All there is to talk about in this month's update is price reductions across AMD's CPU and APU portfolio, plus a handful of cuts in Intel's line-up. None of our recommendations are affected, though. Looks like it's time to wait for Trinity and Piledriver.
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.
August Updates:
AMDYes, we're still waiting for the desktop Trinity-based APUs to show up at retail, though we've already seen OEM machines in the wild. We're also still waiting for Piledriver-based FX CPUs to show up. Because AMD is leaving us on hold for the time being, the biggest news we can report this month has to do with price drops. Of course, you might consider widespread cost adjustments across the company's processor line-up to be evidence that it's trying to clear the channel and make way for new models. But that'd be conjecture on our part.
What we do know is that the A4-3300, A4-3400, A6-3670K, and FX-6100 recently dropped a little in price. We agree that it's nice to save a few pounds. However, none of those little price snips have a notable impact on our recommendations. The Athlon II X3 450 also dropped in price but it's no more relevant to the gaming community.
The A6-3650, A8-3850, and A8-3870K also dropped in price in the United States. Of the three, the A8-3870K is the most interesting thanks to its unlocked clock ratio and respectable overclocking potential, as we recently reported. None of these processors are ideal in gaming platforms, but the -3870K is an interesting budget-oriented option for entry-level folks who enjoy tweaking their hardware.
Some models in the FX lineup are down as well, such as the FX-8120, and FX-8150. The FX-8120 might appear attractive if you run a lot of threaded software.
But the real game changer in AMD's lineup is the reduction of the FX-4170. At its new lower price this processor has the potential to compete with Intel's Core i3-2120, and we've adjusted our recommendations accordingly.
IntelWe don't have much to say about Intel, either. Its Core i7-3770 and 3770K are a little bit cheaper. Plus, the Core i5-3470 also received a very minor price drop in the U.S. However, none of those three models offer the price/performance ratio of Intel's unlocked Core i5-3570K, so again, our recommendations don't change.
Intel's third-quarter reference chart mentions a Celeron B830, G550T, and Pentium G645T, but none of those low-power parts will interest gamers. DonanimHaber reports an expected power-efficient Core i5-3350P, and an upcoming top-of-the-line Core i7-3970X Extreme running at 3.5 GHz with a Turbo Boost ceiling of 4 GHz. Really, though, we don't expect to see any game-changers from Intel until the release of its Haswell architecture in the middle of next year. There's also the introduction of Ivy Bridge-E to look forward to.
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 US/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.
its great to see toms hardware recommending these low end cpu,s ,however they may be low end but they have mid range performance... as the review above stated they can take on the FX4100 and even the 8 core bulldozers.. and can keep up with a quad core phenom..... i dont know how intel have acheived this but this allows guys like myself with limited budgets to build budget gaming rigs on a shoestring.....
its nice to watch these channels on youtube with quad crossfire and overclocked i7,s but unless you have a 40K+ yearly salary or your folks are mega rich this kind of hardware is way out of your reach...
theres many decent sites that can recommend good budget hardware but "toms hardware" is the best source of information anywhere online.... the best cpu and gpu monthly reports are second to none and this was the basis of my choice to go with the G620.....