Best CPUs (Archive)

[cangelini]

Here are the best gaming CPUs for the money. These processors offer the best performance at their price and are suitable for overclocking.

Best CPUs : Read more

 

[adamovera]

Archived comments are found here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-3243637/cpus.html

 

[mlga91]

You're still recomending the 860k instead of the new hyperthreaded pentium? come on Chris!

 

[bruce755]

Why leave the 860k? Similarly priced hyperthreaded pentiums destroy it. If I went here without that knowledge and bought an 860k and later found out I could have got 60% better performance for 10 dollars less with a pentium, I'd be pretty disappointed. Heck the G4560 outperforms your "midrange" pick as well with the 8300, it's about neck and neck with the 6100.

 

[Math Geek]

so glad you read the article before posting your comment.

he clearly states that they are testing the new pentiums and until they have the results he won't declare a verdict on that cpu. an informed opinion is so much more valuable than an uninformed one no matter what........

same thing for the unlocked i3. until testing is done, won't know if it worth the price or not. may be decent but is it i5 comparable since the cost is almost the same?? better to wait and see before declaring something as "crushing" it's competition before the actual testing has been done.

folks complain he's biased, then complain when he waits for real info to publish an opinion?? which is it? blind bias or informed opinions???

 

[FritzEiv]

so glad you read the article before posting your comment.

he clearly states that they are testing the new pentiums and until they have the results he won't declare a verdict on that cpu. an informed opinion is so much more valuable than an uninformed one no matter what........

same thing for the unlocked i3. until testing is done, won't know if it worth the price or not. may be decent but is it i5 comparable since the cost is almost the same?? better to wait and see before declaring something as "crushing" it's competition before the actual testing has been done.

folks complain he's biased, then complain when he waits for real info to publish an opinion?? which is it? blind bias or informed opinions???

What he said.

 

[Stavris]

Is E5 2670 any good for gaming!?

 

[logainofhades]

Rest assured that we’re in the process of testing Kaby Lake-based Pentiums to determine if their higher price tags are worth paying.

Given that the Pentium G4560 is also $75, this comment doesn't totally make sense. The higher priced pentiums are not worth the price premium, for such minor clock speed boost, so shouldn't even be considered anyway.

 

[Brian_R170]

Intel's website says the recommended customer price for the G4560 is $64, but I guess what matters is the price that retailers are actually demanding, which apparently is around $75.

[Edit] Still, other sites are claiming it is very close to the i3-6100 and i5-2500K. _IF_ it's gaming performance is as good, then that should certainly change the Entry-Level and possibly the Mid-Range recommendations.

 

[Karadjgne]

I remember when a previous Pentium was thought of as the next best thing to green jello, namely the G3528. After all the hype, all the ppl going out and dropping cash on that mega cpu, only for it to almost disappear overnight. And now a new batch of pentium's that are touted as replacing the core i3/i5's? I'll wait till ppl get done with the gimmicks and Intel gets its fan boy cash back before microcoding the gimmicks and OC. Again.

 

[Math Geek]

i still laugh at all the folks on here that claimed a G3528 and a 750ti was just as good as an i5 and a 970. those 2 products took hype train to a level rarely seen.

now we got this new pentium that is supposed to match an i3/5?? right. does it seem likely that intel would release a $75 cpu that competes with its own $200 ones?? that's so beyond silly thinking its borderline crazy. it may be a decent performer but to pretend they'd shoot themselves in the foot like that and have it compete with their own much more expensive stuff is crazy ignorant.

the i3 can keep up with a locked i5 as was shown during that brief time we could overclock them recently. did not last long but long enough for us to see why they are kept locked. as if to verify this, we have an unlocked i3 now and what doe sit cost?? almost as much as the i5 we know it can almost keep up with. see how the pricing works?? there is no chance in hades they released a $75 cpu that can compete with it's $200 stuff.

