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 1090T Black Edition, 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 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 560, 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's nice to see the Phenom II x6 is still kicking. Can't wait until SB and Bulldozer.
C'mon guys, I want to see the next "CPU for the Money" with the new chips at hand!
Phenom 2 965 & 970 both @ 3.4 Ghz ?? Come on Tom..
Why isn't the Phenom II X4 940 not a recommendation at less than $100? Isn't another $50 in a video card better than getter DDR3 and AM3 vs DDR2 and AM2+?
My Core 2 Duo e6750 (purchased 2 years ago) OCd to 3.4 GHZ (2,66 stock) performs preety well in games. The only thing i changed was my nvidia 8800 GT to GeForce gtx 460 and its enaugh for now. Ill wait for the next gen CPUs next year
Why isn't the Phenom II X4 940 not a recommendation at less than $100? Isn't another $50 in a video card better than getter DDR3 and AM3 vs DDR2 and AM2+?
Depends.
My Core 2 Duo e6750 (purchased 2 years ago) OCd to 3.4 GHZ (2,66 stock) performs preety well in games. The only thing i changed was my nvidia 8800 GT to GeForce gtx 460 and its enaugh for now. Ill wait for the next gen CPUs next year
Good idea. Seems we have a happy camper...
The clock speed of the Phenom x4 970 is 3.5 not 3.4 ghz.
Seems like this late in the year, it'd be better to wait for Sandy Bridge than to get anything right now. February and March aren't THAT far away by now
Agreed W8ing for Sandy Bridge would be worth and it not that long.
AMD is no longer so future proof and because of this it's too bad we aren't seeing AM3+ boards out yet. With RAM prices dropping, it would be great to make a jump to DDR3 now.
I'm thinking it's not a great time now to make a system switch at all with ALL the sockets changing in the near future.
Q9650 on the same hierarchy level as the 980X while the rest of the chart features hierarchy levels often separated by no more than 200mhz? Is this an exponential scale?
can anyone guide me where to buy the Phenom II X3 740 Black Edition (OEM)
as it not available anywhere in my local store with the rest of phenom II x3. they only have phenom II x2 and x4 and x6 no x3 at all >_
Glad to see my Phenom II 955 is on this list , I never regretted buying that cpu.
I know they'll never earn a recommendation as they are overpriced and likely relatively slow, but please add the X4 605e and other low-power chips to the chart. For older or less-demanding games, it might be "good enough," depending on where it falls.
can anyone guide me where to buy the Phenom II X3 740 Black Edition (OEM)as it not available anywhere in my local store with the rest of phenom II x3. they only have phenom II x2 and x4 and x6 no x3 at all >_
1. Hang on let me use my psychic powers to find out where you live.
2. This is what the forums are for, not the comments. Make a thread on the forums and link me to it in a PM and I will be more than happy to help.
Ok, why is the i5 760 only an honourable mention? You guys never explained why it was an honourable mention and not a recommended?
As buckcm mentioned, this is a very good deal and I swept up two of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] -_-Product
I know its an OEM but should at least deserve an honorable mention. For those of us that have heatsinks for paperweights lying around, this is a no brainer purchase if you have a pre-existing system to upgrade.
When is the last time anyone has had to RMA a cpu? I'd like to hear that story...
Why isn't the Phenom II X4 940 not a recommendation at less than $100? Isn't another $50 in a video card better than getter DDR3 and AM3 vs DDR2 and AM2+?
Yeah that's the OEM version (and no heatsink and fan comes with it).
Although it's an AM2+ CPU at about $96 over at newegg it's a fantastic buy
especially for AM2+ board upgraders.I was looking at the passmark website where they they had a list of the performance vs cost of CPU's.It indeed is near the top of that list.
I'm guessing the specs for the 970 were copy/pasted from the 965 but the title and clock speed were not updated.
Microcenter has had the i7 950 for $280 for over a month, and lately on sale for $200, no rebates no nothing.
Since they don't advertize here you don't put that price up?