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 was 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 one-size-fits-all CPU comparison resource. For that, we recommend you check out our CPU Performance Charts.
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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2500K....awesome gaming chip.
Got mine running at 4.5Ghz, so easy to overclock and maintain low temps.
Another month gone, where is AMD/Bulldozer?
.Another month gone, where is AMD/Bulldozer?
September 18
Now that we have mobile GPU's in the GPU hierarchy chart it would be nice to see some mobile CPU's in the CPU hierarchy chart.
this list is growing smaller indeed. This is good in a way, a top end cpu only costs $200, that is insane when many, lower end CPU's i have bought in the past cost much more than that. AMD, you need to drop your prices or noone will buy your old tech.
i hope bulldozer will at least be up to par with the 2nd generation core i chips.
i would love to replace my e850 with a cheap yet high performing chip from AMD
Heres to hoping this is the last list without bulldozer.
this list is growing smaller indeed. This is good in a way, a top end cpu only costs $200, that is insane when many, lower end CPU's i have bought in the past cost much more than that.
AMD's entry level dual-core processor (Athlon 64 X2 3800+) I bought back in summer 2005 cost me around $370. And now you can buy the fastest quad-core processor on the market (i7 2600K) for $315... amazing.
remember the 2600k is the equivilent of the core i7 920 or 860 the real high end chips have yet to be release as of yet
As long as these high end chips stay on 1155, fine. Dont make me buy a new mobo.
What really amazes me is the price drops in AMD processors. The Phenom II X6 1100T BE was originally a $265 (company estimate) chip. Today it sells for around $100 less, about 9 months from release (online rates are lower than the company estimated price). The X4 980 prices haven't moved so much during the last 8 months though.
Compare that to any Sandy Bridge processor. I think all of them are selling for more than what the company prices them at, which is still the same as they were at the release date. The various SB i5s and i7s have been around for 8 months as well.
We need to Bulldoze some Intel prices i guess...
while i hope BD is successful. I'm gonna laugh my ass off if/when it falls right on its face when it wont be the game changer that AMD fans are hoping it will be or put an end to Intel's rein.
Intel is a multi-billion dollar company for a reason.
they should chose the phenom ii x3 720BE as the best cpu for $75 ..right ?
As long as these high end chips stay on 1155, fine. Dont make me buy a new mobo.
ROFL - That's what you get when buying an Intel CPU...
There's another tiny reason to choose a X4 970BE over a 955BE or 965BE: power consumption. For whatever reason, the 970BE uses less power at stock, even though it is faster. OC the other two to match it, and the difference will be even greater. Here's just one chart; I think there were others, but I can't find them: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/64
There are performance differences, certainly, but any modern CPU can play any game. Yes, you've shown that CPU makes a difference (a lot more than expected in some games), but GPU still generally makes more, and someone willing to lower just a few settings will not experience a decrease in the quality of the game play. With that said, for the same money, I'll take a slower AMD CPU on a full-featured, high quality mobo over a faster Intel CPU on a stripped-down mobo any day.
I feel like you could have saved yourself some time and just posted a link to any of the last 5 "Best CPU" articles. The only change is the price, and in the technology world a price drop is not exactly a surprise to anyone.
What really amazes me is the price drops in AMD processors. The Phenom II X6 1100T BE was originally a $265 (company estimate) chip. Today it sells for around $100 less, about 9 months from release (online rates are lower than the company estimated price). The X4 980 prices haven't moved so much during the last 8 months though.Compare that to any Sandy Bridge processor. I think all of them are selling for more than what the company prices them at, which is still the same as they were at the release date. The various SB i5s and i7s have been around for 8 months as well.We need to Bulldoze some Intel prices i guess...
... the irony is that the AMD price drops you're referring to occurred because of Sandy Bridge. There's really no immediate reason for Intel to enact a price drop on their Sandy Bridge processors, but even if they did, it would only mean that AMD would have to follow suit with an additional price drop of their own to remain performance competitive at a given price point.
AMD is in desperate need of higher performance processors that they can price against Intel at the $200+ price points. The good news is that the FX-8150P seems to be targeted at the $300 price point. If this is true then in all likelihood AMD's highest-end Bulldozer processor will be performance competitive with the i7-2600K.
http://www.guru3d.com/news/amd-eig [...] -cost-300/
they should chose the phenom ii x3 720BE as the best cpu for $75 ..right ?
Doesn't come with a cooler, so add at least $15 on top of that. Then it doesn't look as good, especially since the OEM models come with a reduced warranty...
But it can still be decent if you know what you're getting and are hoping for one that unlocks to four cores.
With that said, for the same money, I'll take a slower AMD CPU on a full-featured, high quality mobo over a faster Intel CPU on a stripped-down mobo any day.
The GPU is important, yes, but some modern games can be held back significantly by a Phenom II.
If you're thinking an AMD 980 vs i5-2500K, then you're losing out on a big chunk of performance in some cases. A cheap 1155 mobo will that CPU be *significantly* faster in some games. But if you look past games, you're losing an even more significant amount of performance with everything else if you go with a Phenom II.
Don't get me wrong, I've been recommending AMD CPUs for years. But Sandy bridge is just that good. Bulldozer needs to arrive soon, and it needs to be decent enough to reach the GPU bottleneck again.
Here's hoping that Zambezi can turn this chart on its head next month!