What a Ryzen 5 8400F is good for
This chip is capable at 1080p with a mid-range card, but it will become the limit if you pair it with something substantially faster. If you are considering a large graphics upgrade, check the pairing first — you may find most of the new card sitting idle.
Moving to a higher resolution is the cheapest way to get more out of it, because it shifts work onto the card and away from the chip.
A small cache holds this chip back
16 MB of L3 is modest by current standards, and it costs this chip more in games than its clock speed suggests. Game engines walk large, scattered data structures, so a small cache means more trips to main memory and more stalls on the render thread. Memory speed and timings matter unusually much on a part like this.
Where it sits
Ranked 94 of 201 desktop processors for gaming. Nearest faster: Core i5-14400F, Ryzen 7 5700X3D. Just below: Ryzen 7 5700X, Ryzen 7 5800. Full method on the methodology page.