Before we get into the comparison of the Intel Core i5 11400 vs AMD Ryzen 5 4600G, it would be helpful to understand why we're talking about CPUs that came out in 2021 and 2020 respectively. As we barrel into 2023 with Intel's Raptor Lake and AMD's new Zen 4 offerings lighting up the stage for PC enthusiasts, we're not short of incredibly good processors that can take on the toughest workloads and handle the most demanding AAA games. There is, however, a large number of our customers who are looking to build an entry level gaming PC for younger gamers, or just need a solid home PC to get stuff done. These processors are also quite happy dealing with creative work, and can deliver fast workflows in 3D, video editing and productivity apps.
This article will help guide you to the best value processor between the Core i5 11400 and Ryzen 5 4600G, which means the best overall performance for your hard earned money.
Core i5-11400 - Intel's aggressively priced gamer CPU
If you were choosing between the Core i5-11400 and a Ryzen CPU back in 2021, then the choice was a little like deciding between Tony Stark or Spider-Man dying in Avengers: Endgame. The Core i5-11400 was priced aggressively by Intel to take on AMD's stranglehold on the gaming CPU market, which had been well and truly throttled by the Ryzen 5000 series at the time. Coupled with the GPU pricing malarkey, your were faced with a tough dilemma.
With 6 Cores and 12 Threads, the Core i5-11400 looks just about perfect on the surface, with a clock speed of 2.6GHz and Boost clock speed of 4.4GHz. The only drawback was the 14nm lithography that - whilst ensuring high boost speeds - chews through 65W TDP. This, however, is not so much of a negative when you realise AMD's offerings at the time were matching this wattage. The big red cross next to the Core i5-11400 was in fact the - then majorly competitive chip - AMD Ryzen 5 3600 clock speed, which offered 3.6GHz and 4.2 GHz boost. In the Ryzen 5000 camp, things got even worse for Intel, with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G. This chip boasted 50% faster CPU speed (3.9GHz vs 2.9GHz), 1550MHz faster clock speed, more L2 and L3 cache, and a smaller 7nm process for lower TDP.
On paper, Intel should have been outright losers against both of these similarly priced CPUs. What actually transpired is AMD was unable to compete in a market that saw the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 overpriced, and the Core i5-11400 walk all over the 3600 in FPS benchmarks with a discrete GPU, and outright dominate the Ryzen when an AIO liquid cooler was added to the specification.
Against the 5600G, the Intel Core i5-11400 suffered with a lack of powerful iGPU and just overall specification. However, as luck would have it, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600G was priced too high to compete with Intel. For those wanting to avoid overspending on a processor to enable them to buy a GPU (at a vomit-inducing price tag), Intel was the way forward.
Is the Intel Core i5-11400 good in 2023
Fast forward to 2023, and the 11400 is still capable of making headlines in the same breath as "budget" and "entry level" gaming. A lot of this is thanks to the constantly replenished stock levels over the last few years, where AMD have struggled, and the release of Alder Lake further enhanced Intel's seemingly ubiquitous presence in the market. Whenever entry level gaming is being discussed, the Core i5-11400 is never far away from the conversation. With PCIe 4.0 and 4K support at entry level, the 11400 is certainly still worth talking about.
The real question is, has Intel's Blue Wave over the last few years artificially plumped expectations of the 11400?
Yes - the Core i5-11400 was good in 2022, but AMD is actually better value for money. AMD's pricing is much tougher on Intel these days, and the 11400 is more expensive than the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Zen 3 CPU - a processor that was once hailed "The best gaming processor" by many. The 8-Core, 16-Thread AMD Ryzen 7 5700X Zen 3 CPU is only a touch higher in price than the Intel Core i5-11400, and boasts the newer Zen 3 architecture on the AM4 platform - perfect for budget motherboard pricing and with frequencies of 3.4GHz and 4.6GHz. Then of course, we have the 4600G, which is a huge chunk cheaper than the 11400, and comes with the ability to overclock. With competitive chips of this magnitude it seems like it is almost a no-brainer to choose AMD in 2023 for a lower priced gaming PC.
Ryzen 5 4600G - AMD's budget busting gamer CPU
As much as the AMD Ryzen 4600G has less of a history lesson, the release did garner AMD some attention when things were not going their way. Although only capable of PCIe 3.0 support and having Zen 2 architecture, the 4600G
The AMD Ryzen 5 4600G is part of the Renoir family, using the TSMC 7nm FinFET lithography process, with 64KB of L1 cache per core, 512 KB of L2 cache per core and 8 MB of shared L3 cache. If you're plugging this processor into an AM4 motherboard you already own, then you wont have any issues, as it is compatible with A320, B350, X370*, B450, X470, A520, B550, and X570 chipsets. As this is an APU (integrated graphics) processor, you can also use the AMD Radeon Vega 7 Graphics and expect good gaming performance from the 4600G up to a point: -
- Fortnite @ 1080p: 120 FPS
- Apex Legends @ 1080p Low: 160 FPS
- League of Legends @ 1080p Quality: 160 FPS
- League of Legends @ 1080p Highest: 130 FPS
- GTA 5 @ 1080 Normal: 70 FPS
- Genshin Impact @ 1080p Muy Baja: ~60 FPS
Credit: Shonen Gaming Benchmark
Adding a dedicated GPU will immediately give you the FPS and visuals boost you crave, with significant gains when pairing with a relatively well priced AMD or NVIDIA graphics card.
Is the AMD Ryzen 4600G good in 2023
Our recent article went in-depth on the features and specifications of the AMD Ryzen 5 4600G. The question really, is which processor is the best choice in 2023? The Intel Core i5-11400 can't really compete with the pricing on the 4600G, and when it comes to performance, the Ryzen 5 4600G also has it beat with multi-core workloads and power efficiency. That said, the 11400 does walk away with some pretty good scores in synthetic benchmarks, beating the 4600G on Cinebench, Passmark and Geekbench 5 with between 3% and 22% difference in Intel's favour.
When you add a dedicated graphics card to your specification, the punches really will fly between the two processors. When the processors are solely chugging way on single core workloads, the Ryzen 5 4600G gets to deliver the knockout blow against the 11400, giving you comparable performance for a lot less money.
Intel Core i5 11400 vs AMD Ryzen 5 4600G: Winner
There is very little other than price separating the two processors, and in an entry level build - that is a key component. This is how the Ryzen 5 4600G pips the Intel chip at the post, and is the marginal winnr in our comparison. With almost £90 price difference in early 2023, that leaves a lot of budget for improving the overall specification and getting an NVIDIA RTX graphics card over an older GTX, for example. Unfortunately, that's going to be using PCIe 3.0 over the newer version.
That said, the Intel Core 11400 cannot be discounted if you already have the parts for a CPU upgrade. With solid performance across the board, PCIe 4 and 4K out of the box, if you want to go Team Blue, you have plenty of reasons to do so.
