Processors

Today, we're putting the newest and fastest sub-$150 processors against each other in a gaming competition to see which models offer the best bang for your buck. Will it be Intel's Core i3, its Clarkdale-based Pentium, or AMD's Athlon and Phenom II CPUs?

What’s the real benefit of six cores versus five, four, three, two, or one? This article looks at the performance, power, and efficiency of AMD's Thuban-based six-core Phenom II X6 1090T processor running with several different core configurations.

Tom’s Hardware has been ringing the 5 GHz bell for years, yet those efforts have never yielded a practical daily-use solution. Today we take a look at how far off-the-shelf parts can take us with an ambitious 5 GHz, six-core overclocking project.

With its new Atom platform, Moorestown, Intel has made a lot of exciting claims and hinted at significant changes in our computing future. All good stuff, but we need more answers. To find them, we sat down with Intel’s godfather of ultra-mobility.

AMD’s six-core CPU is affordable (at least, compared to Intel's Core i7-980X). We're overclocking the Thuban design to see if its efficiency improves from faster clock rates. Comparisons to other quad- and hexa-core processors provide some perspective.

Do you like the idea of an unlocked clock multiplier, but don't want to pay $1,000 for an Extreme Edition? Intel's K-series CPUs bring overclocking down to the mainstream. The question is: can these scalable parts keep up with AMD's Black Edition CPUs?

AMD's Athlon II X3 440 is such a capable little chip, and and it costs so little. Is there any real point in spending more money on your gaming machine’s CPU? We explore this question with a head-to-head challenge against Intel's venerable Core i7-920.

The last time we matched up Intel's Pentium G6950 against AMD's Phenom II X2 555, our overzealous overclocking efforts caused a processor meltdown. With a little more experience on Intel's 32 nm process (and caution), we offer a suitable rematch. Game on!

Intel’s $115 Core i3-530 doesn't include Turbo Boost technology and it doesn't boast hardware-based AES-NI, but it overclocks like a fiend. We benchmarked this dual-core, HT-equipped chip at 4.4 GHz and determined the most power-efficient overclock.

In our recent Phenom II X6 1090T review, we speculated about the possibility of a quad-core CPU family based on AMD's Thuban design. Meet Zosma. We got our hands on a Phenom II X4 960T at 3 GHz, and unlocked it using ASRock's 890FX Deluxe3 motherboard.

AMD turns the bait-and-switch tactic upside down for the second time in four months, offering faster CPUs at existing price points. We explore the company's seven new models and discuss the processor lineup in a more general manner.

Atom was designed to be a low-cost, low-power solution, but its value in the desktop space is debatable if you consider performance. We pit the cheapest Core i3 against Intel's Atom on a performance-per-dollar and a per-watt basis to see which is better.