Here’s a fantastic chance to bag yourself a new Intel CPU for a bargain price, as you can currently save a huge amount of money on this 14-core chip. This gaming CPU deal enables you to get an Intel Core i5 13600KF for just $175, saving you a massive $119 on the $294 MSRP, and costing nearly a third of the price of the new AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D.
Of course, the Core i5 13600KF isn’t as fast as the latter in games, as we found in our Ryzen 7 9800X3D review, but this Intel chip is still a great all-rounder, especially at this price. It has 14 cores, including six P-Cores, which are the important ones for gaming, and they can boost to a clock speed of 5.1GHz. What’s more, if you follow our guide on how to overclock the Core i5 13600K, you can easily get it running at 5.5GHz, as long as you have a decent CPU cooler.
The only difference between the 13600K and the 13600KF is that the latter has its integrated GPU disabled. They’re otherwise identical, with the same number of cores and the same clock speeds. In its Core i5 13600K review our sister site, Custom PC, praised this CPU’s superb all-round performance, as well as its overclocking headroom. In fact, it was even quicker than the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D in our Far Cry 6 benchmark, and its 14 cores make it a great chip for multi-threaded work too.
Don’t be put off by the ‘13’ at the start of its model number either, as this CPU is based on exactly the same Raptor Lake architecture as the later Core i5 14600K, it just has a slightly lower clock speed.
However, there’s a word of warning, which is that Intel’s Raptor Lake CPUs, including this one, are known to suffer from a voltage shift bug, which can not only cause game crashes, but even damage the CPU. To avoid this, you’ll need to make sure you flash the BIOS of your motherboard to the version with the latest microcode, which will ensure you apply the latest Intel CPU fix. Once that’s done, though, your CPU will be perfectly safe.
To take advantage of this deal, just click on this link here. However, Amazon describes it as a limited-time deal, so it might not be up for long.
If you’re looking for more gaming power, check out our guide to the best gaming CPU, where we run through all our current favorite chips at prices to suit every budget.