Best Gaming CPU for £60:
Athlon II X4 640
| Athlon II X4 640 | |
|---|---|
| Codename: | Propus |
| Process: | 45 nm |
| CPU Cores/Threads: | 4 |
| Clock Speed (Max. Turbo): | 3.0 GHz |
| Socket: | AM3/AM3+ |
| L1 Cache: | 4 x 128 KB |
| L2 Cache: | 4 x 512 KB |
| Thermal Envelope: | 95 W |
With modern games able to take advantage of more than two processing cores, AMD's old quad-core chips, such as the Athlon II X4 and Llano-based A6 and A8 APUs, look better now compared to Intel's dual-core models than they did before.
As a result, we're cutting the Pentium G860 from our recommendation list. The Athlon II X4 640 takes its place. Running at 3 GHz, this CPU performs roughly on par with the A8-3870K for less money. Use the savings on a discrete graphics card.
Read our review of the Athlon II X4 CPUs here.
Best Gaming CPU for £75:
Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition
| Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition | |
|---|---|
| Codename: | Deneb |
| Process: | 45 nm |
| CPU Cores/Threads: | 4 |
| Clock Speed (Max. Turbo): | 3.4 GHz |
| Socket: | AM3/AM3+ |
| L1 Cache: | 4 x 128 KB |
| L2 Cache: | 4 x 512 KB |
| L3 Cache: | 6 MB |
| Thermal Envelope: | 125 W |
In the gaming CPU round-up that we recently finished testing for, but haven't yet published, the Phenom II X4 makes a significant comeback compared to its competition, since many of the newer games we tested are able to utilize multiple threads.
Sporting 6 MB of L3 cache and an unlocked ratio multiplier, AMD's Phenom II X4 965 is a solid performer at its stock clock rates, and it has some room to scale up with overclocking, too. Thanks to the long life of AMD's Socket AM3/AM3+ interface, you can buy this chip today and then upgrade to an FX model down the road (though we don't really see much reason to do so now, based on the FX's gaming performance).
Read our review of the Phenom II X4 965 CPU here.
This is also one of the reasons why 680 matches 7970 despite having less VRAM. It also has better memory controllers.