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 720 Black Edition 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 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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The Phenom II X4 series is a true blessing to the budget minded consumer/gamer. ty AMD, can't wait for what's in store next
I have an i5 760 and it does overclock very well. I got mine to 4.4ghz without even trying.
But you guys missed the i7 950 being only 15 bucks more than the 930.
The Phenom II 955 is an awesome chip. At $140, it's a steal.
How could you miss the i7 950?
How could you miss the i7 950?
Because this is an article about the best gaming CPU's and anything above an i5 760 is unnecessary and doesn't provide noticeable performance increases
The i7 950 price drop should have been the headline of this month
one of the fastest in the world for only 300$
all of the new ones comming are just some more in the landscape nothing more than that
I applause AMD for providing us with cheap, efficient CPUs
Guess not much is gonna change aside from 100-200 MHz bumps in speed until Sandy Bridge and Bulldozer hit the market...
@ Don Woligroski
At $280 I'd say the core i7 870 is better than core i7 930.
And i7 870 is almost the same performance as i7 950 others have suggested.
Thanks for that sweet CPU Chart on the last page.
edit: my bad, I typed i5 instead of i7. Corrected it
Too bad the PhenomIIx3 740BE 3.0GHz at $90 is OEM (no HSF), it would make a fine choice at it's price point.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103699
@ Don WoligroskiAt $280 I'd say the core i5 870 is better than core i7 930.And i5 870 is almost the same performance as i7 950 others have suggested.Thanks for that sweet CPU Chart on the last page.
Is that a typo? i5 870? The chipsets are different also. So that will also factor in what you plan on buying. That is either the i5 760 or the i7 870. My final thought they are pretty much in the same tier so saying which one is better than the other doesn't make much sense to me.
Damn I can't edit what I post.... I mean when you compare the i7 870 and the i7 930. Finally the i7 950 is ridiculously priced right now. I don't know if this is permanent or on sale but for 300 for the i7 950 that is my choice if I were to start a new system.
How is the upgradeable processor any different from what AMD does now, with selling you a quad-core for the price of a dual-core?
Except Intel wants to charge money for it...
please next time add the cpu BCLK/MULTIPLIER, it's just one more table entry.
it's nice to know how far can you bump teh processor without changing the BCLK.
Because this is an article about the best gaming CPU's and anything above an i5 760 is unnecessary and doesn't provide noticeable performance increases
Yes, but it should be in place of the 930.
The Phenom II 955 is an awesome chip. At $140, it's a steal.
/agree
Cant wait to get one soon!
doesn't make any sens to me to put athlon x3 450 for $90 on the list while there is x3 445 for $78 only...
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 588-9.html
)
), the article shows the athlon II with dual 5870 and the i7 with a single 5850. The athlon already wins at 2560x1600, but that's where they stop. High settings of course, why cranking it all up?
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 619-5.html
look at the far cry 2 and crysis performance, at the first review and then at the second. Both benches conducted with a hd5850 and the phII 720 ~ athlon II x3, same goes for the i7 870 and the 920 The first review clearly shows that a phII x3 @ 2.8ghz (and an athlon x3 3.0ghz, for that matter) produces the same performance as the i7, and sometimes even surpasses it by 1 fps.
Wait, what happens in the 2nd review?
The first review came out by my personal favorite, Thomas Soderstorm, who likes to show things the way they are, even if it means writing a whole article with monotonic graphs all the way.
The second review came right after the first one, clearly manipulating graphics setting - Why would anyone who buys these kind of rigs play far cry 2 at high and not ulrta.. and don't even get me started about the almost complete lack of AA / AF in tomshardware reviews. Why you ask? The less graphical settings, the more cpu difference is shown. This is a joke of course since even a ~300$ gpu, which is a sum most people won't be willing to pay, will bottleneck even the "lowly" athlon II x3 cpu @ maximum settings - again, show me 1 person in this planet who wouldn't want to crank max settings on these kind of rigs.
Further reading on the 2nd article shows the minimum fps, which doesn't really say anything unless you're really into paying ~180$ just for a 10 fps increase on world in conflict (and a slight decrease in stalker) which is a single-player RTS.. Doh..
But why stop there? Now lets see how these cpus fare against each other with hd5870 crossfire configuration. These cards will have no problem playing every single game available at 2560x1600, and even in an eyefinity setup which, by connecting 3 full-hd monitors, can produce more pixels than the 2560x1600 at a lower price, and even get 6 of these monit... Well you know that already! but price is probably not an issue for you if you get 2 5870.. No? Guess not! They only show resolutions up to 2560x1600, again at high settings only which is of course misleading because when they write "high settings" you naturally assume that these are the highest settings possible. Guess not.
(Well this is getting long but I never had the energy to write all this and I started already so... Ok moving on
Last but not least (finally my boss is getting angry at me
Finally, my point is - Toms, you could say that the i7-930 is justified if a guy wants to buy a hefty gpu config, but not based on this article like you're just doing. I'm not calling bias or anything, it's just too bad that you didn't show us this data that you showed in the aforementioned artiel and the same data only with the highest graphical settings possible (including AA / AF maxed).
...anything above an i5 760 is unnecessary and doesn't provide noticeable performance increases
Blatantly false. There are countless charts on this site alone that show a i5-vs-i7 +10fps increase in some games. And when you look at non-mainstream cpu-heavy games such as Football Manager, the effect is even more pronounced.
I swear, this AMD fanboyism must die.
Blatantly false. There are countless charts on this site alone that show a i5-vs-i7 +10fps increase in some games. And when you look at non-mainstream cpu-heavy games such as Football Manager, the effect is even more pronounced.I swear, this AMD fanboyism must die.
Yeah football manager is such an intensive game you can't play it on anything less than a 980x!!! /sarcasm
And regarding your "charts".. Just read my long reply above.