With AMD's new Athlon II X4 620 bringing quad-core computing to a $100 price point and Intel's introduction of the new dual-core Pentium E6500, we couldn't help but notice the glut of relatively powerful $100 CPUs. These offerings give gamers a great selection of processors with which to build a no-frills entertainment-oriented platform.
But which CPU is the best? Does cache, cores, or megahertz affect gaming performance in your favorite title? With all of these options, what CPU offers the best gaming value?
These are all questions we see our readers posing in the Best Gaming CPUs for the Money column each month. This time around, we're going to give you lots of data to complement those recommendations.

We benchmarked nine of the most popular games available with four CPU specimens, each of which costs close to the $100 mark: the new Athlon II X4 620, the new dual-core Pentium E6500, the Phenom II X3 710, and the Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition.
- Which Vendor Sells The Best Budget-Gaming CPU?
- The Contenders: One Athlon II, Two Phenom IIs, And A Pentium Dual-Core
- Test Systems And Benchmark Setup
- Synthetic Benchmarks: 3DMark Vantage
- Game Benchmarks: Crysis And Far Cry 2
- Game Benchmarks: World In Conflict And H.A.W.X.
- Game Benchmarks: Left 4 Dead And Grand Theft Auto IV
- Game Benchmarks: Resident Evil 5 And Fallout 3
- Game Benchmarks: Prototype
- Game Benchmarks: Game Multitasking And Power Consumption
- Conclusion
OC potential is one of the most important factors in an article like this. If you can, most deff post an update soon.
The AthalonII X4 would deffinately be the more futureproof of the four. Programs and games are rapidly being developed and upgraded to use 4+ threads. And when threaded applications finally hits mainstream, you'll appriciate those one or two cores a whole lot more. (Not to mention the platform itself lends itself to future upgrades a whole lot better than the 775 platform.)
What's the benifit of harrassing people who arent driving daddy's bently to the PC store to squander away all their allowance on overpriced parts?
Get a life dude.
It's a shame there aren't more games that run like FO3 considering how gorgeous it is yet still being much more accessible based on its focus of CPU power instead of being topheavy on the GPU side.
OC potential is one of the most important factors in an article like this. If you can, most deff post an update soon.
I would have to agree with some of the poster's above that overclockability is a key factor in this price segment.
360 ports generally run really smooth on adequite PC hardware, simply because of the archetectual similarities. I personally dont think that FO3's graphic technology is all that great, but the art direction that Bethesda took made it a great looking game.
Another game that does this really well is Operation Flashpoint 2. Technically speaking, the grapics arent that great. And I notice alot of places where textures and polys arent what they should be for a PC game. But aside from that, the game looks fantastic and runs very smooth even at the highest settings, and it all has to do with art, not technology.
First of all OC is out of the question here in this article since a 100$ CPU is clearly not for an enthusiast user (not even i with a PII 940 don`t use OC) , second OC`ing will only lead to huge power consumption fron the pc performance / watt will drop like hell.
The AthalonII X4 would deffinately be the more futureproof of the four. Programs and games are rapidly being developed and upgraded to use 4+ threads. And when threaded applications finally hits mainstream, you'll appriciate those one or two cores a whole lot more. (Not to mention the platform itself lends itself to future upgrades a whole lot better than the 775 platform.)
Yup that's the most interesting part of this. E6300 and the 550 are the most expected to oc well and benefit from it the most which is a factor for the crowd that reads these articles.
What's the benifit of harrassing people who arent driving daddy's bently to the PC store to squander away all their allowance on overpriced parts?
Get a life dude.
This exact question has been bugging me all week, and here you are with the answers... Have you been reading my posts???
Anyway, I strongly suspect that any 785G board is just all around better than any G41, another factor. 785G seems to aim for a wider audience.
Wouldn't a P43 board be closer in price to a 785G? Might that be a fairer comparison?
An overclock article is more than a little over due for the $100 and lower level CPUs.
Yes and no, but that would have been uncontested if you'd have benched an intel quad core or even the 1000$ i7 (kind of like 100$ vs 1000$ processor battle in gaming). I know that common sense dictates that if u buy a 1000$ processor you will pair it with the appropriate graphics card and not just a 4890, but still in theory for a cpu to cpu comparison it would have sense.