Best Gaming CPU for £55:
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 often able to take advantage of more than two processing cores, AMD's old quad-core chips (like 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, I cut 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 £85:
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 Gaming Shoot-Out: 18 CPUs And APUs Under £160, Benchmarked, the Phenom II X4 made a significant comeback compared to its competition, since many of the newer titles 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 Socket AM3/AM3+ interface's long life, 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, based on the FX's relative gaming performance).
Read our review of the Phenom II X4 965 CPU here.
HT-ing, if anything, decreases performance in games. You might get a gain in programs, but not in games.
Yes, except completely wrong.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/far-cry-3-performance-benchmark,3379-7.html
Look at those performance gains over the pentium in a quad-core-utilizing game. That's not just a few extra megahertz and slightly more efficient architecture. That's hyper-threading for you.
quad core is still a bit of a con for gamers .. with the exception of battlefield 3 mp most games are designed to run on dual core ( no HT ) and the pentiums deliver this at low power
I am only now thinking of an upgrade.
Much is made of new hardware before its needed.
Hang back and play out the games that become cheap i say.
It plays STO like a demon.
(DAMON?)
i Bet a g pentium duo would give plenty entertainment.
If you want to spend a pile to play 2 new games see the chinese Dr
for a bump feel session.
The gen after this yrs stuff will always be cheaper.
Actually, most DX11 games scale very well on quad-threaded CPUs and several scale well across even six or eight threads.
TDP is not relevant at all. It's not even directly comparable to power consumption and even that still has no bearing on performance.
Athlon II x4 and especially Phenom II x4 beat the Celerons and Pentiums in most modern games. From the recent games, it's just stuff such as SC2 that still doesn't scale across even four threads properly.
Furthermore, there are much newer CPUs such as the FX series and Trinity which, although not record breakers like Ivy Bridge in energy efficiency, are a lot more energy efficient than Athlon II and Phenom II.
Even the i3s beat the Pentiums and Celerons significantly in most games and that the i5s oftentimes significantly beat the i3s makes this even more obvious.
No, it doesn't. They simply don't compete as well in a price/performance standing compared to some quad-threaded parts at similar price points anymore since most games nowadays can quite well take advantage of four threads. The cheaper models are still able to compete effectively. For example, the Celeron 1610 at around $50 is probably unbeatable at its price point. However, a little more expensive are some quad core parts and they do beat it handily in most modern DX11 games.