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Gaming CPU Hierarchy Chart

Best Gaming CPUs For The Money: March 2013
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What about this other CPU that’s not on the list? How do I know if it’s a good deal or not?

This will happen. In fact, it’s guaranteed to happen because availability and prices change quickly. So how do you know if that CPU you have your eye on is a good buy in its price range?

Here is a resource to help you judge if a CPU is a reasonable value or not: the gaming CPU hierarchy chart, which groups CPUs with similar overall gaming performance levels into tiers. The top tier contains the highest-performing gaming CPUs available and gaming performance decreases as you go down the tiers from there.

This hierarchy was originally based on the average performance each CPU achieved in our test suite. We have since incorporated new game data into our criteria, but it should be known that any specific game title will likely perform differently depending on its unique programming. Some games, for example, will be severely graphics subsystem-limited, while others may react positively to more CPU cores, larger amounts of CPU cache, or even a specific architecture. We also did not have access to every CPU on the market, so some of the CPU performance estimates are based on the numbers similar architectures deliver. Indeed, this hierarchy chart is useful as a general guideline, but certainly not as a one-size-fits-all CPU comparison resource. For that, we recommend you check out our CPU Performance Charts.

You can use this hierarchy to compare the pricing between two processors, to see which one is a better deal, and also to determine if an upgrade is worthwhile. I don’t recommend upgrading your CPU unless the potential replacement is at least three tiers higher. Otherwise, the upgrade is somewhat parallel and you may not notice a worthwhile difference in game performance.

Gaming CPU Hierarchy Chart
IntelAMD
Core i7-2600, -2600K, -2700K, -3770, -3770K, -3820, -3930K, -3960X, -3970X
Core i7-965, -975 Extreme, -980X Extreme, -990X Extreme
Core i5-3570K, -3570, -3550, -3470, -3450P, -3450, -3350P, -3330, 2550K, -2500K, -2500, -2450P, -2400, -2380P, -2320, -2310, -2300

Core i7-980, -970, -960
Core i7-870, -875K
Core i3-3225, -3240, -3220, -3210, -2100, -2105, -2120, -2125, -2130
FX-8350, FX-8320, 8150, 6300, 4300,
Phenom II X6 1100T BE, 1090T BE
Phenom II X4 Black Edition 980, 975
Core i7-860, -920, -930, -940, -950
Core i5-3220T, -750, -760, -2405S, -2400S
Core 2 Extreme QX9775, QX9770, QX9650
Core 2 Quad Q9650
FX-8120, 6200, 4170
Phenom II X6 1075T
Phenom II X4 Black Edition 970, 965, 955
A10-5800K, -5700
A8-3850, -3870K, -5600K
Athlon II X4 651K, 645, 641, 640
Core 2 Extreme QX6850, QX6800
Core 2 Quad Q9550, Q9450, Q9400
Core i5-650, -655K, -660, -661, -670, -680
Core i3-2100T, -2120T
FX-6100, -4100, -4130
Phenom II X6 1055T, 1045T
Phenom II X4 945, 940, 920
Phenom II X3 Black Edition 720, 740
A8-5500
A6-3650, -3670K
Athlon II X4 635, 630
Core 2 Extreme QX6700
Core 2 Quad Q6700, Q9300, Q8400, Q6600, Q8300
Core 2 Duo E8600, E8500, E8400, E7600
Core i3 -530, -540, -550
Pentium G2130, G2120, G2020, G2010, G870, G860, G850, G840, G645, G640, G630
Phenom II X4 910, 910e, 810
Athlon II X4 620, 631
Athlon II X3 460
Core 2 Extreme X6800
Core 2 Quad Q8200
Core 2 Duo E8300, E8200, E8190, E7500, E7400, E6850, E6750
Pentium G620
Celeron G1620, G1610, G555, G550, G540, G530
Phenom II X4 905e, 805
Phenom II X3 710, 705e
Phenom II X2 565 BE, 560 BE, 555 BE, 550 BE, 545
Phenom X4 9950
Athlon II X3 455, 450, 445, 440, 435, 425
Core 2 Duo E7200, E6550, E7300, E6540, E6700
Pentium Dual-Core E5700, E5800, E6300, E6500, E6600, E6700
Pentium G9650
Phenom X4 9850, 9750, 9650, 9600
Phenom X3 8850, 8750
Athlon II X2 265, 260, 255
A6-5500K
A4-5300, -3400
Athlon 64 X2 6400+
Core 2 Duo E4700, E4600, E6600, E4500, E6420
Pentium Dual-Core E5400, E5300, E5200, G620T
Phenom X4 9500, 9550, 9450e, 9350e
Phenom X3 8650, 8600, 8550, 8450e, 8450, 8400, 8250e
Athlon II X2 240, 245, 250
Athlon X2 7850, 7750
Athlon 64 X2 6000+, 5600+
Core 2 Duo E4400, E4300, E6400, E6320
Celeron E3300
Phenom X4 9150e, 9100e
Athlon X2 7550, 7450, 5050e, 4850e/b
Athlon 64 X2 5400+, 5200+, 5000+, 4800+
Core 2 Duo E5500, E6300
Pentium Dual-Core E2220, E2200, E2210
Celeron E3200
Athlon X2 6550, 6500, 4450e/b,
Athlon X2 4600+, 4400+, 4200+, BE-2400
Pentium Dual-Core E2180
Celeron E1600, G440
Athlon 64 X2 4000+, 3800+
Athlon X2 4050e, BE-2300
Pentium Dual-Core E2160, E2140
Celeron E1500, E1400, E1200

