Intel i3-12100F vs Ryzen 5 5600x [Full Comparison]

The Intel vs AMD rivalry has been getting more and more interesting by the passing day. While we’re waiting for AMD to drop their new Zen 4 chips, Intel is working on their 13th generation lineup of processors. As the competition gets tougher and both companies try to surpass each other, consumers are the ones getting better hardware and technology. In this Intel Core i3 12100F vs AMD Ryzen 5 5600x comparison, we’ll be comparing both CPUs with both application and gaming benchmarks.

This may be a comparison for you if you’re having a hard time deciding which CPU to buy or perhaps looking for an upgrade. Will the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x’s two extra cores dominate the Intel i3 1200F? Or will the Intel Core i3 12100F’s newer tech put up a brutal fight? We’ll answer those questions and more, in this Intel Core i3 12100F vs AMD Ryzen 5 5600x comparison. 

Also read: i7-12700k vs 5800x

Intel Core i3 12100F Specifications 

•  Total Cores: 4 
• # of Performance-cores: 4 
• # of Efficient-cores: 0 
• Total Threads: 8 
• Max Turbo Frequency: 4.30 GHz 
• Performance-core Max Turbo Frequency: 4.30 GHz 
• Performance-core Base Frequency: 3.30 GHz 
• Cache: 12 MB Intel® Smart Cache 
• Total L2 Cache: 5 MB 
• Processor Base Power: 58 W 
• Maximum Turbo Power: 89 W 

AMD Ryzen 5 5600x Specifications 

•  # of CPU Cores: 6 
• # of Threads: 12 
• Max. Boost Clock: Up to 4.6GHz 
• Base Clock: 3.7GHz 
• L2 Cache: 3MB 
• L3 Cache: 32MB 
• Default TDP: 65W 
• Processor Technology for CPU Cores: TSMC 7nm FinFET 
• Unlocked for Overclocking: Yes 
• CPU Socket: AM4 
• Thermal Solution (PIB): Wraith Stealth 
• Max. Operating Temperature (Tjmax): 95°C 

Intel Core i3 12100F Background 

 Intel Core i3 12100F was released in January 2022 along with Intel’s lineup of other Alder Lake CPUs. It is a more budget-oriented variant of the 12th generation CPUs and is also less performance-heavy. But that doesn’t mean it’s not a powerful processor just because it belongs in the i3 family. Additionally, the F suffix at the end of its name means it doesn’t include Intel HD Graphics which reduces the cost of this CPU even more.  

With 4 powerful cores and a decent 3.30 GHz base clock, it can run modern AAA titles with ease and perform huge workloads very quickly. Along with that, we can also see that upon overclocking, the clock speed can be raised up to 4.30 GHz.  

Unlike other Alder Lake CPUs, the Intel Core i3 12100F doesn’t have any E/Efficiency cores and entirely consists of P/Powerful cores. Lastly, Intel Core i3 12100F has a small TDP rating of 58 W for base clocks which is very power efficient. The i3-12100f Motherboard support is backed by the latest Z690, B660, H610, and H670.    

AMD Ryzen 5 5600x Background 

 AMD Ryzen 5 5600x is a powerful desktop processor which was released in November 2020. With 6 cores and 12 threads, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x carries a lot of punch along with a stock speed of 3.7 GHz which can be raised up to 4.6 GHz on overclocking.  

Like any AMD processor, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x doesn’t include integrated graphics which means you need a dedicated GPU in order to use it. We can guess that it’s a more gaming-oriented processor with this information. Anyhow, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x overall has a higher core count and faster clock speeds than the Intel Core i3 12100F so we can expect faster performance from the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x.  

But we can’t be too sure of the results by just seeing the specs so let’s dive into the benchmarks to find the best CPU for your budget between the Intel Core i3 12100F vs AMD Ryzen 5 5600x. The processor is backed by list of motherboards, including B550, X570, and others. You may check our Motherboard For Ryzen 5 5600x article for this. 

Intel Core i3 12100F vs AMD Ryzen 5 5600x: Gaming Benchmarks 

Intel Core i3 12100F vs AMD Ryzen 5 5600x gaming benchmarks were obtained from the channel YT/Testing Games.

Test PC 

• CPU: Intel Core i3 12100F / AMD Ryzen 5 5600x 
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero 
• GPU: GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 12GB 
• RAM: 32Gb RAM DDR5 5200Mhz 
• SSD: 2 x SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2 2280 1TB 
• Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 
• PSU: CORSAIR RM850i 850W 

Cyberpunk 2077 

Cyberpunk 2077 was released in late 2020. The game takes place in the year 2077 and requires a large CPU and GPU to run properly. Cyberpunk 2077 was tested on the highest settings with 1080p resolution.

At stock, Intel Core i3 12100F was hitting an average of 109 FPS as compared to the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x which was putting out 126 FPS on average. This means the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x was almost 14% faster in performance compared to the Intel Core i3 12100F. 

