Ryzen 4000 Mobile CPUs offer benchmark busting multi-core performance on the go, but marketing hype aside, it’s unclear how this will translate to real world performance. Sixteen threads are great for beating benchmarks including UserBenchmark 64-core, Cinebench, Blender-CPU and Handbrake-CPU but gamers need performance in the games that they actually play. At launch, the top GPU available in a 4000 series laptop is the RTX 2060. Since the GPU is largely responsible for overall gaming performance, the Ryzen 4000 laptops will offer mid tier gaming performance at best. Pairing stronger GPUs would be suboptimal because the Zen gaming bottleneck becomes increasingly severe with more powerful GPUs. Streamers and media producers, who may have historically benefited from high core counts, are better off using the GPU (NVENC or QuickSync) for encoding. Leading media creation applications including both DaVinci Resolve and Adobe Premiere Pro are largely GPU bound. With low power consumption and high core counts, the 4000 range, on paper at least, is a perfect fit for the datacenter. AMD should focus on delivering a platform that offers performance where end users actually need it rather than targeting inexperienced gamers with the same old "moar cores" mantra. From a gamer’s perspective, the best feature of the 4000 series laptops is the absence of the equally hyped 5000 series GPUs. Prospective gaming laptop buyers will find lower latency (and therefore better gaming) CPUs combined with faster GPUs at similar price points. [Mar '20CPUPro]
Intel’s Core i5-9400F is a hex-core 9th generation Coffee Lake desktop processor. It features base / boost clocks of 2.9 / 4.1 GHz, 9 MB of cache, a 65W TDP and it ships with a cooler but it does not have integrated graphics like the “non-F” variants. Although the 9400F is compatible with the enthusiast grade Z390 chipset it is normally paired with a better value for money B360 motherboard. At its launch the i5-9400F retailed for $180 but prices have dropped to the point ($135) that it now represents an excellent value proposition to gamers. Comparing the i5-9400F to the Ryzen 3600 shows that the 3600 is 8% better for quad-core processing but it costs 40% ($50) more than the 9400F. Ordinarily higher quad-core performance would result in better gaming but the Ryzen 3000 memory controller, although significantly improved over previous Ryzen iterations, still has limited bandwidth and high latency. Gamers can invest the $50 savings in a better GPU, for example by upgrading from a 2060S to a 2070S. Since the GPU makes the most difference to gaming, the end result is a system which offers far superior real world gaming performance for similar money. For those gamers who demand the best of the best, it is necessary to jump to one of the higher frequency SKUs such as the 9600K but for everyone else the i5-9400F offers unparalleled value. [Aug '19CPUPro]
We calculate effective speed which measures real world performance for typical users. Effective speed is adjusted by current prices to yield a value for money rating. Our calculated values are checked against thousands of individual user ratings. The customizable table below combines these factors to bring you the definitive list of top CPUs. [CPUPro]
Welcome to our PC speed test tool. UserBenchmark will test your PC and compare the results to other users with the same components. You can quickly size up your PC, identify hardware problems and explore the best value for money upgrades.