Intel
Intel Core i3-12100F
The i3-12100 with the integrated graphics fused off and roughly $25 cut from the price, aimed squarely at a budget gaming box that already has a discrete card. It was for years the cheapest new CPU that could still hold a 60 fps floor in most 1080p titles.
Pros
- Under $100 at launch for four 4.3 GHz Golden Cove cores with Hyper-Threading
- Per-core speed essentially matches the i5-12400, so 1080p frame rates track much dearer chips
- 58 W base power and a bundled cooler mean no extra spend on thermals
- PCIe 5.0 x16 straight from the CPU on B660 and up — entry-level H610 boards drop that slot to Gen4
- DDR4 support keeps the rest of the budget build cheap
Cons
- No integrated graphics at all — the machine will not display anything without a discrete GPU
- 4 cores/8 threads is thin for streaming, background transcoding, or newer CPU-heavy games
- 12 MB L3 shows up as weaker 1% lows against 6-core parts
- Locked multiplier and no meaningful tuning headroom
Below average
Computed from specs & benchmarks via our public methodology.
Full specifications
Everything we track for the Intel Core i3-12100F
General
- Announced
- 2022
- Socket
- LGA1700
- Process
- 10 nm
- Base TDP
- 58 W
- Max turbo power
- 89 W
- Unlocked multiplier
- No
- Cooler included
- Yes
Cores & Clocks
- Cores
- 4
- Performance cores
- 4
- Efficiency cores
- 0
- Threads
- 8
- Base clock
- 3.3 GHz
- Boost clock
- 4.3 GHz
- L2 cache
- 5 MB
- L3 cache
- 12 MB
Memory
- Memory support
- DDR5-4800 / DDR4-3200
- Max memory
- 128 GB
- Memory channels
- 2
Platform
- PCIe version
- 5
- CPU PCIe lanes
- 20
Benchmarks
- Geekbench 6 (single)
- 2,050
- Geekbench 6 (multi)
- 6,700
- Cinebench R23 (single)
- 1,680
- Cinebench R23 (multi)
- 8,700
- PassMark
- 14,100
Quick answers
Is the Intel Core i3-12100F good in 2026?
The Intel Core i3-12100F earns an Inno Score of 41/100 (“Below average”) based on its specs and benchmark results. The i3-12100 with the integrated graphics fused off and roughly $25 cut from the price, aimed squarely at a budget gaming box that already has a discrete card. It was for years the cheapest new CPU that could still hold a 60 fps floor in most 1080p titles.
What are the key specs of the Intel Core i3-12100F?
Cores: 4 · Threads: 8 · Boost clock: 4.3 GHz · Socket: LGA1700
What are the closest alternatives to the Intel Core i3-12100F?
Its closest rivals on InnoReviews are AMD Ryzen 5 5500, Intel Core i3-12100, AMD Ryzen 5 3600 — open the comparison pages for a spec-by-spec breakdown.