cheap gaming CPU's

[pctweaks]

First, this is my first thread on these fora and i may inadvertently have made mistakes, feel free to correct me if you feel that is the case.

Secondly: i'm trying to build a cheap gaming PC, starting with the cpu, to now on i found four processors who seem to be alright, but i don't know wich one is better for rts'ing and mmorpg'ing, so here they are:

athlon II X4 640
Athlon II X3 445
AMD Phenom II X2 555 BE
Intel core i3 530
Yeah, i took the newegg site, i don't need to talk about prices, twenty dollar won't make the difference to me, it's purely wich one is the best, taking into account that you can (with luck) unlock the 555's 2 dormant core's and the core i3's hyperthreading, etc.

 

[BD231]

Honestly I wouldn't mess with any of those options. X2s are getting dated and the Athlons are Cache limited. Phenom II x3 or X4 would be more worth your while, though.

I see x4 945's for 120-130 or so. If you're lucky you can grab one off craigslist in your area for 80 to 100. At least try and get yourself an x3 though.

 

[nyker96]

no contest here, i3 530 baby!

 

[o1die]

The i3 530 overclocked is a nice little cpu. Fry's has them in stores for $79.99 this week, and an msi p55 board for $49.99 after rebate.

 

[evolucion8]

If you care about gaming, the i3 is the way to go, but if you are willing to sacrifice a bit of gaming performance (Which isn't that much of a difference) for more multi threading performance, the Athlon II X4 630 is the better buy, and if you go to the Phenom II X4 945, the gaming performance gap against the i3 will not be noticeable, but you will have even better multi threading performance.

 

[pctweaks]

I'll probably go for the 945 then, when bulldozer comes out i'll be able to upgrade to a 1055 or a 1090 for next to nothing as the hexa-cores will have to lower prices or we'll all just be buying bulldozer.

 

[daveybrat]

Definitely the 945, at 95Watt power consumption, 3GHz core speeds and 6MB L3 cache, it should be more than sufficient for current games as long as you pair it up with a decent GPU.

 

[Rifter]

i3 530 is the best gaming CPU of the bunch, no question. If all you do is game then get that for sure. However if you use the comp for other tasks the quad core AMD's are going to give you better performance in any programs you run that are well threaded.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

945, no question. It's just about comparable to a Q9300-Q9550 based on application. For the price you can get it these days it's a steal. Hyperthreading doesn't make up for extra cores TBH. It is an added incentive, but really you're just buying a dual core that has a little extra oomph for multitasking than a typical dual core. A triple/quad core is worlds better when running 1 or more intensive applications.