Budget King: $130 Intel Core i3-12100F CPU Review & Benchmarks

This review benchmarks the Intel Core i3-12100 & 12100F CPUs versus the AMD R5 3600, R5 5600X, i5 CPUs, and more. At its price, this is an impressive budget gaming CPU. Sponsor: Arctic Liquid Freezer II 280 (Amazon) and Arctic MX-5 Thermal Paste (Amazon) - NOTE: Intel notified media that it incorrectly stated on its chipset comparison slide that H610 is 1 channel, but it is actually 1 DIMM per channel (DPC), while still being dual-channel. This was an Intel error and the company has corrected its spec tables going forward. We will adjust future content to reflect this. The Intel Core i3-12100 and 12100F only have one major difference, and it’s the presence of an IGP. Beyond that, the CPUs are identical and behave the same in non-GPU tasks. If paired with a dGPU, they’d also behave the same (assuming you aren’t using QuickSync or some other IGP feature). We bought the Intel i3-12100F for $130 to review, and so far, it’s matching-up strong against Intel’s own i5-1260