Performance Per Dollar

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 i3-4160, though. The $190 Core i5-4460 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 $190 on a Core i5-4460 (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 i5-4460 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		100	Newegg	73	61	87	74
Intel Core i3-4160		125	Newegg	85	74	84	81
Intel Core i5-4460		190	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