Intel Core i5 11400F and ASUS B560 Plus Prime Review

Intel Core i5-11400F and ASUS B560 Prime-Plus Review

Introduction

Whenever a new series of products launches it’s very easy to get carried away on the wave of the high end performance and become a little power crazy. It is, however, important to remember that, for the majority of us, budgetary restrictions or a very real issue and any opportunity that we can take to get plenty of power for less outlay is one that has to be taken. 

When we reviewed the Intel core i5 11 600k we were pleased by the gaming performance. So pleased in fact that we compared it to the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X in a recent review. So good with this level of performance between those two processors that we were intrigued as to whether the new B560 chipset and Intel Core i5-11400 processor would be able to bring similar gaming performance for an even smaller investment in your platform.
 
The Core i5-11600K and most affordable Z590 motherboard rocks up at around £460. Today’s pairing of Core i5-11400 and ASUS B560-Plus Prime totals just £260. A massive saving that could enable you to move up the graphics card ladder. Thus, with the new Intel processor, ASUS Prime motherboard and the Nvidia RTX 3080 Founders Edition on hand we set out to find how little you could spend and still get blinding gaming performance. Let’s find out.

Technical Specifications

Naturally when you’re trimming the budget you’re going to lose a little in certain places. Whilst the Core i5-11400 doesn’t have the unlocked multiplier and overclocking capabilities of the K series, it still runs at 4.2 GHz on all cores, and still has 12 threads. This should be more than enough to handle any gaming requirements, as well as the other parts of using a system that we all do, even if they aren’t our primary use.

Intel Core i5-11400F and ASUS B560 Prime-Plus Review  

ASUS B560-Plus Prime

Like the CPU, the ASUS B560-Plus Prime hasn’t got nearly as much connectivity as a full-fat Z590 chipset, but it still has everything you can require for most systems, with the PCIe 4.0 M.2 and PCI Express x16 slot being the main attractions. For £120. Let’s take a closer look at it on the next page.

Intel Core i5-11400F and ASUS B560 Prime-Plus Review

B560 Prime Plus Video Overview