CPU Round-up: $100 - $200 Intel and AMD Processors Tested

Thanks

Thanks for taking the time to test the processors and write up a great article.

Nice article. I emailed it to a friend who's looking for a new CPU.

I agree thanks for the time. But i will always go for amd unless intel slaps a graphic card that is powerful as god in there 1000$ i7 i will be buying from amd.

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0317378
You can find an i7 860 for the price of a retail i5 750, it fits in the same socket as the i5, but you get a tiny bit better clock speed and hyper-threading.

Why did you use an ATI Radeon HD 5870 (1GB) for the

- Intel Core i5 750 (2.66GHz)
- Intel Core i5 650 (3.20GHz)
- Intel Core i3 540 (3.06GHz)


and a ATI Radeon HD 5850 (1GB) for all the rest of the processors?

My question is... with nowadays graphic accelerator cards, does the processor really impact gaming?

Would it REALLY matter to have an i7 or an athlon II 450 paired with a 5870? Ok please now read it again I emphatized the REALLY because of course you can see an improvement, but is it REALLY that big a deal?

Best testing I've seen so far in CPUs. My money is on the AMD Quad 4C/4T, though the 6 core would be nice to see how that goes up against the new INTEL i7 core. AMD Quad and the ATI HD chipsets are pretty fast. Unless you need to go PCI-E x16 or better on adapter card thus you don't have to share memory, but the newer systems VRAM is integrated so no need to share you still have the option to share main RAM into VRAM. Hard-core Gamings would go the adapter card route with 1-up GB of VRAM.

I bought my i7 860 for $199.99 at MicroCenter on store pickup. From all the choices out there (from $100-$200) I believe a i7 860 wins.

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0317378

Cheers

Thanx for the test.

I'm going to wait and see how much one of the new Phenoms II 940T cost before i think of replacing my phenom II X4 B50.

I wish I lived close to a MicroCenter /cry. And there prices are sadly not always the norm .

No no I know but I meant... in processing for gaming, there was with no doubt a lot of FPS in difference, but even in the lowest it was above 60, and for the eye I read above 30 FPS it is not noticeable, so I aim that way.

Very nice review and with just the rigth focus on value.

I would buy the Phenom II X2 555, try to unlock the cores and overclock it.
It should go with one of the new 890FX chipsets and in a year or two replace it with an eight core Zambezi CPU.

I love this article. The best part: A proper conclusion that makes sense, regarding what processor to buy in each price bracket.

However, i am a little disturbed about one of the other comments that suggested that the high end Intel chips were using a different graphics card for gaming (HD 5870 not HD 5850 like the rest.). Further more looking at the benchmarks this seems to be the case, where all the CPUs fall within a narrow margin, and one or two intel chips perform much faster.

Wow, thanks for the information! I can see why you included the core 2 processors for comparison, but I would not even bother with them unless Intel decides to deep discount them. But then again if they did that, they would lose their focus and sales on their newer cpus.

perhaps including this would make things more interesting

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103692

Nice review, it's a shame AMD doesn't have a processor to compete with anything faster than the i5 750 because noboby wants to pay Intel tax on the high end processors.

You guys never seem to stop giving us the best even if we dont know if we wanted it. I say hands down this is a life saver.....Please do a test with the CS5 preferebly PS, AfterE, and Premiere Pro.

Thanks

Nice and useful test, in my country almost all the action on the market happens in this price range. For most non-professional or high end gaming tasks, these "cheap" cpu are more than enough to do the job.

Bought an X4 620 last year and so far im very happy with it, specially with its encoding power. And yes, the Core2 line needs a good price drop to compete with AMD on the lower end, they are good cpu, but way too expensive compared to current offerings.