Best Gaming CPUs For The Money: November '09

[cleeve]

Welcome to another edition of our Best Gaming CPUs for the Money. This month we have a handful of AMD-based processor introductions to factor into our recommendations. Moreover, Intel's Core i5-750 finds itself back on the list for new system builders.

Best Gaming CPUs For The Money: November '09 : Read more

 

[liquidsnake718]

E7500 still going strong and on the list....

 

[Otus]

AFAIKT, Athlon II 425 runs at 2700 MHz, not 2800 MHz.

 

[osse]

Kinda strange that here on toms I5-750 is superior in gaming, well true if u want to play on low resolution and with no AA, AF and so on, because at 800x600 the I5-750 whipes the floor with AMD 965, but then something a bit strange happens when u turn the heat up.
Source:
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...sk=view&id=384&Itemid=63&limit=1&limitstart=7

Testet with radeon 5850.

Devil May Cry 4 Benchmark[/b]

Benchmark Reviews uses the DirectX 10 test set at 1920x1200 resolution to test with 8x AA (highest common AA setting available between GeForce and Radeon video cards) and 16x AF. The benchmark runs through four different test scenes, but scenes #2 and #4 usually offer the most graphical challenge.
Sene 2
I5-750 - Looses with 4,8 frames
Sene 4
I5-750 – Looses with 4,4 frames

Far Cry 2 Benchmark
Og Far Cry is nown to be good on the Intel arcitecture

Benchmark Reviews used the maximum settings allowed for DirectX 10 tests, with the resolution set to 1920x1200. Performance settings were all set to 'Very High', Render Quality was set to 'Ultra High' overall quality, 8x anti-aliasing was applied, and HDR and Bloom were enabled.

I5-750 – Looses with 1,8 frames

Resident Evil 5 Tests
Benchmark Reviews uses the DirectX 10 version of the test at 1920x1200 resolution. Super-High quality settings are configured, with 8x MSAA post processing effects for maximum demand on the GPU. Test scenes from Area #3 and Area #4 require the most graphics processing power, and the results are collected for the chart illustrated below.
Area 3#
I5-750 – Loses with1,6 frames
Area 4#
i5-750 – Looses with 3,7 frames

Source:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/phenom-ii-x4-965-be-revision-c3-review-test/

And even against the i7-940 with radeon 5870 on max settings, 1920x1080, the phenom 965 wins 2 of 4, ties in on, looses 1 on.

Shoudnt this tell that to base that a cpu is good with low resulutions is worthless when it comes to real gameplay.

 

[osse]

Well the link sources isnt in the post over, dont know why, but the numbers are from Benchmarkreviews and Guru3d.

 

[osse]

Fixed.

 

[osse]

So far on the net with tests with powerful grapic cards the phenom wins 80% against nehalm, well there are only 2 test on the web where real settings are appliend, but that will change now, since Toms is doing it so far good "balanced gamer rigg artichles

Edit:

Thanks Izzycraft

And edit a lil bit more

If my memory serves me right Phenom does better than i7 with the nvidia gtx 285 when the grapic card is on max settings to, confirmed here on toms among other places.

 

[laweinhander]

The athlon x3's DO NOT have 3 mb of l2 cache !
This needs changed asap...
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/athlon-ii-x3,2452-2.html

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]laweinhander[/nom]The athlon x3's DO NOT have 3 mb of l2 cache !This needs changed asap...http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 452-2.html[/citation]

Fixed!

 

[IzzyCraft]

oh hilarity ensues

edit: osse you can edit your posts but finding the forum and post is not that easy, you can even delete a post if you go into full edit instead of a quick edit

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareus.inc&cat=56&post=2466&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum-56.html

And the reason why cpus are tested at low resolutions is more academic then practical yes but it does show in theory that what a cpu can do when other parts of the computer isn't holding it back mainly the gpu as "practical" test can't show everyone's personal set up and quarks of a system

 

[4ILY45]

pentium dual-core E2160 still there..

 

[2shea]

@ osse, 1 to 4 frames difference is not something I would call worthless performance... That can easily be a difference because of slightly other parts besides the cpu as it would be the cpu.
And if it were so that it was 1-4 frames slower that still doesn't mean it is slower on all facets of cpu usage. ofcourse gaming is important but other tasks it will outperform amd easily.

