Best Gaming CPUs For The Money: January 2012 (Archive)

[wabash9000]

I just got an i7-4770k for $199. Did I break this article?

 

[Wisecracker]

As gaming resolutions climb ever higher and graphic cards become more powerful, the CPU is becoming less of an impediment

I'm a late adopter, anyway, so what would interest me is more CPU testing on modern video cards at higher resolutions (not that I'll be making a move to 2560x1440 anytime soon). Let's see what those 920s and 965s can do.

(not asking for much, huh?)

 

[InvalidError]

I just got an i7-4770k for $199. Did I break this article?

Not really. The article is based on regular everyday prices. Not deal-of-the-day in-store-only prices from a single retailer that most people do not have access to.

If I wanted to buy a discounted CPU from Microcenter, it would probably cost me over $100 in gas for the trip.

 

[Sakkura]

The article is still claiming that the FX-4130 is based on Piledriver - at least in one place.

 

[caamsa]

There are 965 Comments

Will you ever fix this? ever....? I mean really.....will you?

 

[alithegreat]

Clean comments for each revision of this article PLEASE

 

[InvalidError]

Clean comments for each revision of this article PLEASE

They should simply create a new article for each iteration instead of overwriting the previous one. This way, you get a new comment thread for each update and the ability to look up past versions to see how things have progressed.

 

[artk2219]

"cleeve , January 15, 2013 3:30 PM
Tigerdirect is having a short-term sale, and Microcenter has no on-line option so you have to live close to one. Regardless, it doesn't have an impact on the recommendations as the Core i5 is a much better performer in games for the $.

You need to do a better job of criticizing. Try reading the first page, it'll help. "

best criticism is this:
Intel Core i7 4770K 3.5GHz Socket LGA 1150 Boxed Processor
Processor pricing varies by store
$199.99 Save $170.00 / Originally $369.99
Find online. Buy in store.
http://www.microcenter.com/product/413248/Core_i7_4770K_35GHz_Socket_LGA_1150_Boxed_Processor

Intel Core i5 3570K 3.4GHz Socket LGA 1155 Boxed Processor
Processor pricing varies by store
Available for In-Store Pickup Only.
$149.99 Save $100.00 / Originally $249.99
http://www.microcenter.com/product/388577/Core_i5_3570K_34GHz_LGA_1155_Processor

of course i did not hear about this from Tom's, no no, i read about it on my microcenter enews update and would have missed it had i waited another 2 days to check my email.

grannys slow but she's old, i want to pick up your gauntlet and throw $170 discounted big reasons at you why it'd be nice to get a tip for even the meager few (10,000+) or so microcenter store customers who read toms, because microcenter atleast prints out your articles and posts them at their department desks for thousands of NON TOMS HARDWARE READERS to review in their purchasing decisions.

(this is what you get for your new recycling article comments section Toms)

have a little blankity blank blank courtesy and tip your hat at the guys who are putting YOUR PRODUCT OUT THERE AT MICROCENTER especially Sales Associate Jeremy M. for putting my $200 i7 4770K at St. Louis Park at the register in less than 5 minutes (along with the 3 other guys drooling at the display case getting these sweet deals) instead of waiting 1-3 days...still waiting on the newegg.com Maximus VI Formula to arrive which i placed the order for the day before i had time to get over to Microcenter and buy my i7 4770K FOR $200+ 7% sales tax. (1% of which goes to fund the the non taxed major league and national league sports team for new stadiums)

Lol, fellow Atlanta native I take it?

 

[Someone Somewhere]

@Microcenter
I5 3570K $189.99
I7-3770K $249.99

still promoting the 1155? that's dumb, as we can't find any proper motherboard with pcigen 3.0, only mid range crap...

Pretty much every LGA1155 board has PCIe3.0 support, if used with an Ivy chip.

 

[coolronz]

Do PC owners only game? I just recently upgraded my 3820 to a 4930K, altho the FPS stayed the same with my CFx3 HD7970's, I can tell you for certain its a much much smoother experience.... I'm a casual gamer at best, multi-tasking is where its at...

 

[JacFlasche]

Ok, I am still waiting to buy, but now it seems that I am waiting for a mb that a Haswell E can be dropped into when they show up in 14. It seems like that will be the first daylight for the long side-lined gamers looking for a decent halflife on a tech powerup.

 

[Razor88]

Question: Why benchmark both Starcraft 2 and Skyrim (both relying heavily on single threaded power). Why not bench Crysis 3 / Battlefield 4 for the other side of the spectrum?

 

[de5_Roy]

Question: Why benchmark both Starcraft 2 and Skyrim (both relying heavily on single threaded power). Why not bench Crysis 3 / Battlefield 4 for the other side of the spectrum?

crysis 3 and bf4 single player are gpu bound, mostly. crysis 3 can tax cpus depending on where it's benchmarked, but it's mostly gpu bound. bf4 m.p. and other multiplayer games are near-inpossible to bench because no two m.p. runs are similar. sites who test m.p. games are aware of this.

edit: i too, would like to see either starcraft or skyrim be replaced by another mainstream game.

