Best CPUs (Archive)

[cangelini]

Here are the best gaming CPUs for the money. These processors offer the best performance at their price and are suitable for overclocking.

Best CPUs : Read more

 

[adamovera]

Archived comments are found here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3406973/cpus.html

 

[NoUntakenNames]

The 1600X doesn't deserve to be on the list, because it adds very little over a slightly OC'd 1600. You're tossing a bundled cooler and $30 for 400 Mhz. I'd recomend a 1600 and a $30 cooler like the H7 or Hyper 212, which would allow for an OC higher than 3.6 Ghz and a few bucks in your pocket as you don't need to spend extra money for an "X".

Otherwise, the updated list is very welcome, and I'm really happy to hear that Ryzen has improved for gaming. Good work, guys.

 

[Supahos]

Glad to see you climbed off the hill you died on last month. Glad you didn't take the lazy way out and not include ryzen in the x299 review to show ryzens growth

 

[elbert]

Think it should have included the Ryzne 7 1700 as its way cheaper than the 7700K. Amazon has it for $296.71 with a heatsink which its miles ahead for streaming gamers.

 

[Supahos]

Paul you mentioned some tests while streaming and or running a bunch of background stuff at one point is this still in the plans?

 

[dorsai]

I'm just happy to see two companies competing for spots on the list again...both with solid products

 

[Teddie_Bear]

The 1600X has 6 physical and 12 logical cores, and not "six logical cores and 12 threads", since logical cores is the amount of physical cores multiplied by the amount of threads that each core can run, essentially the same as the amount of threads.

 

[Sakkura]

I still find the recommendation of the Core i3-7100 strange, considering it's far more expensive than a Pentium and pretty much the same performance. But otherwise this is a pretty nice list of recommendations.

 

[JRHERITA]

What resolutions are these at? It looks like one set of charts may be 1080p and the other 1440p but I can't tell?

 

[Supahos]

A cpu doesn't care about the resolution, only the GPU does.

 

[FritzEiv]

Paul you mentioned some tests while streaming and or running a bunch of background stuff at one point is this still in the plans?

Paul's working on something along these lines. We keep getting bombarded (in a good way, of course) with more SKUs to test, but trust that we have some things in the works here, so stay tuned.

 

[derekullo]

A cpu doesn't care about the resolution, only the GPU does.

That is wrong on so many different levels.

 

[Supahos]

No, changing resolution has nearly no impact on the CPU usage. Actually assuming you aren't cpu bottlnecked at say 1440p with a setup dropping to 1080p will actually increase CPU load as the GPU can handle more frames. 60 fps at 720-1080-1440p all require nearly the same CPU load. Lock frames to 60 and check for yourself

 

[beetlejuicegr]

Why top right is best? shouldnt it be bottom right the best compared to a top right best part? ? (low cost max performance?)

 

[rasmusdf]

Nice set of recommendations. It's great there are some clear alternatives to choose from. It will be interesting to see what AMD can bring to the budget space.

 

[namad7]

@elbert I think the ryzen 7 1700 was left out because 8 cores is too many for gaming, wasting heat that isn't useful and lowering clockspeeds. Which is fine for the 1700x or i7-7700k because the unlocked multiplier means at the very top end you can just liquid cool them and get the cores AND base clockspeed both. I have no idea who the ryzen 7 1700 is for though, excepting streamers, or other office rendering tasks. Then I think the ryzen 1700x was left off for being arbitrarily above the maximum price they ever recommend. Basically the top of the line pick cannot have the locked clockspeed of the ryzen 7 1700, maybe the ryzen 7 1700 deserved to be on the list, but only if they added another price point between the ones they already had.

 

[Sakkura]

@elbert I think the ryzen 7 1700 was left out because 8 cores is too many for gaming, wasting heat that isn't useful and lowering clockspeeds. Which is fine for the 1700x or i7-7700k because the unlocked multiplier means at the very top end you can just liquid cool them and get the cores AND base clockspeed both. I have no idea who the ryzen 7 1700 is for though, excepting streamers, or other office rendering tasks. Then I think the ryzen 1700x was left off for being arbitrarily above the maximum price they ever recommend. Basically the top of the line pick cannot have the locked clockspeed of the ryzen 7 1700, maybe the ryzen 7 1700 deserved to be on the list, but only if they added another price point between the ones they already had.

The Ryzen 7 1700 is fully unlocked for overclocking, and will generally hit just about the same overclocks as the more expensive 1700X and 1800X.

 

[synphul]

What's with the cpu pricing on the 7600k? The Amazon price says $350 by the auto price grabber (at least I assume that's what it is). This article was written yesterday yet today I'm looking at Amazon and the price is $239.99 in stock. Are the price to performance charts also using this oddly high price of around 45% inflation over what it's actually available for?

Nevermind, I see what happened. It's overpriced since it's a bundle deal for a 240mm aio cooler. There are less expensive bundle deals on the same page. Not sure why we're comparing an outrageously high price of the i5 paired with a high end liquid cooler. Yes the 7600k doesn't come with a stock cooler but neither does the 1600x and it's listed and priced at cpu only. What's the price of a 1600x if the user decides to go full EK custom loop at around $450?

A bit drastic but nothing mentioned ahead of the link, instead it's a poor misrepresentation. For those who don't know any better they'll see the i5 as way out of their price range when in fact it's identically priced to the ryzen 1600x. A more fair comparison of price since both are sans cooler. Or someone gets the impression the i7 7700k is cheaper and then realizes it also needs a cooler like the 1600x and 7600k.

 

[Sakkura]

What's with the cpu pricing on the 7600k?

The Amazon price links are dynamic, so they can do silly things. The price/performance charts are based on realistic prices at the time the article was written.

 

[mdd1963]

a 7600K is not $349.....your listing shows it costing less than the 7700K......; not very likely

 

[randomizer]

Please correct the product link for the 7600k. It's currently reporting an expensive bundle price rather than the price of the CPU alone.

 

[woodscrews]

the 99th percentile results dont tell all though, this test should also have included results for the worst 1% of frames too, because it seems one thing that the 7700ks monstrous single threaded performance cannot deal with is the low minimums vs almost all high core count chips.

 

[Sakkura]

the 99th percentile results dont tell all though, this test should also have included results for the worst 1% of frames too, because it seems one thing that the 7700ks monstrous single threaded performance cannot deal with is the low minimums vs almost all high core count chips.

The 99th percentile frame time is the frame time that 99% of frames are delivered at or under. So it's the level separating the 1% of worst frames from the other 99%. It's a more robust figure than "minimum framerate" that was used in the past. It gives a more representative view of stutters, by ignoring the most extreme outliers.

 

[SR TEE]

I'm glad to see Tom's Hardware addressed the concerns of it's readers by actually factoring in motherboard and H/F costs giving much better picture of dollar to performance ratio.