Similarly, once overclock, the Intel Core i3 12100F put out 125 FPS on average compared to AMD Ryzen 5 5600x’s average 128 FPS closing the gap with a difference of just 3%. 

Dying Light 2 

Dying Light 2 is another beautiful game that was tested on max settings at 1080p resolution.

For base clocks, the Intel Core i3 12100F was scoring 173 FPS compared to AMD Ryzen 5 5600x’s average 175 FPS. AMD Ryzen 5 5600x was ahead by just 1.2%.

As for overclocking, the Intel Core i3 12100F was reaching 177 FPS on average which was higher than AMD Ryzen 5 5600x’s 176 FPS. This was the only game where Intel Core i3 12100F managed to beat the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x albeit by just 1 FPS.  

Forza Horizon 5 

Forza Horizon 5 is a recently released racing game and is critically acclaimed for its gameplay and mechanics. It was tested on the 1080p resolution with the highest settings.

On stock tests, the Intel Core i3 12100F put out an average of 177 FPS which was lower than AMD Ryzen 5 5600x’s 184 FPS meaning that the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x was just 4% better than the Intel Core i3 12100F.

Moving on to overclock benchmarks, the Intel Core i3 12100F was giving out 181 FPS compared to the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x’s 191 FPS. The gap increased from 4% to 6% in the overclocking benchmarks.  

PUBG 

PUBG is quite a dated battle royale game released all the way back in March 2017 but is still a very popular title. PUBG was tested on the highest settings on 1080p resolution just like all other titles.  

For stock, the Intel Core i3 12100F had an average output of 198 FPS as compared to the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x, which was reaching 200 FPS. 

When overclocked, the Intel Core i3 12100F was reaching 226 FPS on average which was just below AMD Ryzen 5 5600x’s 233 FPS in the PUBG benchmark. With just 3% higher average FPS, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x wins this round. 

Hitman 3 

Hitman 3 is the 3rd installment in the franchise and is praised for its incredible graphics and NPC AI. Hitman 3 was tested on the highest settings at 1080p resolution.

For stock clocks, the Intel Core i3 12100F was putting out 143 FPS on average with AMD Ryzen 5 5600x being ahead by 9% with an average of 157 FPS.  

Once overclocked, the Intel Core i3 12100F gave us 150 FPS on average with AMD Ryzen 5 5600x being ahead by just 8% with an average framerate of 162 FPS. 

Microsoft Flight Simulator 

The last game on our list, Microsoft released their realistic Flight Simulator in August 2020 and quickly gained large traction. Microsoft Flight Simulator was also tested on max settings at 1080p resolution.

With base clocks, we can observe the Intel Core i3 12100F reaching 75 FPS on average while AMD Ryzen 5 5600x is ahead with its average 89 FPS. This puts a large difference in performance with AMD Ryzen 5 5600x being 16% faster than the Intel Core i3 12100F.

As for overclocks, the Intel Core i3 12100F was reaching 85 FPS compared to AMD Ryzen 5 5600x’s 92 FPS on average meaning the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x was outputting 12% higher average FPS decreasing the gap from the stock clocks by 2%.   

AMD Ryzen 5 5600x vs Intel Core i3 12100F: Productivity Benchmarks 

All benchmarks that we’ve referenced in this section were obtained from YT/hardware test channel on YouTube.  

Related: Ram For Ryzen 5 5600x

Test PC 

• CPU: Intel Core i3 12100F / AMD Ryzen 5 5600x 
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG Maximus Z690 Hero 
• GPU: GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 10GB 
• RAM: 32Gb RAM DDR4 

Cinebench R23 (Single Core) 

Both the Intel Core i3 12100F and the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x were tested in single as well as multi-core performance on Cinebench R23. Cinebench R23 is the successor and most recent benchmark tool released from Maxon.  

For the single-core test, the Intel Core i3 12100F was ahead by 5% with a score of 1664 as compared to the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x’s 1593 score.    

Cinebench R23 (Multi Core) 

Moving on to the Cinebench R23 multi-core tests, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x was ahead this time around thanks to its higher number of cores.

With an average score of 11845, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x was 28% faster than the Intel Core i3 12100F which has an average score of 8447.   

Cinebench R20 (Single Core) 

In the same vein, the R20 test was conducted in both single and multi-core. While both Cinebench R23 and R20 show similar results, it’s worth mentioning that a lot of people still use the older R20 version to test out their CPUs. 

For single-core, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x was behind by 6% with an average score of 604 compared with the Intel Core i3 12100F’s average score which was 646.  

Cinebench R20 (Multi Core) 

As for the Cinebench R20 multi-core test, the same results can be observed from the R23 test.

With a score of 4562, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x has a large 30% boost in score over its Intel competitor which was reaching a 3207 score at best. 

Geekbench 5 (Single Core) 

Geekbench 5 is used for putting CPUs through large amounts of workloads and testing out their capabilities. For Geekbench 5 test, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x was tested on both individuals as well as multiple cores.

