When purchasing the best gaming CPU, you’ll want to balance performance and features with your PC budget. Below are our tips and choices to help you choose the best CPU for gaming.
You can also see how these processors fit into our CPU benchmark classification, which includes CPU overclock benchmarks.
However, for more information on selecting the best processor for your gaming rig, see our 2022 CPU Buying Guide.
If you’re still undecided about which CPU company to choose, our AMD vs. Intel, this article delves deeper into the debate and determines a winner.
Intel recently launched the Core i9-12900KS, but the reprehensible approach to its price and power to try to guide our gaming performance charts is not worth the premium.
Instead, AMD’s new Ryzen 7 5800X3D is included in our list of the best CPUs for gaming, which in addition to being the best AMD CPU for gaming, has the distinction of being the fastest gaming CPU on the market.
The Ryzen 7 5800X3D, as seen in the Gaming Performance album below, is based on AMD’s claim that 3D V-Cache improves gaming performance over what we typically see with just a new microarchitecture.
However, after 58000X3D, gaming is not as fast as the chips compared to other types of single and multi-threaded work.
So you need to know the pros and cons before buying this particular chip. Also, its price point is slightly higher than what we typically recommend for most gaming-centric builds.
Here is the list of our favorite CPUs Best to Buy For Gaming PC:
| Intel core i5-12400 |
| AMD Ryzen 5 5600x |
| Intel Core i9-12900K |
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1. Intel Core i5-12400
If you’re looking for the best CPU for gaming, the mid-range Alder Lake six-core 12-thread Core i5-12400 is your chip, especially after the recent price cuts that bring it up to an incredible 160.
With the right tuning, it’s faster in gaming than the previous-gen $ 549 Core i9-11900K flagship, So it outperforms the $ 230 Ryzen 5 5600X in gaming.
The chip has six P-cores that support hyper-threading and run at 2.5 GHz base and 4.4 GHz boost speeds.
12400 Support Supports Leading Edge connectivity with DDR4-3200 or DDR5-4800 memory, as well as 16 lanes of PCIe 5.0 and an additional four lanes of PCIe 4.0 from the chip for M.2 SSDs.
Our testing shows that the Core i5-12400 offers solid performance in all styles of threaded productivity applications, and its fastest single-threaded performance surpasses even the fastest Ryzen 5000 processors.
Furthermore, the Core i5-12400 offers incredible levels of gaming performance but at a much lower cost than any comparable AMD processor, which sets a new bar for budget gaming chips.
Check out the current price here <<==.
Pros
- Excellent gaming performance
- Strong single and multi-thread
- Highly competitive pricing
- PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 memory
- Supports memory overclocking.
Cons
- LGA1700 motherboard is required.
2. AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X is the best AMD CPU for gaming, offering a strong combination of gaming and application performance.
This six-core, the 12-thread chip is frequently available for $200, a significant discount due to Intel’s competitive pressure.
The Ryzen 5 5600X also beats the Intel Core i9-10900K in gaming, which is an incredible feat in terms of its price. It is one of the most powerful desktop PC processors ever experienced.
AMD’s Zen 3 microarchitecture results in an impressive 19% increase in IPC, which floats all boats in terms of performance in gaming, single-threaded and multi-threaded applications.
In our tests, the chip matches the gaming performance of its more expensive sibling, the yz 0 310 Ryzen 7 5800X.
It makes the 5600X an incredibly well-rounded chip that can handle any gaming, from competitive class performance to streaming with a high refresh rate monitor while performing daily application tasks. Also offers maximum performance for loads.
Check out the current price here <<==.
Pros
- Strong gaming performance
- Strong in single and multi-threaded workloads
- Cooling is relatively easy.
- PCIe 4.0
- Bundle cooler
- Power efficiency
- Works with existing 500 series motherboards.
Cons
- Breeding pricing on higher breeds
3. Intel Core i9-12900K
The Intel Core i9-12900K was once named the fastest gaming processor on the planet. At $ 589, it also surpasses AMD’s Ryzen 95950X in our gaming testing, and even in high-threaded content creation, it’s an exceptional value for advanced game streaming. It is also the undisputed leader in x86 single-threaded performances.
12900K support also includes significant connectivity with DDR4-3200 or DDR5-4800 memory, 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes and four PCIe 4.0 lanes from the chip for M.2 SSDs.
The chip has eight P-cores with hyper-threading support and eight single-threaded E-cores for 24 threads.
P-cores have a base of 3.2 GHz, and with Turbo Boost Max 3.0, the peak frequency reaches 5.2 GHz (this feature is only active on P-cores).
Meanwhile, the E-core base is 2.4 GHz and extends to 3.9 GHz via the standard Turbo Boost 2.0 algorithm. The chip also has 30MB of L3 memory and 14MB of L2 memory.
Check out the current price here <<==.
Pros
- The fastest gaming processor you can buy.
- Competitive pricing
- DDR5 and PCIe 5.0
- Leading single-threaded performance
- Multi-threaded performance
- Overclockable
Cons
- No bundle cooler.
- LGA1700 motherboard is required.
- Platform pricing
Final Thought
There is no point in endue in the best graphics card available if you can’t maintain your performance with just one processor, which is known as CPU constraint.
Your processor is crucial in managing the frame rate of video games, particularly when it comes to continuous frame times.
It’s worth noting that you don’t need the best gaming CPU to enjoy a high frame rate because the amount of processor work varies depending on the game.
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