 

[littleleo]

I don't feel it is fair quote the old old AMD CPUs. They are not good options since they are running on obsolete platforms. Best to hold off for the AM4s if the customer wants to go AMD. Perhaps for cheap workstations, as long as they understand the limitations up front and they are still willing to buy them.

 

[TJ Hooker]

so glad you read the article before posting your comment.
he clearly states that they are testing the new pentiums and until they have the results he won't declare a verdict on that cpu. an informed opinion is so much more valuable than an uninformed one no matter what........

now we got this new pentium that is supposed to match an i3/5?? right. does it seem likely that intel would release a $75 cpu that competes with its own $200 ones?? that's so beyond silly thinking its borderline crazy.

I remember when a previous Pentium was thought of as the next best thing to green jello, namely the G3528. After all the hype, all the ppl going out and dropping cash on that mega cpu, only for it to almost disappear overnight. And now a new batch of pentium's that are touted as replacing the core i3/i5's? I'll wait till ppl get done with the gimmicks and Intel gets its fan boy cash back before microcoding the gimmicks and OC. Again.

There's really no mystery here, no room for surprises. We know that the G4560 is a 2C/4T CPU with 3 MB L3 cache, same as an i3-6100. We know that Kaby Lake and Skylake have the same IPC. The i3-6100 is a known entity, and the G4560 will be identical except 200 MHz slower (unless you need ECC or AVX, which for gaming, you won't). What kind of unforseen performance hit are you expecting from a 5% reduction in clock speed?

 

[Karadjgne]

Need AVX? Well that's just about everybody else other than console gamers. Not everybody uses a pc just for playing games. (And there are games like Grid 2 that use AVX instructions). Anybody who does any compiling, bit mining, or anything floating point heavy is going to use AVX or AVX2 instructions. If what you claim is true, that the G4560 is it really a 200MHz slower i3-6100 missing AVX, I'd rather spend the extra $30 and get the full performance version, not the shortchanged wannabe. Almost like buying a 4cyl Mustang and trying to convince ppl it's cool.

 

[nikoli707]

the g4560 just came out like a week ago. its pretty obvious it will offer better all around performance than the 860k while also having an upgrade path. so just use your imagination and replace the 860k with the pentium. otherwise arguing about an article that was likely finalized before the chip was even known to exist, or at the very least available to the public, is pointless.

 

[logainofhades]

This list is aimed at gaming rigs though, and it always has been. In gaming, early benches have shown it just a couple percentage points, below an i3 6100.

https://www.computerbase.de/2017-01/intel-pentium-g4560-test-kaby-lake/3/#diagramm-gesamtrating-spiele-full-hd

Also Kaby lake uses DDR4 2400, as it standard memory speed, so that is a slight help, vs the 2133 the i3 6100. For the budget gamer, there is no need to look beyond a Pentium G4560, if you cannot afford an i5. I would rather use the money saved, by getting the pentium, and use it towards a better graphics card, or more ram. We get so many low budget build requests, here, that, that $35 savings could easily mean a GTX 1050ti, instead of a 1050, or an RX 470 vs a GTX 1050ti.

 

[lunyone]

I don't know if it is just me, but it seems like a lot of times reviews or best of articles come up just before a new CPU/GPU release is coming. So for example this "Best CPU's" comes out on the cusp of Ryzen/Pentium release (I know the Pentiums are already available to parts of Europe). So I would expect a "Best of GPU's" to come out just before the latest AMD Polaris GPU's come out. I know it sounds cynical, but that is how I feel.

 

[Olle P]

For the budget gamer, there is no need to look beyond a Pentium G4560, if you cannot afford an i5.

Until we know how AMD counter it, I agree completely. And it's not just "an" i5, but at least a Core i5-7500.
And the Core i5 will merely "allow" you to play some games that won't run at all with the Pentium. To make those games perform well will require a Core i7.

... this "Best CPU's" comes out on the cusp of Ryzen/Pentium release (I know the Pentiums are already available to parts of Europe). ...

