Intel appears to be prepping a budget gaming champion, the i5-13490F

Intel’s i5-13490K is a budget gaming champion in the making

Last year Intel launched their i5-12490F, a special edition processor that was available exclusively within the Chinese market. In effect, this CPU was an i5-12400F with higher core clock speeds, and additional L3 cache, and now it looks history is repeating itself with Intel’s i5-13490F. 

Screenshots of CPU-Z from @wnxod on Twitter have showcase Intel’s Intel’s i5-13490F, a CPU that features six P-Cores (Performance Cores), and four E-Cores (Efficient Cores). This CPU has a max turbo frequency that is 200MHz higher than an i5-13400, and features an additional 4MB of L3 Cache. L2 cache for the i5-13490F remains unchanged.  

Why is the i5-13490F special?

With higher clock speeds and additional L3 cache, Intel’s i5-13490F can deliver levels of gaming performance that are above the weight class of a typical i5-1x4xxF series processor. It higher core clock speeds increase both single-threaded and multi-threaded throughput, and its additional L3 cache can accelerate workloads by allowing more data to be held on-chip (which is an important factor for gaming workloads).

While a 200MHz clock speed boost and a 20% increase in L3 cache may not sound like much, these factors are a big deal when it comes to gaming performance. Intel’s i5-13490F has the makings of a budget gaming champion, so let’s hope that this model is released more broadly than its predecessor.

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