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.
This hierarchy is originally 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. We have since incorporated new game data into our criteria, but it should be known that any specific game title will likely perform differently depending on its unique programming. 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 i7-2600, -2600K Core i7-965, -975 Extreme, -980X Extreme, -990X Extreme Core i7-980, -970, -960 Core i5-2500, -2500K, -2400, -2310, -2300 | |
| Core i7-860, -870, -875K, -920, -930, -940, -950, Core i5-750, -760, -2405S, -2400S Core 2 Extreme QX9775, QX9770, QX9650 Core 2 Quad Q9650 Core i3-2100, -2105, -2120 | Phenom II X4 Black Edition 980, 975 |
| 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 Pentium G850, G840 | Phenom II X6 1055T Phenom II X4 945, 940, 920, 910, 910e, 810 Phenom II X3 Black Edition 720, 740 A8-3850 A6-3650 Athlon II X4 645, 640, 635, 630 Athlon II X3 460, 455, 450, 445, 440, 435 |
| Core 2 Extreme X6800 Core 2 Quad Q8200 Core 2 Duo E8300, E8200, E8190, E7500, E7400, E6850, E6750 Pentium G620 | 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, E5800, 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, G620T | 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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Latest Intel reviews
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amd needs bulldozer thats one thing we can all agree on.
Good job again with these articles, always keeping me updated about the best buy.
I noticed there is no i5 2400 in the Hierarchy Chart though.
Good review. I love the best Gaming CPU monthly. Ready for BD and to give a run against IB as well. will be interesting to see what AMD has to offer against the king i7-2600K.
hmmm, nice reviews! But since you guys only updated a little sections because there are not much new CPU's to compare, please consider a new article like Best Gaming Motherboard (for AMD & Intel) For The Money!
If that's too much, you can begin with new platforms first (AMD 900 series, Intel 1155, 1366).
Thanks Toms, you rocks!
2500K all the way for gaming. Awesome CPU for an amazing price.
OC's effortlessly, and rips through every game it meets.
Since the Phenom II X4 955 is now a Best Gaming CPU you might want to edit the last paragraph that reads
well, i went i7 2600k. I was thinking that of i spend some money now ill get the best... but i was not sure becasue i wanted to wait for BD..bit it takes to long..
If Ivy Bridge is as boring to overclock as Sandy is I may go with Bulldozer even if there's a loss in performance, just for the fun of the tweaking inside and out. If BD's bad, then maybe i'll just go retro with the x58 platform and hope Intel puts the nail in its coffin with a new 1366 chip in 22nm flavor... hmmm I should start writing that letter.
honestly i hope bulldozer able to make i5 2500k much more affordable
I hope there's an extreme series of sandy and ivy that replace the graphics section with bigger L1, L2, and L3 caches all shared up and pretty.
If Ivy Bridge is as boring to overclock as Sandy is I may go with Bulldozer even if there's a loss in performance, just for the fun of the tweaking inside and out. If BD's bad, then maybe i'll just go retro with the x58 platform and hope Intel puts the nail in its coffin with a new 1366 chip in 22nm flavor... hmmm I should start writing that letter.
In what way is SB boring to overclock? you get amazing performance for little money.....i think your really missing something here, maybe do some more reading about SB overclocking.
dual opteron 2220 here ... plenty fast for what I need. looking for a better GPU :-)
Most only need to change voltage and multiplier. Compare that to socket 775 and even moreso involved overclocking the x58 and AMD's platforms. I know I have issues and am OCD so normal folks won't understand I just really enjoy tweaking the system endlessly for better performance gains... That's just me. I'm special.
I'm loving that core i3, want that, max ram, single slot low power grfx, most efficient mobo, and a case with 6 to 8 drive bays. I bought my cheap 4 port sata II pci-x1 slot card for it, now need the rest hehe.
I have to read up on watercooling but I'd like to do a nice passive water cooling setup with a fan on the drive bays only. I wanna beefy NAS.
I'll worry about overclocking whenever i decide between bulldozer / sb / and ib for the new multimedia creation gaming station.
I'd like to see the best mobo/CPU combo for gaming for the $!!!
I can get an i5-2500K (4-core no HT) or an i7-960 (4-core with HT) at Microcenter for $180 these days. For gaming, I'd suggest the i5-2500K at this price point.
widream and eidream are two examples of the new spam craze that seems to have hit this site over the past few days or so. I honestly don't get what they're trying to say.
The i5-2500K is still looking to be the perfect choice for the enthusiast. due to its unique architecture, I am not placing any bets on Bulldozer being a top-tier gaming CPU; its capabilities seem far more suited to server workloads. However, I did think that about Sledgehammer and Barcelona, so maybe I'm wrong, especially considering AMD seems to want to resurrect the FX branding.
comments are getting so repetitive!
waiting for bulldozer and stuff...
is it not obvious enough that EVERYONE is waiting to see some benches for bulldozer??
or that it needs something to compete with the sandy bridge k cpus?
amd didnt launch a new line of performance cpus for how many years?
everyone knows that they need bulldozer
stop stating the obvious... its getting old
I chose a X4 970 over a x4 955 recently because the benchmarks over at Anandtech show the faster chip also using considerably less power, a difference that would become even more pronounced if I OC'ed a 955 to 970 speeds.
Well this was a yawnfest. Not much has changed since the last 2 times they did this.