CPUs for gaming

[Guest riley mclinn]

what are the best CPUs for gaming

[legonate416]

It depends on your budget, but generally any of Intel's CPUs run the best when it comes to gaming, because of stronger cores. AMD can't really keep up right now. Hopefully that will change when they release Zen.

[MIXFUSED]

2 hours ago, riley mclinn said:

what are the best CPUs for gaming

I5's are a great choice for entry level gamers with a tight budget... a lot of AMD cpus are great as well.

[Nena Trinity]

880K, FX-6350, i3-6100 or i5-6600K unless you are loaded then i7-6700K!

[legonate416]

5 minutes ago, MIXFUSED said:

I5's are a great choice for entry level gamers with a tight budget... a lot of AMD cpus are great as well.

AMD CPUs aren't the best choice for gaming, because of weaker CPU cores. An i3 6100 EASILY beats an 8350 of a similar price, and with the i3 you have an upgrade path to an i5/i7 later on. 

 

 

[MIXFUSED]

1 hour ago, legonate416 said:

AMD CPUs aren't the best choice for gaming, because of weaker CPU cores. An i3 6100 EASILY beats an 8350 of the same price, and with the i3 you have an upgrade path to an i5/i7 later on. 

 

 

I know they aren't...but I'm saying if you have a really tight budget it is always an option 

[akskl]

8 minutes ago, riley mclinn said:

what are the best CPUs for gaming

What's your budget?

[legonate416]

1 minute ago, MIXFUSED said:

I know they aren't...but I'm saying if you have a really tight budget it is always an option 

They're an option, of course, but when an i3 beats a more expensive AMD CPU, you know something is wrong. Don't recommend AMD cpus for gaming until Zen. 

[Djole123]

It depends on your budget. It can vary from an Athlon 5350 on low end side to a Core i7 5820K on a high end side.

[Nena Trinity]

2 minutes ago, legonate416 said:

AMD CPUs aren't the best choice for gaming, because of weaker CPU cores. An i3 6100 EASILY beats an 8350 of a similar price, and with the i3 you have an upgrade path to an i5/i7 later on. 

 

 

Its a draw really also he paired the i3 with quite fast RAM but he did also indeed give the FX chip decent RAM as well even if not as fast! (2666MHz vs 2133MHz and draw is a bad sign really)

[MIXFUSED]

1 hour ago, legonate416 said:

They're an option, of course, but when an i3 beats a more expensive AMD CPU, you know something is wrong. Don't recommend AMD cpus for gaming until Zen. 

I will recommend them to people who have a very strict budget...when cheap cpus are useful

[legonate416]

1 minute ago, DEcobra11 said:

Eh, you're forgetting the Athlon x4 845

It doesn't have an L3 cache, making it weaker in terms of gaming loads, as well as the fact that FM2+ has no upgrade path. The 880k can barely beat the G4400 and it's around $40 more expensive.

[i_build_nanosuits]

15 minutes ago, riley mclinn said:

what are the best CPUs for gaming

Tight Budget: Core i5-6400/6500 -- H110/170 B150 motherboards

A bit more budget: Core i5-6600K -- Z170 motherboards

A nice healthy budget: Core i7-6700K/5820K -- Z170/X99 motherboards

[legonate416]

7 minutes ago, Nena360 said:

Its a draw really also he paired the i3 with quite fast RAM but he did also indeed give the FX chip decent RAM as well even if not as fast! (2666MHz vs 2133MHz and draw is a bad sign really)

Ram means next to nothing, maybe a 1-2% difference depending on the game.

 

You can't say the 8350 is more powerful simply because it wasn't paired with faster ram. The 6100 will INHERENTLY be paired with faster ram. It's DDR4 for pete's sake. The FX was given a BOOST because it was paired with 2133 ram, NOT the usual 1600/1866 ram.

[legonate416]

1 minute ago, DEcobra11 said:

A G4400 setup costs more where I live though?

Where you live, yes. But I'm talking generally. In the US the G4400 is typically $60 and the 880k is $100. 

 

As well as the fact that H110 motherboards are inherently cheaper than FM2+. Though I've got to say that the Wraith cooler on the 880k makes it tempting for lower end systems.

[Simon771]

i7 6700k would be probbably the best

 

Those 6 core and 8 core CPUs, don't perform so well in games. Sure it runs without problem, but i7 6700k will give you more fps than i7 5820k or i7 5830k even if those have more cores.

For gaming you need to focus on single core performance.

 

Budget?