 

[2shea]

@ osse, 1 to 4 frames difference is not something I would call worthless performance... That can easily be a difference because of slightly other parts besides the cpu as it would be the cpu.
And if it were so that it was 1-4 frames slower that still doesn't mean it is slower on all facets of cpu usage. ofcourse gaming is important but other tasks it will outperform amd easily.

 

[batuchka]

Actually with latest prices in the $100-150 cataogory we have
Phenom 2 x4 925 @ $141
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103656
Locked multi but still good to go for clocking hehe

 

[copfrance]

I have asked this question op a number of forums but nobody seems to know the answer. What is the CPU design software that AMD and Intel use for designing their processors. Maybe Cadence products?

 

[Onyx2291]

Good to consider then build around. Will help with the few builds I am considering.

 

[osse]

@2shea

I for the most agree that 1-4 frames isnt much, and it wasnt in that context i refered to the 2 tests where high end grapic card is used 5850/5870.

While there is no diffrense in 100 vs 130 frames, there can be a diffrense between 40 and 44 frames in gamer experience. However small.

It was in the context to the claim that i5-750 is superior in gaming. When it actually loose when you have settings that gamers want.

Edit:
And i was actually more supprised when guru matched i7-940 vs phenom 965, espeially in Far cry, wich should be a very good game for Nehalm, I7-940 wins big times on 1024x768, but looses with a few frames when we go to 1920x1200.
with gamer settings : high-quality DX10 mode with 4x AA (anti-aliasing) and 16x AF (anisotropic filtering).

Same happens in Brother In Arms, i7-940 wins big time 1024x768, and looses with a few frames in 1920x1200. In crysis they tie at 1920x1200, and resident evil I7-940 wins good.

But the conclusion so far of tests out on the web with gamer setting , is that overall phenomII 965 is abel to pull a few more frames out of the radeon 58xx, both against the i5-750 and i7-940. On stock speed.

And that is the oposit result of what you would expect from testing in low resolutions and no grapic effects tells us, there both i5-750 and i7-940 wins big time.

 

[gtvr]

I just bought an i750 at Microcenter for $149. Great steal, not sure if they have pics of Andy Grove or something, but that changed the price/performance enough for me to go Intel this time around - I'd been looking at Phenom II x3s until that find.

 

[evongugg]

It would be nice to do an overclocked section, so we could compare overclcocked to non overclocked processors. It is being done here:

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/overclocked_cpus.html

 

[ifko_pifko]

Uhm... what is E7500 doing there, when there is also E6500, which supports virtualization... unlike the E7500?

 

[ifko_pifko]

Uhm... what is E7500 doing there, when there is also E6500, which supports virtualization... unlike the E7500?

 

[skora]

Nice chart evongugg. The info is great, just don't like that you have to mouse over to see what the OC speed was used. All seem fairly moderate, but a good gauge of free extra performance.

On the hierarchy chart, comment on the note about three tiers before noticing a difference. Should this be reduced in cases where you're going from a dual core to a tri or quad. Example, an A64 x2 5600+ to a x3 425. Seems like there's enough justification to make the jump sooner than later.

 

[jimbofluffy]

I just built a rig for cheap including the Athlon II 435 and a HIS Radeon HD 4670 1GB which just went on sale on Newegg for $15 off. In any case I am still very happy with the performance I got for the price

 

[tester24]

I think the i7 860 would be a better choice for the 280 mark. One thing the MB of the 1156 are cheaper and you don't have to spend the extra money on a third memory channel. That being said you could spend that extra money on a graphics card as well as a better CPU cooler for overclocking.

Sure it doesn't have the two PCIe 2.0 x16 slots however the benchmark did show that it wasn't a significant performance hit and would be a good overall system. And I am a big AMD fan however their current lineup isn't that great.

I'll eventually come back to them if Bulldozer is a success.

 

[scook9]

and yet the Core i7 920 has been selling for $200 ever since February (Micro Center) and is the only recommendation I make to anyone building a new pc