Intel stealthily debuts Core i3-10100F, poised to be the next budget gaming champ

Intel has quietly introduced the Core i3-10100F processor for desktops, which was strangely missing from its initial 10th Gen Comet Lake line up. The chip recently emerged on Intel’s ARK website complete with its full specifications.

We know that the new 14nm Comet Lake chip comes with four cores and eight threads that clocked at 3.6GHz and a boost clock speed of 4.3GHz. With a 65W TDP (thermal power design), it has relatively low cooling requirements which is great for budget builders.

Judging from the “F” suffix in the name, the new Core i3 processor does not come with integrated graphics. Even so, there is a good chance that budget gamers won’t miss this anyway since they are most likely to pair the processor with a discrete gaming graphics card anyway.

Tom’s Hardware cites that Intel said the Core i3-10100F will retail for between USD 79 (RM327) and USD 97 (RM401) but there are no details when it will be available on store shelves.

The quad-core processor from Intel is likely to going up against AMD’s Ryzen 3 3300X, that costs USD 120 (RM497). Team red’s 7nm chip is based on its Zen 2 microarchitecture. It has four-cores and eight-thread configuration. Stacked against Intel’s Core i3 offering, AMD’s Ryzen 3 3300X has a 200MHz higher base clock and 10MB more L3 cache.

The table below illustrates how the Core i3-10100F compares against the Ryzen 3 3300X in terms of specs.

Besides that, you won’t find any integrated graphics on the Ryzen 3 3300X, which competes in the 65W category. The chip is also said to include the Wraith Stealth CPU cooler.

It however remains to be seen if the Intel’s offering will match AMD’s in terms of gaming performance, but we will have to wait for official benchmarks to settle that score.

The Ryzen 3 3300X was last seen on store shelves shortly after launch but it has been unavailable everywhere for about five months. This clears the field for Intel’s Core i3-10100F to swoop in and satisfy the demand from budget gamers so long as they can maintain an ample supply of chips.

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