Gaming CPU Hierarchy Chart
What about this other CPU that’s not on the list? How do I know if it’s a good deal or not?
This will happen. In fact, it’s guaranteed to happen because availability and prices change quickly. So how do you know if that CPU you have your eye on is a good buy in its price range?
Here is a resource to help you judge if a CPU is a reasonable value or not: the gaming CPU hierarchy chart, which groups CPUs with similar overall gaming performance levels into tiers. The top tier contains the highest-performing gaming CPUs available and gaming performance decreases as you go down the tiers from there.
However, a word of caution: this hierarchy is based on the average performance each CPU achieved in our charts test suite using only four game titles: Crysis, Unreal Tournament 3, World in Conflict, and Supreme Commander. While we feel this represents an acceptable cross-section of typical gaming scenarios, a specific game title will likely perform differently. Some games, for example, will be severely graphics subsystem-limited, while others may react positively to more CPU cores, larger amounts of CPU cache, or even a specific architecture. We also did not have access to every CPU on the market, so some of the CPU performance estimates are based on the numbers similar architectures deliver. Indeed, this hierarchy chart is useful as a general guideline, but certainly not as a gospel one-size-fits-all perfect CPU comparison resource.
You can use this hierarchy to compare the pricing between two processors, to see which one is a better deal, and also to determine if an upgrade is worthwhile. I don’t recommend upgrading your CPU unless the potential replacement is at least three tiers higher. Otherwise, the upgrade is somewhat parallel and you may not notice a worthwhile difference in game performance.
| Gaming CPU Hierarchy Chart | |
|---|---|
| Intel | AMD |
| Core i7-965, -975 Extreme, -980X Extreme Core i7-860, -870, -875K, -920, -930, -940, -950, -960, -970 Core i5-750, -760 Core 2 Extreme QX9775, QX9770, QX9650 Core 2 Quad Q9650 | |
| Core 2 Extreme QX6850, QX6800 Core 2 Quad Q9550, Q9450, Q9400 Core i5-650, -655K, -660, -661, -670, -680 | Phenom II X6 1100T BE, 1090T BE, 1075T Phenom II X4 Black Edition 970, 965, 955 |
| Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Core 2 Quad Q6700, Q9300, Q8400, Q6600, Q8300 Core 2 Duo E8600, E8500, E8400, E7600 Core i3 -530, -540, -550 | Phenom II X6 1055T Phenom II X4 945, 940, 920, 910, 910e, 810 Phenom II X3 Black Edition 720, 740 Athlon II X4 645, 640, 635, 630 Athlon II X3 455, 450, 445, 440, 435 |
| Core 2 Extreme X6800 Core 2 Quad Q8200 Core 2 Duo E8300, E8200, E8190, E7500, E7400, E6850, E6750 | Phenom II X4 905e, 805 Phenom II X3 710, 705e Phenom II X2 565 BE, 560 BE, 555 BE, 550 BE, 545 Phenom X4 9950 Athlon II X4 620 Athlon II X3 425 |
| Core 2 Duo E7200, E6550, E7300, E6540, E6700 Pentium Dual-Core E5700, E6300, E6500, E6600, E6700 Pentium G9650 | Phenom X4 9850, 9750, 9650, 9600 Phenom X3 8850, 8750 Athlon II X2 265, 260, 255 Athlon 64 X2 6400+ |
| Core 2 Duo E4700, E4600, E6600, E4500, E6420 Pentium Dual-Core E5400, E5300, E5200 | Phenom X4 9500, 9550, 9450e, 9350e Phenom X3 8650, 8600, 8550, 8450e, 8450, 8400, 8250e Athlon II X2 240, 245, 250 Athlon X2 7850, 7750 Athlon 64 X2 6000+, 5600+ |
| Core 2 Duo E4400, E4300, E6400, E6320 Celeron E3300 | Phenom X4 9150e, 9100e Athlon X2 7550, 7450, 5050e, 4850e/b Athlon 64 X2 5400+, 5200+, 5000+, 4800+ |
| Core 2 Duo E5500, E6300 Pentium Dual-Core E2220, E2200, E2210 Celeron E3200 | Athlon X2 6550, 6500, 4450e/b, Athlon X2 4600+, 4400+, 4200+, BE-2400 |
| Pentium Dual-Core E2180 Celeron E1600 | Athlon 64 X2 4000+, 3800+ Athlon X2 4050e, BE-2300 |
| Pentium Dual-Core E2160, E2140 Celeron E1500, E1400, E1200 | |
Summary
There you have it folks: the best gaming CPUs for the money this month. Now all that’s left to do is to find and purchase them.
