Intel Core i5-10500, 6 Cores & 12 Threads Desktop Processor with Intel UHD Graphics 630

I was looking for an Intel core i5 10th gen for a new build. So far this has hit advertised speeds and temperatures have been great with a tower style air cooler. It pairs well with a 1660 Super for 1080p gaming, as well as office productivity and general computing. Watch the prices on the 10500 and 10600 stock/locked versions though, they seem to be selling about $40 over Intel MSRP as of Sep 2020, perhaps due to supply issues. The 10400 is currently a better value at $180, than the 10500/10600 at $240/$260. Although I couldn't bring myself to buy the 10400 with "only" a 2.9 gHZ base clock. But the extra few hundred mHZ on the 10500/10600 won't move the needle much in terms of performance according to 3rd party benchmarking. If you want more performance, the 10600K unlocked could be an option at around $275, but goes best with a Z490 motherboard for overclocking. Overall, however, the 10500 has met my expectations this far.

So far so good. After a lot of research, I found this to be the best Intel processor for the price. Performance rivals the i7 or even the i9 on frame rates for most mainstream games. I use it mostly for MS Excel. It ships with a low profile heat sink and fan that perform OK. I may buy a better low-profile heatsink and fan for it if I can’t keep cpu temperatures below 175° f in my poorly ventilated, tight-fitting custom case.The i5 10400 got sort of poor reviews against the lower priced AMD competitor. The i5 10600 appears to derive its awesome performance from over-clocking. The i5 10500 performed close to a stock-clocked i5 10600, but without the $100 price jump. I won’t be needing to overclock; so, this is awesome for my needs.

10th gen Intel and later are very upgrade worthy if your upgrading anywhere from a older than 7th gen Intel or still using old AMD APU/FX/older Athlon/Phenom chips and considered this a major upgrade from those point while this is the new standard for PCs in the future but be aware Intel Store still ships through UPS instead of Amazon Services if you had problems with UPS before then i would be diligent when ordering any volatile items like CPUs and Motherboards that ships through UPS which can be a logistical problem a lot of times and very solid performing CPU that's on par with the Ryzen 3600x

Due to shortages, this is overpriced right now.It does the job expected. Easy to install.Using it in a Plex server & cut out my monthly subscriptions.