Intel Pentium Gold G6400 4 GHz LGA 1200 Socket 2 Cores 4 Threads 4 MB Smart Cache Processor

Intel’s 2020 introduction of its LGA1200 desktop platform has been an interesting entry for PC builders and upgraders to weigh. The 10th Generation of Intel desktop processors delivered increased performance over the outgoing LGA1151 platform, pushing chips like the Core i9-10900K to prominence, with 10 cores and turbo speeds in excess of 5GHz. But not everyone needs a jet-fuel CPU, and 10th Generation Intel, soon to be augmented by 11th Generation “Rocket Lake” chips, runs all the way down to humdrum Celerons, and the Pentium Gold G6400, a quiet bargain at around $65. Though the chip does little to stand out from last-generation Pentium entries, it gains new prominence here in early 2021, with many CPUs and GPUs hard to find at retail, and prices distorted. You can get the Pentium Golds without much fuss, and if all you need is a PC for web browsing and wrestling Word documents, the G6400 is enough to get you by.

The Latest Pentium Gold: Basic Details on a Basic Chip
Before looking at this modest processor’s specs, I should make it clear that this chip is not overly new, either here in 2021 (it was introduced in mid-2020) or when looked at versus the generation before it. It’s virtually identical to the Pentium G5000-series processors that are still available (if you hunt a bit for them) for Intel’s outgoing LGA1151 platform. As you will see later in the benchmark-breakdown section of this review, it also performs much the same as those older chips.

Verdict: Solid Budget Silicon for Basic Tasks
With performance that surpasses AMD’s low-end Athlon CPUs, and with an MSRP of $64, Intel’s Pentium Gold G6400 fills a small niche in the processor market. Remarkably, given current market conditions and the spotty shortages afflicting the higher tiers of PC components these days, you can actually find the Pentium Gold 6400 for its list price at launch, or within a burger’s throwing distance of it. This may sound like no big deal, but with how the CPU and GPU markets are treating shoppers here in early 2021, that’s actually quite notable.