In single-core benchmarks, the Intel Core i3 12100F was just ahead of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x in terms of score. It scored 1682 points compared to AMD Ryzen 5 5600x which was scoring 1653. This means the Intel Core i3 12100F was 2% ahead. 

Geekbench 5 (Multi-Core) 

As for the Geekbench 5 multi-core tests, the results were complete opposites from the single-core one.

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600x was scoring 25% higher with an average of 8496 points compared to Intel Core i3 12100F’s 6525 points. A large boost thanks to their 2 extra cores.  

Passmark CPU (Single Core) 

Passmark CPU is an advanced CPU benchmarking tool that was tested for both single and multi-core performance in Intel Core i3 12100F vs AMD Ryzen 5 5600x benchmark.

In single-core benchmarks, the Intel Core i3 12100F had a little boost in performance with an average score of 3543 points as compared to AMD Ryzen 5 5600x’s 3408 points.  

Passmark CPU (Multi Core) 

Passmark multi-core test showed different results because of the different core counts of both CPUs.

While the Intel Core i3 12100F scored 1373 points in the multi-core test, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x was scoring a 38% higher with a score of 22310 points.  

CPU-Z (Single Core) 

CPU-Z benchmark tool rates the processor’s performance based on a few tests. For CPU-Z benchmarks both processors were tested on single as well as multi-core performance.

For single-core, again the Intel Core i3 12100F was scoring a bit higher than the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x thanks to its newer technology and architecture. With a score of 695, the Intel Core i3 12100F had a nice boost over the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x which scored 624 points at best. 

CPU-Z (Multi-Core) 

With regards to CPU-Z multi-core test, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x was scoring much higher this time with its higher number of cores.

AMD Ryzen 5 5600x was scoring 4811 points as compared to 3409 points of the Intel Core i3 12100F which puts it at a huge 30% lead over the Intel Core i3 12100F. 

V-Ray CPU Render  

V-Ray is a benchmarking software that uses rendering tests to rate the processors and is a popular CPU benchmarking tool. This is a heavy hyperthreading workload so we can expect Intel to score higher here.

The V-Ray benchmark showed the Intel Core i3 12100F with a small lead over the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x with an average score of 9520 points as compared to AMD Ryzen 5 5600x scored 8894 points. It’s good that the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x managed to keep it close as the test is more favored for hyperthreading.  

Blender bmw27  

Blender is a free open-source 3D rendering and editing tool. It was tested on bmw27 exporting and seeing how long the process takes with the time noted in seconds. Blender is also a very huge workload that can benefit from hyperthreading.

For the blender bmw27 test, the Intel Core i3 12100F had an incredible leap in performance over the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x with a 40% higher rated score. The Intel Core i3 12100F was scoring 361 points while the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x was at 223.  

Blender Classroom  

In the Blender Classroom test, we note how long it takes a CPU to render out a complete classroom scene in Blender. The time is noted in seconds so the fewer seconds means the faster speed of completing the task.

For the Blender Classroom benchmark, as we can observe the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x did the task in a much shorter time with 565 seconds compared to Intel Core i3 12100F which took almost double that number with 1072 seconds. This is because this task is more dependent on core counts so the higher number of cores of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x wins with its two more scores. Also, hyperthreading isn’t doing the Intel Core i3 12100F any favors this time around. 

Corona 1.3 Benchmark 

The last productivity benchmark on our list is the Corona 1.3 Benchmark which also tests the capabilities of processors by rendering out a scene.

Again, a similar deal here with AMD Ryzen 5 5600x completing the task much faster than the Intel Core i3 12100F with a difference of 22%. While the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x took 118 seconds, the Intel Core i3 12100F was reaching 150 seconds at best.  

Which One Is Better?

Deemed the budget king by many CPU enthusiasts, the Intel Core i3 12100F is a great Alder Lake processor for handling various tasks and more favorable for hyperthreading-oriented workloads. On the other hand, we compared it to one of the best gaming processors, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x and the results were quite surprising. 

For its price, the Intel Core i3 12100F put up a very good fight against the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x in gaming performance where the difference in performance couldn’t go beyond 10%. This is really good when you can find Intel Core i3 12100F for half the price in the market.  

On the other hand, for productivity benchmarks, the Intel Core i3 12100F beat the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x in every single-core test while it was the other way around in multi-core benchmarks. So those 2 extra cores did the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x huge favors in productivity benchmarks although it has faster cores individually.  

While the higher L3 cache of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x does it some favors in gaming benchmarks where it beat the Intel Core i3 12100F in almost all games albeit with minor difference, the hyperthreading capabilities of the Intel Core i3 12100F aren’t to be underestimated which allowed it to keep up with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x. It also worth mentioning that the Intel Core i3 12100F ran on almost half the power and was much cooler than the AMD Ryzen 5 5600x in all of the benchmarks.  

As of now, the Intel Core i3 12100F is ahead in both cost per frame value and single-core performance. If you’re going for a budget build with Alder Lake CPUs, the Intel Core i3 12100F is a great processor that will last you for a long time.  

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