[Djole123]

If you want the best CPU for budget, here you go, prices are for total PC price

 

150$-200$: CPU integrated MoBo's

200$-350$: Athlon 5370

350$-500$: Pentium G3250/G3258

500$-650$: Core i5 4440

650$-800$: Core i5 6500

800$-900$: Core i5 4670K

900$ and above: Core i5 6600K and above

[legonate416]

1 minute ago, Simon771 said:

i7 6700k would be probbably the best

 

Those 6 core and 8 core CPUs, don't perform so well in games. Sure it runs without problem, but i7 6700k will give you more fps than i7 5820k or i7 5830k even if those have more cores.

For gaming you need to focus on single core performance.

 

Budget?

An i7 is unnecessary for achieving 60+ fps in games. An i5 is perfectly reasonable, and if you overclock it it will be more than enough for today's games. 

[Simon771]

1 minute ago, legonate416 said:

An i7 is unnecessary for achieving 60+ fps in games. An i5 is perfectly reasonable, and if you overclock it it will be more than enough for today's games. 

True, but must be new Skylake i5 CPU ... some olders ones might not perform that well anymore.

 

Also he asked what's the bst CPU for gaming ... i7 6700k is the answer  

[legonate416]

1 minute ago, Djole123 said:

If you want the best CPU for budget, here you go, prices are for total PC price

 

150$-200$: CPU integrated MoBo's

200$-350$: Athlon 5370

350$-500$: Athlon X4 860K

500$-650$: Core i5 4440

650$-800$: Core i5 6500

800$-900$: Core i7 4770/4771

900$ and above: Core i7 6700K and above

I would say that anything above $350 should be a Pentium. You'll notice that you recommended Intel CPUs for higher budgets? So why not include an upgrade path for lower budgets when it's perfectly reasonable to do so?

 

And an i7 is unnecessary for gaming. I would say an i5 6600k would be just about perfect for any game today, unless your budget is over $2k and you want the best possible experience. 

 

And why the differentiating Skylake/Haswell chipsets?

[legonate416]

2 minutes ago, DEcobra11 said:

I'm talking about the 845 though and there're cheaper FM2+ boards than any 1151 too... That's why FM2+ still an option here.

 

Yet looking at US prices the G4400 seems to win.

Anyway if OP is in US and was about to buy a PC only for gaming I wouldn't save less than 500 $ (i3/i5+380), anything below that point might require an early upgrade.

Unless the OP says otherwise, I will always assume he is in the US. So therefore, my recommendation.

[Wolly9102]

16 minutes ago, legonate416 said:

16 minutes ago, legonate416 said:

AMD CPUs aren't the best choice for gaming, because of weaker CPU cores. An i3 6100 EASILY beats an 8350 of a similar price, and with the i3 you have an upgrade path to an i5/i7 later on. 

 

 

AMD CPUs aren't the best choice for gaming, because of weaker CPU cores. An i3 6100 EASILY beats an 8350 of a similar price, and with the i3 you have an upgrade path to an i5/i7 later on. 

i

I agree that intel has more performance than AMD. but still Combined with my gtx 750 ti my fx 4300 can play recent games on high or ultra settings with 60-80 fps.

[legonate416]

5 minutes ago, Simon771 said:

True, but must be new Skylake i5 CPU ... some olders ones might not perform that well anymore.

 

Also he asked what's the bst CPU for gaming ... i7 6700k is the answer  

He said best CPUs plural... Meaning what are generally the best CPUs... 

 

6700k isn't the answer to everything. Some games will work better on a 5820k or a 5960X. The latter being overkill for any sort of gaming build, but the point still stands.

[legonate416]

2 minutes ago, Arjan W said:

I agree that intel has more performance than AMD. but still Combined with my gtx 750 ti my fx 4300 can play recent games on high or ultra settings with 60-80 fps.

I never said AMD cpus weren't bad. They're actually fairly good for being old. They just aren't the best choice for the price if you're building a new system.

[Djole123]

6 minutes ago, legonate416 said:

I would say that anything above $350 should be a Pentium. You'll notice that you recommended Intel CPUs for higher budgets? So why not include an upgrade path for lower budgets when it's perfectly reasonable to do so?

 

And an i7 is unnecessary for gaming. I would say an i5 6600k would be just about perfect for any game today, unless your budget is over $2k and you want the best possible experience. 

 

And why the differentiating Skylake/Haswell chipsets?

I agree that you don't need a Core i7 for gaming, but having Core i5 in 4 different price points just doesn't feel right to me.

 

Also I could add a Pentium into the game, but since we have a quad core in 300$ rig, every other rig should have a quad core aswell.