 

[SessouXFX]

Guyz, to you and to everyone else that wondering the same thing.
Tom's Hardware and most sites take numbers from stock clocks always...
When a CPU is a good o/c then this is a plus on the recommendation but nothing more.

This. You decide how many tiers you might move up with an OC.
That said, I too am losing some confidence in the overall value of this chart. I realize that most games are much more dependent on the graphics card than the CPU for overall performance, but just on the AMD side, I'm seeing too many [left over?] kindnesses. 970BE on the same tier as a FX-6300?
Particularly at stock, it looks like a lot of older AMD CPUs need to lose at least a tier or two; sure, OC them to bring them back up, but at stock, they need to be lowered.
At the same time, too many Intel CPUs are on the same tier. Is there really that little difference?

The 970 BE consisted of two different types, the Deneb, and the Zosma. The Zosma was said to had a higher OC than the Deneb, and had an actual 6 cores, with two disabled. Whether or not it's just as good as the 6300 however, I would think they're probably closer than thought. because you really can't take the 6300 too high with 6 modules anyhow.

I got unlucky and bought a Deneb But there are some that said they got 4.2 GHZ out of it. Hmmm...

 

[crisan_tiberiu]

I would love to see a "best mobile gaming CPU for the money chart" 😀 TY

 

[Someone Somewhere]

I would love to see a "best mobile gaming CPU for the money chart" 😀 TY

Considering they're usually not sold separately, getting the 'money' part right could be difficult...

 

[crisan_tiberiu]

I would love to see a "best mobile gaming CPU for the money chart" 😀 TY

Considering they're usually not sold separately, getting the 'money' part right could be difficult...

Valid point, that is why purchasing a laptop is more difficult than a desktop... the reviews are minimal...

 

[raimoa1]

When this argument i made, then something is wrong eith their tests. Try going into a 64 player BF4 match using an i3 or i5 and see how your cpu will be choked to death, giving you fps drops because the cpu is ranging near 100%.

The tests that these guys make are static and do not reflect real-life mp perf.

For example sli/cf or 120 hz users see quite a big difference between a high end i7 and an i5. According to these benches, some brainless noobs think they can get the same performance from a 120 $ i3 cpu. In reality, there is just no universe in which an i7 and an i3 can REALLY compete.

HT has a massive advantage-it takes strain off the cpu. My i5 2500k is dying in bf4.

So absolutely no gain in any modern game from the additional threads of an i7-3770K?
In which case, why suggest anything more than a 3570K?

Side Note: Anything that equals a Core 2 Quad Q8400 isn't good enough any more. You'll be bottle-necked. Just my personal experience.

 

[dgingeri]

What about the 4820k? You readily list the 3770k and 3930k, but the 4820k is lower in price than the 3770k, and yet has more PCIe lanes to work with for SLI/Crossfire. Sure, it uses a more expensive series of motherboards for single gpu setups, but when you get into multi-gpu setups, the z77 winds up more expensive than the x79 because they have to add a bridge chip. I find the 4820k to be a much better value than the 3770k.

 

[InvalidError]

but when you get into multi-gpu setups, the z77 winds up more expensive than the x79 because they have to add a bridge chip.

There are almost no games where there is a significant difference between x8 and x16 on PCIe 3.0 so there is no need for a PCIe switch for x8x8 SLI/CFX setups. The switches become necessary only when you start looking into triple or quad GPU setups.

 

[tsnor]

I would love to see a "best mobile gaming CPU for the money chart" 😀 TY

www.notebookcheck.net has that, and the data cross checks for the few laptops i've compared

 

[SessouXFX]

Man...I want to get that 4820K, but I'm seriously contemplating waiting for the Haswell-E now...

 

[cmi86]

Why can't the 6300 just get a solid suggestion already ? It's a much more well rounded CPU capable of higher performance than the i3 in both gaming and productivity. Plus it cost's less and is surrounded by less expensive components. The tides are changing and basically every new gen game i play (C3, BF3, BF4,AC4) all use more than 2 cores. The dual core is a dying breed in the gaming arena. The only reason they make it look good is by still keeping single thread dinosaur titles in the benches (cough, skyrim cough starcraft cough) Replace these antiquated titles with a suite of modern games and you will see first hand the strength the FX 6300 holds over the i3.

 

[InvalidError]

The tides are changing and basically every new gen game i play (C3, BF3, BF4,AC4) all use more than 2 cores.

Yes, high-end new-generation games exist... but they represent only a relatively tiny slice (less than 5%) of the overall market.

 

[Sakkura]

Why can't the 6300 just get a solid suggestion already ? It's a much more well rounded CPU capable of higher performance than the i3 in both gaming and productivity. Plus it cost's less and is surrounded by less expensive components.

It is not capable of higher performance than the Core i3 in gaming. It costs slightly less, but the components around it are not less expensive. If you want overclocking, they're actually more expensive.