Best Gaming CPUs For The Money: November '09
Table of contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Best Gaming CPU: $50-$90
- 3. Best Gaming CPU: $100-$150
If you don’t have the time to research the benchmarks, or if you don’t feel confident enough in your ability to pick the right processor for your next gaming machine, fear not. We at Tom’s Hardware have come to your aid with a simple list of the best gaming CPUs offered for the money.
November Updates
AMD has introduced some new CPUs since our last installment; most notably, the Athlon II X3 family. The new Athlon II X3 435 combines three CPU cores, a fast 2.9 GHz clock rate, and a low $90 price tag. Since today's games tend to utilize no more than three CPU cores on average, the Athlon II X3 435 is a fantastic gaming processor for the enthusiast on a budget. Our Athlon II X3 435 sample overclocked to 3.7 GHz fairly easily, so there's a lot to like about this low-cost processor. In addition to the X3 435, AMD has also created an Athlon II X3 425 with a 2.8 GHz clock speed, available for about $80.
There are a number of other new AMD CPUs available, mostly a host of low-power Athlon II X2, X3, and X4 variants. These are great for energy-efficient applications, but they don't offer much to gamers looking for maximum performance per dollar.
Aside from those introductions there isn't much to report on the CPU front, with Intel dominating the $200+ market with its Core i5 and Core i7, and AMD dominating the sub-$200 market with the Phenom II X4 955 and new Athlon II.
Speaking of the Phenom II X4 955, the street price has dropped to $175, making it a great deal for a premium multiplier-unlocked processor. The Core i5 is faster, but the $25 price difference might be enough for some tweakers to opt for the unlocked Phenom II, especially since the P55 platform tends to be a bit more expensive than AMD options at this time. Either way, there are some fantastic products out there--let's look at the recommendations.
Some Notes About Our Recommendations
This list is for gamers who want to get the most for their money. If you don’t play games, then the CPUs on this list may not be suitable for your particular needs.
The criteria to get on this list are strictly price/performance. We acknowledge that there are other factors that come into play, such as platform price or CPU overclockability, but we're not going to complicate things by factoring in motherboard costs. We may add honorable mentions for outstanding products in the future, though. For now, our recommendations are based on stock clock speeds and performance at that price.
Cost and availability change on a daily basis. We can’t offer up-to-the-minute accurate pricing information in the text, but we can list some good chips that you probably won’t regret buying at the price ranges we suggest (and our PriceGrabber-based engine will help track down some of the best prices for you).
The list is based on some of the best U.S. prices from online retailers. In other countries or at retail stores, your mileage will most certainly vary. Of course, these are retail CPU prices while we do not list used or OEM CPUs.
Good guide, though for some reason you've put the Athlons down as having 64KB of L1 cache (it should be 128KB - 64 instruction and 64 data).
There's another glaring error, on Athlon II the X2 has 1MiB L2,m the X3/X4 only 512KiB!
I don't think that's an error; they were deliberately given 1MB L2 per core. The X3s and X4s rightfully have 512KB cache per core.
Um surely as a gamer if I want to run Triple SLI then the i7 920 isn't "past the point of reason", it's a necessity?
Surely this is "best gaming CPUs for the money" not "best gaming CPUs on a budget"?
Um surely as a gamer if I want to run Triple SLI then the i7 920 isn't "past the point of reason", it's a necessity?Surely this is "best gaming CPUs for the money" not "best gaming CPUs on a budget"?
... isn't that the name of the article?
Nice guide. Can't wait to get my i5 750!
... isn't that the name of the article?
That's my point - if this was a review of gaming on a budget I'd understand saying anything above $150 isn't worth it, but it's not. This is supposed to be best gaming CPUs in a number of price brackets, and to claim the i7 920 is "above the point of reason" when it's actually a necessity when running triple GPU set-ups (which is gaming, isn't it?) is a bit short-sighted.
That's my point - if this was a review of gaming on a budget I'd understand saying anything above $150 isn't worth it, but it's not. This is supposed to be best gaming CPUs in a number of price brackets, and to claim the i7 920 is "above the point of reason" when it's actually a necessity when running triple GPU set-ups (which is gaming, isn't it?) is a bit short-sighted.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure triple GPU set-ups aren't all that common compared to the overwhelming majority of people with single or dual GPU set ups.
Putting that aside, they do point out that if you're spending ridiculous amounts of money on graphics hardware and are worried about a platform bottleneck then they recommend the i7 9xx series. Otherwise, there's no real reason to buy anything more than an i5 because the price/performance ratio goes down the drain when you go much past that.
It makes even less sense when you take into account that you can (apparently relatively easily) overclock the i5 to match the i7 975 (if that's your sort of thing) for $800 less.
dude you can run triple sli on a msi board with a am3 socket learn your stuff before you open your mouth
dude you can run triple sli on a msi board with a am3 socket learn your stuff before you open your mouth
Just because you can doesn't mean you do. And even if you DO use an AM3, this whole conversation about whether i7s are worth the money is completely pointless, isn't it? *shrugs*