Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in

Performance Per Dollar

Best Gaming CPUs For The Money: September 2014
By

In an effort to further illustrate the performance you get for every dollar spent on our recommendations, we chart out the hierarchy of processors in our column. The green, blue, black, and red bars represent average frame rates in StarCraft II, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Far Cry 3, and an aggregate of all three titles. The orange line indicates cost. Mousing over the bars gives you a pop-up with performance statistics relative to Intel's Core i7-4930K, our 100% ceiling. Mousing over the dots on the orange line pops up a price that's easily attainable. Clicking a bar or dot gives you the option of shopping for a specific CPU, taking you to a link of our choice in that category. Often, our picks are priced lower than the number displayed.

Price and performance generally scale along a similar upward trend as we look down the chart, not including the pricey Core i7 options. Budget-oriented gamers should pay attention to the significant performance increase available when you step up from the $70 Pentium G3258 to the $125 Core i3-4130, though. The $180 Core i5-4430 looks great, offering performance close to more expensive options that cost well over $200.

After that, the speed-ups are more subtle, while the premiums are far greater (particularly as you look to the $590 Core i7-5930K). Frankly, if value is an important consideration, there's little reason to spend $180 on a Core i5-4430 (or even more on a Core i7) unless you want to overclock it for a better experience in some of your other apps. The Core i5-4430 is a clear performance-per-dollar winner, demonstrating no weaknesses in any of the games we've tested.

Price Starcraft Skyrim Far Cry 3 Average
Intel Pentium G3258 70.00 Amazon 75 58 76 69.7
AMD FX-6300 120 Newegg 73 61 87 74
Intel Core i3-4130 125 Newegg 85 74 84 81
Intel Core i5-4430 180.00 Newegg 99 97 95 97
Intel Core i5-4690K 240 Newegg 99 97 95 97
Intel Core i7-4790K 340 Newegg 100 100 100 100
Intel Core i7-5930K 570 Amazon 100 100 100 100

Add a comment
Ask a Category Expert
React To This Article

Create a new thread in the Reviews comments forum about this subject

Example: Notebook, Android, SSD hard drive

Display all 69 comments.
Top Comments
  • 11 Hide
    Treynolds416 , September 16, 2014 9:43 PM
    No recommendation/honorable mention of i7-5820k in article whaaaaat
Other Comments
  • 0 Hide
    adamovera , September 16, 2014 9:22 PM
    Archived comments are found here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2247568/gaming-cpus-money-january-2012.html
  • 11 Hide
    Treynolds416 , September 16, 2014 9:43 PM
    No recommendation/honorable mention of i7-5820k in article whaaaaat
  • -1 Hide
    blackmagnum , September 16, 2014 9:47 PM
    If I was paying for the electricity, I would be picking Intel for my builds. What benefit do AMD's current CPUs have over Intel other than price and 'competition'?
  • 1 Hide
    Amdlova , September 16, 2014 9:53 PM
    i love the pentium g3258.
  • 0 Hide
    UltimateDeep , September 16, 2014 9:58 PM
    Agreed with Treynolds416.

    All things considered, I would pick the Core i7 5820K over the 5930K. The processor itself is priced just very slightly over the 4790K and will still perform quite a bit better in Heavily threaded apps and gaming. I wouldn't care much about the lack of 12 PCI-E lanes because I wouldn't cramp in anything more than 2 GPUs anyways. Apart from the -12 PCI-E Lanes, the 5820K is still pretty much a 5930K; even if that was clocked lower, you can Overclock it so no difference at all.
  • 2 Hide
    hmp_goose , September 16, 2014 11:32 PM
    Sooo we still don't know if the new FX's will overclock to the same Hz using less W?
  • -1 Hide
    Subhe Kudsi , September 17, 2014 12:03 AM
    How about i3-4330 110$ @ Amazon ?

    Cpu benchmarks at 5000 ( 2000 single thread)
  • 2 Hide
    de5_Roy , September 17, 2014 12:31 AM
    amd should launch steamroller-b based athlon x4 860K a.s.a.p. i wanna see how it fares against the pentium g3258.
  • 0 Hide
    Memnarchon , September 17, 2014 12:41 AM
    Since Intel has the same price for i5 4440 and i5 4430, why placing best gaming CPU for $180 the i5 4430? i5 4440 is clocked 100Mhz higher.
  • -1 Hide
    RCPG , September 17, 2014 2:50 AM
    There's a typo on the recommendation of Intel Core i7-5930K. In the text it say's Core i7-3530K and should say Core i7-5930K.
  • 0 Hide
    Drejeck , September 17, 2014 3:30 AM
    Based on this article I would like to know about the 35W TDP options.
    I'm building a gaming HTPC with a PicoPSU 160XT (which has 96w of continuous output) and a GTX 750Ti from KFA2. I know that the i3 4130T fits the power requirements but I wish to know if stepping up to a 4C/4T with lower frequencies is better. In my opinion it should. Meanwhile I think I'll wait Broadwell K and the Impact VII ITX.
  • 0 Hide
    Drejeck , September 17, 2014 3:50 AM
    Yes I'm interested in 860K both for power consumption and performance in the entry level. I don't like 2M/4T architecture. I want AMD to go back to SMT architecture and if possible triple core processors.
  • 1 Hide
    Onus , September 17, 2014 4:04 AM
    Until I see the stuttering issue thoroughly addressed, I won't even consider the G3258 for a gamer. Maybe it's fine, but if it isn't, a lot of buyers will be severely irritated if they buy one. Tests please! And, this is one where balance matters. I know you typically isolate CPU performance by using a top-end graphics card, but in this case that may be little more than giving this chip the rope by which to hang itself. G3258+R7 260X may be more enjoyable than G3258+R9 290 (even if settings must be lowered), and AMD+nVidia differences may matter too, like R7 260X vs. GTX750Ti.
  • 0 Hide
    SU11YBEAR , September 17, 2014 4:44 AM
    Small typo in the 5930K article
    "Four hundred dollars and change left over, and an Intel Core i7-3530K. "

    As many have argued I would have liked to see the 5820K as an honorable mention but with the caveat that any build will cost more due to the high price of DDR4 right now.
    Also would be nice to see more segregation at the top of the hierarchy right now there are 39 (by my quick count) processors listed in the top bracket
  • -4 Hide
    Onus , September 17, 2014 5:50 AM
    The top tiers definitely need to be spread out. There is no way that AMD is going to be that near the top.
  • 0 Hide
    Agera One , September 17, 2014 6:58 AM
    Why don't you list the famous i5-4440 processor in hierarchy chart?
  • -1 Hide
    Agera One , September 17, 2014 7:02 AM
    I have the same question !
  • 0 Hide
    beavermml , September 17, 2014 7:16 AM
    so when my i5-2500K will be considered as obsolete??
  • -1 Hide
    Amdlova , September 17, 2014 7:35 AM
    tomshardware need test the 5820k x 5860k with 32gb DDR4 dual crossfire 290x. see what diference we will find with 28 lanes or 40 lanes of pci-e.
  • 0 Hide
    Amdlova , September 17, 2014 7:36 AM
    *****ops "5830k"
Display more comments
React To This Article