How should the core and thread counts of Core i5 12400F be understood, and do more cores help in games?

  Core i5 12400F has 6 cores and 12 threads, with Hyper-Threading on all six performance cores. It suits mainstream gaming, office work, and general development; high-refresh 1080p depends on per-core response and the GPU, while 1440p and 4K usually start with the GPU. Sustained compiling, video encoding, rendering, or large multitasking will use the 12 threads sooner, and the F suffix requires a discrete GPU.