As (relatively) old as they are, midrange Core i5 chips from Intel’s 12th-, 13th-, and 14th-generation Core CPU lineups are still solid choices for budget-to-midrange PC builds.

I would be hesitant about obtaining secondhand 13th or 14th gen desktop Intel CPUs, since those are the ones that destroy themselves over time. There is no way to know whether they’ve been run on non-updated BIOSes and damaged themselves. I burned theough an i9-13900 and an i9-14900 myself. Started with occasional errors and gradually got worse until they couldn’t even get through boot.

12th-gen chips are safe.