AMD's latest Ryzen 3000 "Zen 2" processors have been a great success since their release a year ago. In the roughly-$200 midrange segment, both the Ryzen 5 3600 and 3600X dominate. These processors are powered by six cores and twelve threads—Intel's 9th Gen processors offered only 6c/6t configurations in this segment. In order to regain competitiveness while still stuck on the 14 nanometer process, Intel had to rethink their policy of reserving HyperThreading to their top SKUs only. This is why the Core i5-10500 in this review has HyperThreading enabled. Unlike the Core i5-10600K, for which Intel pushed the TDP from 65 W to 95 W, the Core i5-10500 remains at 65 W, which is reasonable given the target audience, but not optimal, more on that later. Last but not least, the full L3 cache is available now, 12 MB instead of 9 MB, to make up lost ground against the 32 MB cache AMD is offering on Ryzen.

On average, in our mix of single/low and multi-threaded applications, the Intel Core i5-10500 ends up slightly faster than the Core i5-10400, which has the same performance as the i5-10400F we reviewed not long ago. The performance difference is relatively small though—just 3.8%. Considering there's a $10 price difference between both processors, the price delta comes to around 5%, which is not perfect, but close enough to "reasonable." While we don't have last-generation's Core i5-9500 in our test group, we have the i5-9400F, which isn't that much slower than it; here, the difference between the i5-9400F and i5-10500 is a staggering 20%. While that's definitely a nice increase generation over generation, it's not good enough to beat AMD's Ryzen offerings. Both the Ryzen 5 3600 ($175) and Ryzen 5 3600X ($205) have the upper hand, although just barely, by 1% and 3% respectively. An interesting upgrade is the Core i5-10600K, which is 6c/12t, too, but 7% faster because of its 125 W TDP and significantly higher clock speeds; however, it costs an additional $60.

When we first reviewed the Intel Core i5-10400F, we were surprised by how well it performs in gaming, matching much higher positioned processors like the Core i9-9900K and not far behind the Core i9-10900K at even 1080p resolution. At higher resolutions, the differences are negligible, though. As expected, the Core i5-10500 in this review is faster in gaming than than the Core i5-10400F, but the differences are marginal. As a gamer, you usually have no need for integrated graphics, so the Core i5-10400F is probably the better choice overall when cost is taken into account. A 6c/12t design is also more future-proof than a 4c/8t CPU, though I'm personally not a friend of future-proofing as you'll tend to overspend in the long run. The competing AMD Ryzen processors are around 7% behind the i5-10500 at 1080p, 3% at 1440p, and 1% at 4K. As the resolution increases, the bottleneck shifts from the CPU to the GPU, as the GPU has to work harder per frame and the CPU has fewer frames to work on. If you are purely a gamer, Intel is still the choice that will give you more FPS, but as mentioned before, the differences are small and probably not worth the added cost. Any cost savings on the CPU can be invested in the GPU for higher FPS.

Unlike other Comet Lake CPUs I've tested, the Core i5-10500 reaches its maximum boost frequency of 4.5 GHz fairly often, many times even with more than one thread active. This is in stark contrast to some other models, which barely reached their highest boost for a split second with only one thread active. Even when fully loaded, the clocks are high as Intel rates the Core i5-10500 at 3.1 GHz base clock. In reality, it runs much higher than that; we saw the processor stay above 4.2 GHz most of the time.

The Core i5-10500 has TDP limit of PL1 = 65 W and PL2 = 134 W. While we never saw it peak up to 134 W, 65 W was often exceeded in multi-threaded tests. When the whole CPU consumes more than 65 W, PL2 will take over and allow increased power consumption for a short duration of less than a minute, while the processor and heatsink temperature increases. Once that power budget is exhausted, the CPU will throttle to stay within Intel's 65 W TDP promise. The Turbo Boost 2.0 algorithm is a highly effective method to eke out some extra performance for short, bursty workloads without increasing power or cooling requirements.

We tested the Core i5-10500 with all its power limits disabled, listed as the blue "Max Turbo" bar in our charts. If the CPU is truly limited in performance by PL1 or PL2, this test can uncover it. The results show that only a few benchmarks are affected, mostly rendering, with no change in gaming performance. Overall, this comes down to a 1% difference in applications, not enough to worry about. Should you plan on using the integrated graphics, however, this difference could become bigger. The power limits apply to the whole CPU, so not just to the six-core x86 number crunching circuitry, but also the integrated graphics. If a highly demanding graphics application is running, the GPU can consume up to 20 W, which means there's only 45 W left for the CPU cores. Power management will automatically clock down the CPU or GPU, or both, to stay within TDP, so increasing PL1 by a bit can be worth it. This method works on all motherboards, not only Z490.

What really surprises me is that Intel did not include Turbo Boost Max 3.0 or Thermal Velocity Boost on the Core i5-10500. Turbo Boost Max 3.0 is reserved for the Core i7-10700 series and Core i9-10900 series, and TVB only for the Core i9-10900 series. Yet again we see the typical Intel segmentation pattern here—AMD does the opposite as all their CPUs have all the features, and those little things add up. I have no idea why Intel would not include their two most advanced turbo modes on the Core i5-10500; it wouldn't have cost them anything, yet provides free performance.

As denoted by the lack of the "K" suffix, the Core i5-10500 has no support for multiplier-based overclocking, but that's also why it's slightly more affordable. AMD includes unlocked multipliers with all their processors, and that's the way to go as it's a strong driver for sales because it dangles "free extra performance" in front of potential customers. It is still possible to increase the BCLK frequency, up to 103 MHz, for around 2–3 % additional in real-life performance, which is probably not worth the trouble. AMD's Ryzen 3600 series CPUs have unlocked multipliers, but overclocking those doesn't yield any significant gains either, so don't fall for the "unlocked multiplier" lure, you'll be disappointed.

The Intel Core i5-10500 retails for around $200, which makes it a little bit more expensive than the Ryzen 5 3600 ($175) and slightly cheaper than the Ryzen 5 3600X ($205). If you spend most of your time waiting for highly threaded application results, like rendering, a Ryzen will be a slightly better choice. If you're gaming all day, the i5-10500 is slightly better. The differences are quite small either way. Just like AMD, Intel does include a stock cooler with the Core i5-10500, which definitely helps. The problem is that for the LGA1200 platform, only Z490 motherboards are readily available, and Z490 is expensive. In the last few days, I've seen the first H470 boards pop up, but at $120, these are expensive as well. While many new motherboards include features like USB-C 20 Gbps and 2.5 Gbps Ethernet, I still feel motherboard pricing has to come down another $20–$40 to be competitive with AMD. At the moment, the platform cost of Comet Lake is too high, AMD definitely has a more cost optimized ecosystem here.

If you plan on using the integrated graphics, then buying the Core i5-10500 instead of the Core i5-10400 can make sense; you'll get slightly higher performance and will breaks that psychologically important 3 GHz barrier, but you'll also pay a bit more for it. It seems Intel is trying to place a lot of SKUs in that price range to give you multiple options, hoping you'll dig out some more coins from your couch to get "a little more." By that same logic, the Core i5-10600 for another $20 could be an option, too, as it's 200-300 MHz higher clocked. Our gaming benchmarks show that you really don't need to overspend if you're a pure gamer—the Core i5-10400F is just as fast, and you'll save another $20 because the 10400F lacks the integrated GPU, which isn't useful to you as a gamer—more money for the GPU.