Last week, Intel completed the Coffee Lake range of processors with no less than 14 new models. One of the most interesting variants is the Pentium Gold G5400, which has four threads and is still very affordable. We have tested it and will tell you in this review if we can indeed declare it the new top budget processor.

Although a few new Core i3's and i5's also came on the market, Intel expanded its latest series mainly in the budget segment. For example, complete new Pentium and Celeron series were released in stores, making it possible to acquire a Coffee Lake processor for well under 44 pounds / 50 euros. What's new is the suffix 'Gold', but that has little further meaning.

Of the more affordable CPUs, the Pentium G5400 that we are testing today is perhaps the most interesting. Anyone who has studied budget PCs over the past year will undoubtedly remember the previous generation's Pentium G4560. Intel then used HyperThreading in the Pentiums for the first time. It does that again, but in a number of ways the Pentium G5400 has just a bit more oomph than its predecessor. For example, the clock speed is 200 MHz higher by default - quite important because these processors do not have a turbo or unlocked multiplier. In addition, the L3 cache is now 4 MB instead of 3 MB in size.