Also remember that the stores don’t follow this list. Things will change over the course of the month and you’ll probably have to adapt your buying strategy to deal with fluctuating prices. Good luck!
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It will be interesting to look up this article in January.
i think the Phenom II 965's & 970's should be out of consideration. the i5 750/760 obliterates the opposition. hey, i'm an AMD guy, bought a phenom II 940 back in the day. but if i'm upgrading to that price segment, i'd go for an i5. no need to upgrade to phenom II 955++ if ever, just OC the 940 to get more value from it, plus it OC's pretty well without a sweat.
Again, am I the only guy annoyed with the disapearance of the 95W Phenom II x4's?
Does the Athlon II X3 455 even work in a AM2+ socket, as it is a AM3 socket-product?
Yes it does, AM2+ has more pins than AM3. Just drop it in and it should work.
it seems to me like cpu market is dead like for 6 months. intel and amd please release new line of cpu already!!
2011 is a new year
some evolution to this highly anticipated article is highly appreciated.
pleeeeeeeeease add info such as bas BCLK, Ratio, VCore, TDP, ...etc.
to be honest i tried manytimes to leave tom's but i keep commin' back for some great articles.
and by 'some' i mean 2 ~ 3 / week.
other websites are evolving, tom's hardware is still the same...
I really don't believe that Intel creating even more blank space on the amd column next month is gonna be healthy for anyone.
Please add AMD's 45W CPUs to the chart. I'm sure they won't win any performance prizes, but it would be nice to see where they fall. If even the X2 255 was able to play most games not all that long ago, perhaps the X3 415e is also "good enough" where power saving is important.
I think this re-occurring article is great but I don't see a future in it with AMD dropping from the upper end chip competition and the i5 760 is really the only budget choice due to its extreme flexibility.
I was running a Q9650 over 2 years ago and it still outperforms most AMD's according the the CPU hierarchy.
I disagree that AMD is in any trouble here. If you can go 3-4 tiers down in the chart and still have a decent gaming CPU, having nothing in the top tier really doesn't make much difference.
Bulldozer is taking forever. My system I have now is going to be my new HTPC and a new build for bulldozer, is just waiting for it to get here. AM3+ motherboards needs to come out already. 4 module(8core) AMD Bulldozer here I come. When bulldozer comes out buy them by modules not by cores cause, with the new design 1 new module(AM3+) design will equal 1 old core(AM3) design. So todays AMD PII X4 955=Bulldozer 4module.
still holding strong with my 3.8gig OC 940 and 4770.
will upgrade when SB and BD come around.
Shouldn't you start at a point lower than $85? Some of us still want to know what's best for those really low-budget rigs. Should start in the $50-$60 range.
I love the recommendations for "best 999 dollar cpu". There is only one CPU that costs that much, so I guess it's winner by default.
your adds suck!
I think a misprint is above in the article in the stating of the newer line from AMD
I think the E5620 and E5630 should be mentioned. Due to the 32nm process both these CPU's can run 4GHz+ long term stable unlike i5's and i7's. The i5's and i7's shouldn't be clocked more than 3.73GHz else they start showing problems in under a year. The memory bandwidth of the E56x0 put them far ahead of i7's clock for clock. These 2 workstation CPU's with an ASUS rampage III are much better gaming CPU's than the 6 core i7's. These 2 CPU's are a real step up from an i7 950 but for price premium.
I think a misprint is above in the article in the stating of the newer line from AMD
Thanks for catching that, fixed to Phenom II X2 565!
Does the Athlon II X3 455 even work in a AM2+ socket, as it is a AM3 socket-product?
Yes it does. i put one in a am2+ board and am3 board already. The chip comes with a ddr2 and ddr3 controller and have unlock 3 in a row there 4 cores.