Game-Off: Seven Sub-$150 Processors Compared

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no l4d benchmark? tbh i think the majority that plays with sub 150 processors plays valve's games. probably anyone with a gaming PC plays valves games its pretty much a core game tbh for any gamer.
 
Hmmm I am going to stick with my nuked 8250e (2.57ghz) that I landed ultra cheap. $46 up front and later sold some crap that brought it down to a meager $16.50 so I got a good deal. 3 cores for less than $20 awesome. :)

 
I would like to see a few of these CPUs paired with different GPUs to see how specific CPU/GPU pairs match up against each other(?)
 
[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]Enough of these articles for poor people already! The recession is over!I want to see some gaming benchmarks for dual-socket 980-Xs.[/citation]
Yeah let's benchmark a dual socket board with two thousand dollar processors so we can get a graphica card bottleneck at high resolutions. It would be more worthwhile to do another three way Fermi sli article. That alone shows your ignorance.
 
1. There's a typo early on talking about the 540 and 545; should be 940 and 945 I think.
2. The i3 looks like a surprisingly valid choice. For primarily gaming, I hope I didn't simply waste money getting an i5/650 recently.
3. It looks like that L3 cache really matters.
4. I would really like to have seen the Phenom II X2 555 in this. I don't think it would have looked all that good, but would have given perspective on cache vs core count. A 720BE would have answered the same question, and probably looked a lot better doing it. Both are in the <$150 range.
5. Although I've seen bang/buck charts in similar roundups before, this time you can probably decide what minimum performance you want, then buy the cheapest one that gives it (but consider the multitasking question too).
 
[citation][nom]Poisoner[/nom]It would be more worthwhile to do another three way Fermi sli article.[/citation]

Three-way? Pffft, another coupon clipper. Why don't you run along to Newegg, I hear they have a 10% off on 9800GTs or something. Tell them my GPGPU cluster said hi.
 
Just an FYI, my i3-530 running on a cheapo ECS mini-itx mb is running at 4.0ghz cool and stable. When running a decent mb 4.4 to 4.8 on air is pretty easy. 5.0ghz on water seems to be the standard. Bang per buck that can't be beat.
 
AMD pretty much has it up until $200, except for the i3-530 which is a good entry CPU. Past that $200 mark, you can get an i5-750 which is all the CPU you'll ever need.

The only reason to choose AMD after $200 is for a hex core thuban, if you really need 6 cores, although AMD has done very well with their Phenom II pricing.. Intel may have the performance crown, but AMD isn't taking it laying down
 
[citation][nom]luke904[/nom]please dont quote the multitasking benchmark as no sane person compresses stuff while gaming[/citation]

It's not about compressing stuff while gaming, it's about multitasking.

I used to use AVG for multitasking benches and saw similar results. I switched to compression because I found AVG demonstrated inconsistent performance at times. But if you look at previous multitasking benches using AVG the results are just as dramatic as these file compression multitasking benches.
 
[citation][nom]LATTEH[/nom]no l4d benchmark? tbh i think the majority that plays with sub 150 processors plays valve's games. probably anyone with a gaming PC plays valves games its pretty much a core game tbh for any gamer.[/citation]

Left4Dead isn't that useful a benchmark. Even a slow dual-core CPU will get over 60 FPS in Left 4 Dead, it's graphics-card limted and the frame rates are astronomical.

This is why I've been leaving Left 4 Dead out of the benches lately, who cares if you're getting 80 FPS or 120 FPS?
 
[citation][nom]killerclick[/nom]Three-way? Pffft, another coupon clipper. Why don't you run along to Newegg, I hear they have a 10% off on 9800GTs or something. Tell them my GPGPU cluster said hi.[/citation]

Yeah I will have dual 4870s in crossfire in a week so I will pass on that. But go on and keep making an ass out of yourself. If you are so rich then go get the gear and benchmark it yourself.
 
[citation][nom]luke904[/nom]...please dont quote the multitasking benchmark as no sane person compresses stuff while gaming...[/citation] Compression, probably not. But how many of us have been gaming when the trusty old anti-virus kicks in on its own? Or Windows decides to start auto-updating? Or some other scheduled task (that we forgot to disable/turn off) kicks in?

It's kinda nice to have the extra cores at that point, no? =)
 
[citation][nom]dxrick[/nom]Uh dudes.... The Intel Core 2 Quad 8300 is currently $149.99 on the egg. It should be in the test!!![/citation]

As we mention in the article, we stayed away from the LGA 775 platform. It doesn't really have a future.
 
[citation][nom]luke904[/nom]sorry but i must disagree...the core i3 530 was 8% faster than the athlon X4 and costs $5 lessits a great processor it seems, a nice change from intel. but i admit, my heart sunk after seeing amd's athlon X4 get beat. its like sports, i root for AMDplease dont quote the multitasking benchmark as no sane person compresses stuff while gaming...yes the athlon would probably be better overall for most people, but not for gaming[/citation]

I do a lot of stuff while gaming. In fact I regularly play games while encoding because I have one computer and a lot to do. For me the multitasking was some really good info on the i3.
 
I've been searching the "Athlon II X2 255 vs. Pentium G6950", but this review "Phenom II X2 555 Vs. Pentium G6950" always comes up. Did I miss something?
 
[citation][nom]heffeque[/nom]No temperature and power consumption comparative? If you're low on cash for a CPU you're also low on cash for the electric bill.[/citation]

The difference is almost imperceptible. We've done these types of comparisons in the past with HIGH energy usage CPUs and the yearly bill was insignificant.

If you're a corporation deploying thousands of PCs it might make a difference, but for the home user $3 a month isn't going to change your world.
 
[citation][nom]digiex[/nom]I've been searching the "Athlon II X2 255 vs. Pentium G6950", but this review "Phenom II X2 555 Vs. Pentium G6950" always comes up. Did I miss something?[/citation]

No, I did. "Phenom II X2 555 Vs. Pentium G6950" is the right one. Fixed!
 


Honestly, it didn't get tested because I didn't see value there. We've looked at the stock gaming performance in the Phenom II X2 555 vs. Pentium G6950 article and when you look at all the data the triple-core Athlon II X3 is cheaper and a better choice, especially in real world scenarios where stuff might run in the background. And you can see how the dual-core CPUs take a beating in the charts, even with the cache it's just not going to cut it. With triple-core CPUs available for so cheap now there not many reasons to go dual, especially since some apps and games show a significant performance hit.

In retrospect I might have added the Phenom II X3 X3 720 but they're no longer being replenished at retail, I think those might be OEM-only CPUs now.


 
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