Budget-oriented Intel Core 5 120F Gaming CPU Spotted

Intel is targeting the budget gaming market with its newest CPU

Intel has a new budget-oriented gaming CPU on the horizon (via @momomo_us), which lacks Core Ultra branding and any AI-related marketing. This new CPU is the Intel Core 5 120F, an alleged LGA1700 CPU that’s designed to deliver strong gaming performance at a low price. As Intel says, this GPU is “no frills, just thrills.”

With its lack of Core Ultra branding, we can infer that this CPU doesn’t feature an NPU (Neural Processing Unit) and is not based on Intel’s Arrow Lake CPU architecture. Furthermore, its F-series branding implies that it also lacks integrated graphics. Rumour has it that this new chip is a Bartlett Lake CPU, featuring a similar architecture to Intel’s Raptor Lake CPUs.

The specifications of this new Intel CPU appear to be almost identical to Intel’s i5-12400F CPU. The only significant difference is the 120F’s 100 MHz higher boost clock speed. However, it should be noted that the i5-12400F is an Intel Alder Lake CPU. The Intel Core 5 120F may use a newer CPU architecture. If the 120F uses a newer CPU architecture, it could feature more L2 cache. That change could deliver a significant boost in gaming performance over Intel’s Core i5-12400F.

(Image from @momomo_us)

Sadly, full information about Intel’s Core 5 120F CPU is unavailable. Its pricing is unknown, and details like its CPU architecture and motherboard support remain unconfirmed. Regardless, it is great to see what Intel has to offer budget-oriented PC gamers. Building a new gaming PC has become increasingly expensive, and that makes new value-oriented products an increasingly exciting prospect.

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