CPU Heirarchy 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’ve got your eye on is a good buy in its price range?
Here is a resource to help you judge if a CPU is a good buy 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, -920, -930, -940, -950 Core i5-750 Core 2 Extreme QX9775, QX9770, QX9650 Core 2 Quad Q9650 | |
| Core 2 Extreme QX6850, QX6800 Core 2 Quad Q9550, Q9450, Q9400 Core i5-650, -660, -661, -670 | Phenom II X4 Black Edition 955, 965 |
| Core 2 Extreme QX6700 Core 2 Quad Q6700, Q9300, Q8400, Q6600, Q8300 Core 2 Duo E8600, E8500, E8400, E7600 Core i3 -530, -540 | Phenom II X4 945, 940, 920, 910, 910e, 810 Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition Athlon II X4 635, 630 Athlon II X3 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 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 E6300, E6500, E6600 Pentium G9650 | Phenom X4 9850, 9750, 9650, 9600 Phenom X3 8850, 8750 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 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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Core i7 920 phased out?
The 930 replaced the 920. This was not a sudden move. Intel said they were going to do this a while ago. I bought a 920 for my new computer at first. My plan was to buy the 930 when it came out and sell the 920 to my friend...which I did and it's a great chip.
yeah.. it's all aboot the 930 now
930 has replaced the 920 from 2.66 to 2.8 at the same price! im surprised that Intel didn't bump that price up, this is something unusual from Intel, but i like it, keep it up.
930 has replaced the 920 from 2.66 to 2.8 at the same price! im surprised that Intel didn't bump that price up, this is something unusual from Intel, but i like it, keep it up.
is called marketing... that's how u keep a product flying off the shelves.
930 has replaced the 920 from 2.66 to 2.8 at the same price! im surprised that Intel didn't bump that price up, this is something unusual from Intel, but i like it, keep it up.
They replaced the 940, with the 950, then the 960 at the same price points. And the 965ee was replaced by the 975ee also at the same price point.
The i7-930 was actually release at an MSRP $10 higher than the processor it replaces.
Yet again for the 4th month in a row I am amazed that the core 2 duo e7500 is still at least an honarable mention, I hope this stays here until at least July!!!!
Yet again for the 4th month in a row I am amazed that the core 2 duo e7500 is still at least an honarable mention, I hope this stays here until at least July!!!!
E7500 will remain the honorable mention until dual cores become obsolete for gaming.
It is a decent performer and there are still many people who have LGA 775 Mobo
still wondering if i do a simple upgrade to the honorable mention q9400 Now or wait a few months and do a full upgrade to PII X6.
As much as I like this article, I think people should wait until the Phenom II X6 comes out, which will (almost certainly) result in massive price cuts!
The i7-930 can actually be snagged at a much lower cost if you watch sites like slickdeals.net you know. I got mine for $189 at Microcenter.
agree with eddieroolz... will wait and see if it turns out to be gr8 will buy one or else go for the good old i5 750...
Nice job!
I'm suprised you didn't mention that the core i3 can overclock to well over 4ghz on air.
Considering the findings in the article about i3 for games, I think the emphasis on "gaming" needs to be dropped from this comparison. Unless results from specific CPU-dependent titles can be cited, it was clear that all modern CPUs are sufficiently powerful that which one you choose doesn't matter much. The question becomes, will the bottom recommended chip, the Regor 245, handle modern games at typical resolutions (e.g. 1680x1050) with ANY GPU?
I think it would be useful to see the GAMES on the tiers, with the minimum CPU needed to play them well.
In the meantime, it looks like it will take productivity apps, not games, to distinguish a difference between a machine running an Intel i7 and one running an Athlon X3.
The table of info on the Core i7-930 has "Core i7-920" in the header row, but the rest of the table appears to be correct (i.e., 2.8 GHz).
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 599-6.html
Considering the findings in the article about i3 for games, I think the emphasis on "gaming" needs to be dropped from this comparison. Unless results from specific CPU-dependent titles can be cited, it was clear that all modern CPUs are sufficiently powerful that which one you choose doesn't matter much. The question becomes, will the bottom recommended chip, the Regor 245, handle modern games at typical resolutions (e.g. 1680x1050) with ANY GPU?
I think it would be useful to see the GAMES on the tiers, with the minimum CPU needed to play them well.
The i3 article shows that, given an HD 5850 and the subsequent resolutions/options (you don't buy a 5850 for a 1280*1024 monitor) , any processor upwards of or equal to an i3 will do.
IMO it is hardly relevant to indicate what cpu you need for a game: the question is what gpu (class) at typical resolutions you need (the best graphic card series already gives an indication of playable resolutions in most games). The next question is: what is the minimum cpu to drive that class of gpu. So what I would like to see in the "cpu for your money"-series is an indication along the lines of "this cpu will drive gpu's up to (specify class/tier) without becoming the bottleneck". But perhaps this is what you mean?
I do agree that gaming will no longer be the factor for choosing a cpu: that will be what you want your pc to do in the background while you're gaming....
The table of info on the Core i7-930 has "Core i7-920" in the header row, but the rest of the table appears to be correct (i.e., 2.8 GHz).http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 599-6.html
Thanks, fixed!
Good to see the slight price reductions. Building a new system is getting to be expensive.
...
The next question is: what is the minimum cpu to drive that class of gpu. So what I would like to see in the "cpu for your money"-series is an indication along the lines of "this cpu will drive gpu's up to (specify class/tier) without becoming the bottleneck". But perhaps this is what you mean?
....
Yes, essentially. A column could be added to the GPU chart (or two, one for Intel, one for AMD), "minimum CPU to NOT bottleneck this card;" although also whether or not a specific game is CPU- or GPU-dependent may affect the result. THIS crowd is always going to go at least one more level than we need anyway