March sees AMD's Phenom II X6 1045T hit retail. The FX-8150's price dropped, plus we have info on the FX-4170 and FX-6200. Intel gives us new Core i5-2380P and -2450P CPUs, plus Core i7-2550K, -3820, and the Xeon E5s. Price reductions abound, too.
If you don’t have the time to research 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.
March Updates
Despite delays on Intel's Ivy Bridge-based processors, there's still a lot of news to discuss for the month of March. First, AMD's Phenom II X6 1045T is now available at retail. Although this 2.7 GHz hexa-core processor was already around as an OEM-only part, you can now pick it up in a box, with a heat sink. At £96, it's certainly an interesting option for folks looking for lots of cores to throw at threaded workloads. But because most games don't exploit any more than three or four cores, we won't be recommending this part to gamers.
The FX-8150 is also slightly cheaper; it now sells for the £200. At this point, the £150 FX-8120 is probably a better bet for AMD fans looking for the parallelism of an eight-core processor with an unlocked multiplier. We're just glad that to see the company hit its suggested price on the -8150, even if it took five months after its introduction.
There is some promising news for AMD fans, though. We expect to see a couple of new models for sale soon: there's a 4.2 GHz (4.3 GHz maximum Turbo Core) FX-4170 with two Bulldozer modules and a 3.8 GHz (4.1 GHz maximum Turbo Core) FX-6200 with three Bulldozer modules. Selling for £110, the -4170 costs roughly £10 more than a Core i3-2120. That's a chip we already like for its value, so we'll be looking for AMD's prices to dip a little more.
AMD isn't the only CPU manufacturer with new products. Intel has its own collection of fresh introductions, starting with a few P-series parts. Take the Core i5-2380P, for example. This is basically a Core i5-2400 without the integrated HD Graphics 2000 engine, and it shares the -2400's ~£145 price tag right now. There's also a £160 Core i5-2450P also lacking on-die graphics. Running at 3.2 GHz (3.5 GHz maximum Turbo Boost), the -2450P sits between Intel's Core i5-2400 and Core i5-2500. Neither new processor is a great alternative to the models we've already tested, since you aren't saving any money by sacrificing HD Graphics.
The Core i7-3820 is finally available for around £225. We reviewed this one three months ago in Intel Core i7-3930K And Core i7-3820: Sandy Bridge-E, Cheaper, and already knew its four memory channels and on-die PCI Express 3.0 probably wouldn't justify the platform's premium price. Although you can save approximately £225 by buying this chip instead of a Core i7-3930K, the real reason to consider Sandy Bridge-E is really its extra cores. Without them, a multiplier-unlocked Core i7-2600K for £250 is just as, if not more attractive.
Intel also sells a Core i5-2550K for around £175 now. Its 3.4 GHz base clock and 3.8 GHz maximum Turbo Boost frequency represent 100 MHz improvements over the £160 Core i5-2500K. When you consider that the -2500K's strength is its unlocked multiplier, paying more for an extra 100 MHz seems silly (unless we find out later that these chips have more overclocking headroom up top, that is).
The Core i7-2700K recently dropped to £260, perhaps to keep it within striking distance of the Core i7-3820. It's now just £10 more expensive than the -2600K. That's a pretty small premium. If Intel bins the flagship part, it could facilitate better overclocking headroom, and we might be willing to pay the difference to find out.
Lastly, Intel just launched its Xeon E5 processors for servers and workstations. They're by no means gaming processors. However, if you want to see what one workstation cranking on 32 threads simultaneously looks like, check out Intel Xeon E5-2600: Doing Damage With Two Eight-Core CPUs.
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 honourable 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.
The list is based on some of the best US (and localised for UK) prices from online retailers. In other countries or at retail stores, your mileage will most certainly vary. Of course, these are retail CPU prices. We do not list used or OEM CPUs available at retail.
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0 Hidedubstep , 29 March 2012 02:59I have a 2500k@4.4 and it is the bottleneck in BF3 on maps like Gulf of Oman. The 2600k should be recommended.