can be modulated according to your budget, your needs, etc. Except in a few specific cases, a 400 series platform will bring you almost the same advantages as the new 500 series. You can check our best recommendation concerning the B450 cards right underneath.
You can find our full review of the 5950X here. Today, the arrival of Intel’s i9-12900K does not question its supremacy, particularly in tasks requiring multiple cores. The question remains as to the sustainability of the investment as the AM4 platform is probably in its final months.
However, it is difficult to imagine that AMD will offer a price-competitive replacement solution by 2022. Without making any assumptions about the performance of future AMD CPUs on AM5, the adoption of DDR5 and a new platform will unfortunately drive prices up. That’s why we are keeping our recommendation for the Ryzen 9 5950X.
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The « Enthusiast » CPU of 2021 : Intel Core i9-12900K
When the heart of an enthusiast talks, it is picky with numbers. Performance often becomes the only reference point, price, an almost secondary concern. But we have to say that when it comes to performance, Intel makes everyone agree.
The 12900K is a killer and its potential is not yet fully explored yet. This is due to a weak DDR5 at the moment. Intel’s new top-of-the-range processor demolishes everything, leaving a few crumbs to the Ryzen 5950X in multi…and still.
The 12900K will make you pay for this passion, with Z690 cards that are currently priced insanely high, a “solid” watercooling solution becomes essentiel, and DDR5 (putting the DDR4 option aside) that is slow to arrive and which kits are remarkable for their price, not their performance so far.
However, we’re starting to have fun and we can see that this CPU still has a lot to offer.The first refined kits allow us to go even further and we will keep you informed by regularly reviewing the new features and to discover the untapped potential of this CPU.
[nextpage title=”Conclusion: The CPU market in 2021″]
The CPU market in 2021 : Overview
Even if the situation was not as tense as in the graphics card market, it was still a difficult year. As we mentioned when talking about AMD, the Team Red have had to make choices and have also sacrificed segments of the market in favour of their profitability.
It is also difficult to sum up 2021 by noting that Intel’s almost “smashing” comeback is taking place in the last weeks of this year. But this comeback is good. It brings real novelties and above all will stimulate the competition.
So what are the prospects for 2022? It’s hard to say. We know that AMD will try to limit the damage with a last round of Zen3 and that Zen 4 and DDR5 solutions will follow. For the moment, the timing is still uncertain. Some say spring, others say last quarter of 2022.
In the meantime, Intel will also continue to move forward and if Raptor Lake was mentionned as a simple update of Alder Lake, it might not really be the case.
But we’ll tell you all about it before the end of the year, of course.