While the Pentium G4560 is indeed available here in Sweden, at a really nice price, the Ryzen is still almost two months away (mid March), right?

 

[logainofhades]

For i5, I meant skylake/kaby lake versions. Though sometimes a Haswell makes sense for low budget system upgrades, with people that already have a decent amount of DDR3. I hope Ryzen does shake things up, especially in the budget sector.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Need AVX? Well that's just about everybody else other than console gamers. Not everybody uses a pc just for playing games. (And there are games like Grid 2 that use AVX instructions). Anybody who does any compiling, bit mining, or anything floating point heavy is going to use AVX or AVX2 instructions.

This article is about gaming CPUs, it says so in the first paragraph. Also, relatively speaking, how many people do you think are compiling, mining, or doing heavy floating point calculations? How many are doing so on budget, dual core CPUs?
After a quick search on Grid 2 vis-a-vis AVX, it seems to make little difference (can still run the game fine w/o AVX). Also, it seems running Grid 2 w/ AVX requires AVX2, so by that standard a 3770k isn't a good gaming CPU.

If what you claim is true, that the G4560 is it really a 200MHz slower i3-6100 missing AVX, I'd rather spend the extra $30 and get the full performance version, not the shortchanged wannabe.

If you want to spend 47% more ($110 vs $75) on a CPU that performs 5% better, be my guest. For people who care about value for money, the G4560 is a more attractive option. Also, with your logic, why even bother with the $75 price point? There's always going to be something better if you spend an extra $30, at least at the low end.

 

[mac_angel]

freely admit, I didn't read the article. I don't think there's anything there that I don't know, or either applies to me.
That being said, I'm a little surprised that they are showing more of the 2011v3 CPUs. More and more games are actually using more cores. Proper written games, such as Ashes of the Singularity gobble them up and ask for more. Something that hasn't really applied in many years. For almost all other games, my older Core i7 2600K is more than enough. Overclocks easily to 4.4GHz, and most games don't use all the cores. I think with the addition of DX12, we may finally see a shift in CPUs needing to increase in power again. How Vulkan will play out, I'm not sure.

 

[Little_Gamer]

Hooker: one simple question - are you retarded? IF the pentium would deliver a performance decrease of about 5% going down from an i5, they would 1) price it higher 2) price it higher ... those chips might have a higher frequency, but is has 50% less cache, which is pretty bad (don't know for sure, but I think the Kaby Lake (another retarded "update" from Intel) starting i5 do have 6 MB cache)...and this is just like G3258.....hype all for nothing....

PS: If you spend about 50$ more, you get an additional 6sh cores...

 

[mlga91]

Hooker: one simple question - are you retarded? IF the pentium would deliver a performance decrease of about 5% going down from an i5, they would 1) price it higher 2) price it higher ... those chips might have a higher frequency, but is has 50% less cache, which is pretty bad (don't know for sure, but I think the Kaby Lake (another retarded "update" from Intel) starting i5 do have 6 MB cache)...and this is just like G3258.....hype all for nothing....

PS: If you spend about 50$ more, you get an additional 6sh cores...

So much disrepect and disinformation, keep it civil for god sake.

 

[TJ Hooker]

Hooker: one simple question - are you retarded? IF the pentium would deliver a performance decrease of about 5% going down from an i5, they would 1) price it higher 2) price it higher ... those chips might have a higher frequency, but is has 50% less cache, which is pretty bad (don't know for sure, but I think the Kaby Lake (another retarded "update" from Intel) starting i5 do have 6 MB cache)...and this is just like G3258.....hype all for nothing....

On the off chance you're not just trolling:
Nowhere did I say i5. I'm solely comparing the G4560 to the i3-6100 in order to establish a good idea of the G4560's performance in lieu of actual benchmarks. Those two CPUs have the same amount of cache (and cores/threads). They differ only by clock speed (200 MHz) and ECC/AVX support.

 

[Johan Kryger Haglert]

Unserious to have A10 and FX processors in it.

The G4560 (and i3s) are better.