Summary

There you have it folks: the best gaming CPUs for the money this month. Now all that’s left to do is to find and purchase them.

Also remember that the stores don’t follow this list. Things will change over the course of the month and you’ll probably have to adapt your buying strategy to deal with fluctuating prices. Good luck!

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  • -2 Hide
    MajinCry , 20 March 2013 21:20
    "benchmark data makes it clear that the company's Hyper-Threading technology is effective in helping improve the performance of a dual-core CPU in threaded games. " Err. What? This line sounds as if it was sponsored by intel.

    HT-ing, if anything, decreases performance in games. You might get a gain in programs, but not in games.
  • 0 Hide
    bemused_fred , 21 March 2013 06:40
    MajinCry"benchmark data makes it clear that the company's Hyper-Threading technology is effective in helping improve the performance of a dual-core CPU in threaded games. " Err. What? This line sounds as if it was sponsored by intel.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.
  • 1 Hide
    Dave Diddly , 21 March 2013 10:05
    Excluding all the Sandybridge and Ivybridge Pentiums and Celerons is a bit of a oversight and makes this article a bit of a joke, especially as they are some of the best value processors that can run modern games quite well.
  • 1 Hide
    brianthesnail , 21 March 2013 13:05
    couldnt agree more with dave diddly... the pentiums both sandybridge and ivybridge are exceptional processors that are becoming more popular with budget minded gamers... were as the athlon II x4 640 is a joke compared to them .... its old hat and with a 95w tdp compared to 55w on the ivybridge pentiums the ivybridge pentiums are by far the better entry level cpu,s ..
    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
  • 1 Hide
    chriss000 , 21 March 2013 22:54
    My E6600 even at stock played fallout3 GOTY, Bioshock 2, no probs.
    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.
  • 1 Hide
    blazorthon , 22 March 2013 06:17
    brianthesnailcouldnt agree more with dave diddly... the pentiums both sandybridge and ivybridge are exceptional processors that are becoming more popular with budget minded gamers... were as the athlon II x4 640 is a joke compared to them .... its old hat and with a 95w tdp compared to 55w on the ivybridge pentiums the ivybridge pentiums are by far the better entry level cpu,s .. 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


    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.
  • 0 Hide
    blazorthon , 22 March 2013 06:19
    Dave DiddlyExcluding all the Sandybridge and Ivybridge Pentiums and Celerons is a bit of a oversight and makes this article a bit of a joke, especially as they are some of the best value processors that can run modern games quite well.


    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.
  • 0 Hide
    david cassar , 11 April 2013 19:41
    why dont they put the athlon ii x4 750k which is 65 pounds