Best Gaming CPUs For The Money: January 2011

[gamerk316]

[citation][nom]talalhaj[/nom]Could you please mark best CPUs in blue (or as a link) in the hierarchy chart...[/citation]

Its at the top: The i7 2600k.

 

[wolfram23]

Interesting to see the i3 fit in between some X4 Phenoms.

 

[hythos]

[citation][nom]marraco[/nom]Hate Intel and his "no, you can't reuse your old mobo".From an updater perspective, AMD costs much less. You should add a motherboard price to each Sandy Bridge.[/citation]

Exactly. Totally over-looked. True, it follows-suit for any upgrade, but..... having to pay $150 for a new 1156board +$250cpu vs finding an AWESOME nForce 980a SLI board on-line for $50 to upgrade an older 775cpu, +2 460's for $200 and maybe some extra RAM and heavy CPU fan...


$400 can stretch a long ways.

[citation][nom]masterasia[/nom]Why is there a Phenom II X4 in the 2nd top tier and a Phenom II X6?Still, the Phenom II X4 975 is still not worth the price because the i7 950 still rocks.I'm gonna have to get me one of those i7 2600K, but I'm going to wait until a revision comes out.[/citation]


I would bet that it may be because not many games (yet) take advantage of more than 2 cores, yet alone 4 or 6, or 8, or 12, so the Cache of Phenom ii CPU's helps crunch wonders.



Also -

 

[chickenhoagie]

so basically AMD rapes the CPU lineup for best bang for the buck again.Glad to see my phenom 955 has only dropped $10 since i bought it half a year ago. those i5 processors look like such a ripoff. My phenom overclocks to 4.0ghz, so give me a good reason to spend almost $100 more Intel. My phenom rocks my fathers quad core with 12mb l2 cache, and his is even rated .1 higher in the windows index than mine. I don't see why people say AMD makes crap processors in comparison to intel..if only AMD sponsored more..

 

[Onus]

My 740BE isn't even in a top-3 tier, but if I wanted to improve performance in most games, I'd need to replace my HD5770 or GTX460 before considering a new CPU. I will probably upgrade in a couple of months, but my reason is almost entirely for platform improvements, not performance. I'd probably choose an i5-2400S for the low power, except that I want the option of overclocking. I'm going to wait and see what Bulldozer offers, but I could see putting my current CPU into an AM3+ board just for new features.

 

[binoyski]

Don, since you mentioned you have a "story in the works" about multi-gpu setup on the p67/nf200, would you consider doing benchmark on setups having more than one monitor, three to be exact, I would like to see if an 1155 build dual x8 pcie mode will be bottlenecked at very high resolutions(5670x1200).
Thanks! Great article.

 

[akula2]

Why not 2600? I don't think people can run their machines with 2600K by doing lot of OCing for a long time. If that's the case then the processor life would get screwed up or even gets burnt up! Anyway, I've bought both for different reasons minus mad OCing.

 

[yyk71200]

OH, man. AMD needs to roll out Bulldozer more than ever now. Considering, that it is a prety serious CPU overhaul, I expect AMD to remain in a mid range segment pretty firmly. I would want to say that it would challenge even high end Intel CPUs but don't want to be unrealistic.

 

[jerreece]

Sandy Bridge finally bumped the i5-750/760 off the list.

 

[kkiddu]

So the new i5 2500k is gonna be the i5-750 of 2011. I get a feeling that this proccy is here to stay on the recommendations list.

 

[nemo888]

So my overclocked i-7 is still top of the heap. Yawn. All the new hardware is sitting under a tarp till the recession is over. Don't bother upgrading till the next gen comes out.

 

[ProDigit10]

[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]Haven't been able to test them. Once that's out of the way I can assign them an appropriate place.[/citation]
How about the S versions (2300S, 2400S and 2500S)?

 

[gc_sama]

so if i could get the i5 2400 at 150 and the i5 2500k at 180(microcenter), which do you think the better deal would be assuming I dont want to overclock?

 

[Darkerson]

Nice read! More interesting then usual, what with the new Intel Sandy Bridges being out now. Im hoping that Ill be reading about AMD's BullDozer in the charts soon (One can hope, anyway) because I plan on rebuilding my system sometime around this coming summer, maybe later depending. Anyway, thanks!

 

[computerlame]

My old Q9650 is still strong in the overall hierarchy. Nice to see it hasn't been that outdated since I'd have to replace my existing socket 775 motherboard.

 

[boiler1990]

I want to know how the new i5s compare to the older ones.
It seemed more like a breakthrough for laptops (ULV, much better integrated graphics) and a refresh for desktops.

Plus, I feel like any difference(s) between the two generations could easily be remedied with the proper GPU.

 

[youssef 2010]

Nice Article. But PLEASE consider updating the game suite because using games that are three or more years old to test new CPUs isn't a good strategy.I think SC2 might be a better RTS game for your test suite.

 

[Proximon]

If "good enough today" was our only criteria we would all still be using Athlon 64s. Time marches on and CPUs that work well enough today may not be up to the task in two or three years. That's why the i7-2600K is not past the point of reason. It's a strong value.

 

[cleeve]

[citation][nom]ProDigit10[/nom]How about the S versions (2300S, 2400S and 2500S)?[/citation]

S versions simply use less power. Same processor otherwise.

 

[Guest]

Okay, so which motherboard should I get for my 2600K if my main use is 3D Studio and video encoding?

 

[_Pez_]

I know intel has good processors that's undeniable, but I see their changes of platform and chipsets and PRICES, and I think welcome to the hairy jungle of intel, WHERE YOU WILL NEVER KNOW what's new and old. And by the time you think is new you will realize it is not.. LOL is that okey by intel??.. Offering no possibility of upgrade with last generation of their own products?, is that good for us as costumers?... do we have to pay even more ?

 

[enzo matrix]

[citation][nom]skora[/nom]I'm a little surprised the first gaming CPU is the $90 x3 455. I would figure one of the $70 x3s to start the line. Not sure what pricing looked like when written, but the 3.2 ghz x3 450 is $10 cheaper. $10 isn't worth 100 mhz if I'm looking at an entry level budget build.[/citation]
Agreed. They also shunned anybody who didn't have at least $100 to spend. First, as you said, there are cheaper x3's at a lower price and minimal performance decrease. Second, the Athlon IIx2 is an excellent option at about $50 if you don't have much money.

 

[eddieroolz]

Man, it looks like Intel is invading the charts again.

 

[Guest]

Why can't think of a easy naming hierarchy?

 

[Stardude82]

[citation][nom]Cleeve[/nom]S versions simply use less power. Same processor otherwise.[/citation]
S versions run at lower clock speed... maybe you should do an article on SB scaling. A 2500K should be able to model the rest of the quads if the Turbo control will oblige.