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Best Gaming CPUs For The Money: December 2010

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AMD introduced a few new CPUs like the Athlon II X3 455, Phenom II X2 565, and the Phenom II X6 1100T. Intel is serving up an impressive Core i3-550 price drop. We consider the CPU landscape at the end of 2010 on the cusp of Sandy Bridge's introduction.

If you don’t have the time to research the benchmarks, or if you don’t feel confident enough in your ability to pick the right processor for your next gaming machine, fear not. We at Tom’s Hardware have come to your aid with a simple list of the best gaming CPUs offered for the money.

December Updates

AMD introduced a few new models in December: the 3.3 GHz Athlon II X3 455, the 3.4 GHz Phenom II X2 565 Black Edition, and the 3.3 GHz Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition. All three of these CPUs are 100 MHz speed bumps over the previous flagships in their respective product lines. At $85, the Athlon X3 455 slightly ups the ante for budget gaming CPUs. The $100 Phenom II X2 565 BE continues the Phenom X2 tradition of low-priced, multiplier-unlocked, overclockable dual-core processors featuring the chance to unlock dormant cores. At $265, the Phenom II X6 1100T BE takes the pole position in AMD's desktop processor portfolio.

While the Phenom II X6 series attracts folks who focus on threaded applications, gamers should probably be more interested in the Phenom II X4 955 BE, a CPU that we've seen drop a few dollars to $145. This quad-core CPU sits in the sweet spot of price/performance and overclocking ability. To see any real advantage over the Phenom II X4 955, you need to spend roughly $200 for a Core i5-700-series CPU like the -760.

Speaking of Intel, the Core i3-550 recently landed at the $115 price point, and this 3.2 GHz processor is the first extremely compelling sub-$200 offering that we've seen from Intel in a long time. It can hold its own against lower-clocked Phenom II X4 CPUs as a gaming-oriented solution, and it's a solid overclocker, too. Its only relative weakness is performance in heavily threaded applications when you compare it to chips armed with more than two physical cores, such as AMD's Athlon II X3. But if gaming is your focus, you won't find a better $115 CPU.

If you already own a platform and don't want to invest in a new motherboard, you can probably upgrade to any of the CPUs on our recommended list without worrying too much about the future. For anyone planning a complete upgrade, though, realize that we're on the verge of Intel's Sandy Bridge architecture introduction, so consider holding off a little longer to see how the market change within the next two weeks. Intel's next-generation design is expected to have a significant impact on the processor landscape, especially as it pertains to media encoding/decoding (Ed.: I wish I could say more at this point, but it'll be big; trust me).

Some Notes About Our Recommendations

This list is for gamers who want to get the most for their money. If you don’t play games, then the CPUs on this list may not be suitable for your particular needs.

The criteria to get on this list are strictly price/performance. We acknowledge that there are other factors that come into play, such as platform price or CPU overclock ability, but we're not going to complicate things by factoring in motherboard costs. We may add honorable mentions for outstanding products in the future, though. For now, our recommendations are based on stock clock speeds and performance at that price.

Cost and availability change on a daily basis. We can’t offer up-to-the-minute accurate pricing information in the text, but we can list some good chips that you probably won’t regret buying at the price ranges we suggest (and our PriceGrabber-based engine will help track down some of the best prices for you).

The list is based on some of the best US prices from online retailers. In other countries or at retail stores, your mileage will most certainly vary. Of course, these are retail CPU prices. We do not list used or OEM CPUs available at retail.

 

Athlon II X3 455

Best Gaming CPU: Under $110

Best Gaming CPU for ~$85:

The new Athlon II X3 455 is the fastest triple-core Athlon II available, and it sports an ideal combination of three execution cores, a high clock rate, a low price, and respectable overclocking headroom. Despite the deceptively low buy-in, this processor delivers some serious gaming capability.

Intel's Core i3-550 does manage to up the ante, but it costs $30 more, and doesn't perform as well in threaded environments due to its less complex dual-core architecture.

Honorable Mention:
Pentium Dual-Core E6800   95.99$

The 3.33 GHz Pentium E6800 replaces the 3.2 GHz Pentium E6700 as the fastest budget dual-core available for the LGA 775 interface.

While the E6800 doesn't have any dormant cores that could be unlocked (like the Phenom II X2 555), it has a solid reputation for overclocking well, and it makes a good upgrade option for tweakers with older LGA 775-based systems who are not yet ready to put money into a new motherboard and CPU.

For folks considering a full upgrade, the Socket AM3 and LGA 1156 platforms are probably better choices. Just bear in mind that LGA 1156's days are numbered. The launch of Sandy Bridge in just a couple of weeks sees Intel pulling a hack-job with yet another interface, leaving mainstream buyers with Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 CPUs stranded without a viable upgrade path.

Best Gaming CPU: $110-$150

Best Gaming CPU for $115:

Core i3-550

Our Game-Off: Seven Sub-$150 Processors Compared review proved it to our satisfaction: the Core i3 deserves a solid recommendation as a gaming processor. The Core i3-530 consistently beat the Athlon II X3 445, and came surprisingly close to challenging the Phenom II X4 940 in a number of situations. Now that the faster 3.2 GHz Core i3-550 has taken the Core i3-530's place on the price ladder, it's even more attractive, and is very likely able to stave off AMD's Phenom II X4 940 in a majority of gaming scenarios.

The only downside is that this dual-core, Hyper-Threaded processor doesn't handle multitasking as well as a true quad- or even triple-core processor like the Athlon II X3. Nevertheless, its basic gaming ability can not be refuted. Just bear in mind that the LGA 1156 interface is getting eclipsed in a couple of weeks by Sandy Bridge.

Best Gaming CPU for $155:

Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition (144.9$)

A former flagship of AMD's Phenom II X4 family, the Phenom II X4 955 BE has been relegated to third-place status by the newer Phenom II X4 970 BE model.

Despite the pecking order, Phenom II X4 955 offers the best gaming value of the bunch. It is a true quad-core processor with a sizable 6 MB L3 cache. But even more impressive at this price is its unlocked multiplier. From our experience, the great majority of Phenom II X4 955 processors can run just as fast as the Phenom II X4 970 with a simple BIOS multiplier change from 16x to 17.5x--an easy way to put this $145 processor on par with a stock ~$200 Core i5-760.

Best Gaming CPU: $150-$200

Best Gaming CPU for $160 to $200:  None

At $145, the Phenom II X4 955 is an indesputable value leader. But while the Phenom II X4 955, 965, and 970 all share an unlocked multiplier, there's a good chance that AMD's binning process will designate the CPUs with the best potential as the Phenom II X4 965 or 970, so overclockers may want to put some extra dollars toward the higher-end models.

Folks who don't overclock won't notice any difference, however. In addition, overclocking enthusiasts might want to consider spending the extra money on a Core i5-760 once they've reached this price range.

Read our review of the new Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition here, and our look at the Phenom II X4 970 here.

Honorable Mention:
Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition  160$

Honorable Mention:
Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition 185$

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