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

[adamovera]

Archived comments are found here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2247568/gaming-cpus-money-january-2012.html

 

[Guest]

This month, we talk about new Llano-based APUs with unlocked core and graphics clock multipliers, Intel's upcoming Atom CPU refresh, and a few notable price adjustments. Then, we bid farewell to a few favorite processors that are quickly disappearing.

Best Gaming CPUs For The Money: May 2012 : Read more

 

[Treynolds416]

No recommendation/honorable mention of i7-5820k in article whaaaaat

 

[blackmagnum]

If I was paying for the electricity, I would be picking Intel for my builds. What benefit do AMD's current CPUs have over Intel other than price and 'competition'?

 

[Amdlova]

i love the pentium g3258.

 

[UltimateDeep]

Agreed with Treynolds416.

All things considered, I would pick the Core i7 5820K over the 5930K. The processor itself is priced just very slightly over the 4790K and will still perform quite a bit better in Heavily threaded apps and gaming. I wouldn't care much about the lack of 12 PCI-E lanes because I wouldn't cramp in anything more than 2 GPUs anyways. Apart from the -12 PCI-E Lanes, the 5820K is still pretty much a 5930K; even if that was clocked lower, you can Overclock it so no difference at all.

 

[hmp_goose]

Sooo we still don't know if the new FX's will overclock to the same Hz using less W?

 

[Subhe Kudsi]

How about i3-4330 110$ @ Amazon ?

Cpu benchmarks at 5000 ( 2000 single thread)

 

[de5_Roy]

amd should launch steamroller-b based athlon x4 860K a.s.a.p. i wanna see how it fares against the pentium g3258.

 

[Memnarchon]

Since Intel has the same price for i5 4440 and i5 4430, why placing best gaming CPU for $180 the i5 4430? i5 4440 is clocked 100Mhz higher.

 

[RCPG]

There's a typo on the recommendation of Intel Core i7-5930K. In the text it say's Core i7-3530K and should say Core i7-5930K.

 

[Drejeck]

Based on this article I would like to know about the 35W TDP options.
I'm building a gaming HTPC with a PicoPSU 160XT (which has 96w of continuous output) and a GTX 750Ti from KFA2. I know that the i3 4130T fits the power requirements but I wish to know if stepping up to a 4C/4T with lower frequencies is better. In my opinion it should. Meanwhile I think I'll wait Broadwell K and the Impact VII ITX.

 

[Drejeck]

Yes I'm interested in 860K both for power consumption and performance in the entry level. I don't like 2M/4T architecture. I want AMD to go back to SMT architecture and if possible triple core processors.

 

[Onus]

Until I see the stuttering issue thoroughly addressed, I won't even consider the G3258 for a gamer. Maybe it's fine, but if it isn't, a lot of buyers will be severely irritated if they buy one. Tests please! And, this is one where balance matters. I know you typically isolate CPU performance by using a top-end graphics card, but in this case that may be little more than giving this chip the rope by which to hang itself. G3258+R7 260X may be more enjoyable than G3258+R9 290 (even if settings must be lowered), and AMD+nVidia differences may matter too, like R7 260X vs. GTX750Ti.

 

[SU11YBEAR]

Small typo in the 5930K article
"Four hundred dollars and change left over, and an Intel Core i7-3530K. "

As many have argued I would have liked to see the 5820K as an honorable mention but with the caveat that any build will cost more due to the high price of DDR4 right now.
Also would be nice to see more segregation at the top of the hierarchy right now there are 39 (by my quick count) processors listed in the top bracket

 

[Onus]

The top tiers definitely need to be spread out. There is no way that AMD is going to be that near the top.

 

[Agera One]

Why don't you list the famous i5-4440 processor in hierarchy chart?

 

[Agera One]

I have the same question !

 

[beavermml]

so when my i5-2500K will be considered as obsolete??

 

[Amdlova]

tomshardware need test the 5820k x 5860k with 32gb DDR4 dual crossfire 290x. see what diference we will find with 28 lanes or 40 lanes of pci-e.

 

[Amdlova]

*****ops "5830k"

 

[CaptainTom]

1) With a $70 overclockable Pentium and a $100 FX-6300the i3's should never be recommended. Both of these chips will outperform and i3 for less money (Especially the notably more powerful FX-6300). Stop phoning it in and pay attention to your article.

2) The last CPU recommendation is laughably bad. It's like someone spent 1 minute after they woke up to write it. Spelling mistakes are everywhere and it makes no sense. You can't copy and paste the new 6-core in with the old one when there is now a cheaper 6-core out there, and an 8-core that makes a massive difference between the two. Act like professionals!!!

 

[bhauck]

If I was paying for the electricity, I would be picking Intel for my builds. What benefit do AMD's current CPUs have over Intel other than price and 'competition'?

AMD tends to have more cores at a given price point. I care a little about gaming, but more about highly parallel, CPU-only video transcoding. A 750K/760K/860K with their four cores is a better fit for me than the G3258's two.

 

[Onus]

1) With a $70 overclockable Pentium and a $100 FX-6300the i3's should never be recommended. Both of these chips will outperform and i3 for less money (Especially the notably more powerful FX-6300). Stop phoning it in and pay attention to your article.
.
.
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That depends on the game. In MMOs and other poorly-threaded titles, the i3 is the better choice (reserving judgement on the Pentium until stuttering tests are done). Overclocking a FX-6300 to match it may be possible, but will require a more expensive mobo, non-stock cooling, and a lot more power.

 

[saint_craig]

I wish Toms would do a Overall processor chart, outlining performance/Price for Gaming, Video encoding, office tasks to give an Idea of what is the best overall processor.