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In all our test rigs, we use a current high-end flagship graphics card to better isolate differences in the CPUs’ performance.When it comes to PC gaming, which graphics card you buy is just about the most important decision you can make in terms of performance. Rival and older chips used for comparison are retested at the same time, with a similar use of appropriate contemporaneous hardware. Test PCs are built with the CPU’s capabilities in mind-for example, Intel’s Core i9-12900K supports DDR5 RAM.

Our current suite includes Far Cry New Dawn, Gears Tactics, Horizon Zero Dawn, Metro Exodus, CS: Go, Red Dead Redemption, Ashes of the Singularity, and Rainbow Siege Six.

Gaming performance is a key focus, and we run both synthetic tests (that is, dedicated benchmarking programs) and in-game benchmarks in a variety of modern titles. We evaluate CPUs based on the benchmark results that span multiple use categories. Most shoppers on a budget are better off with the cheaper part, unless you have a specific need for the higher CPU core count in the Ryzen 7 chip. The step-up 5700G bumps that up to 8 cores and 16 threads, alongside 8 Radeon cores running at 2GHz. The 5600G offers 6 cores and 12 threads, paired with 7 Radeon graphics cores clocked at 1.9GHz. And after you snag a graphics card, you can simply drop it into your system, because the CPU cores are very good for mainstream gaming, as our Ryzen 7 5700G review showed.

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Both the $260 Ryzen 5 5600G and $360 Ryzen 7 5700G processors let you play most games at 720p or 1080p resolution. One workaround is to purchase an APU, or CPUs with supercharged integrated graphics. It’s a rough time to build a gaming PC on a budget, especially given the availability and pricing of graphics cards. Meanwhile, if you don’t mind spending up for the ultimate 1080p gaming performance and already have a first- or second-generation Ryzen motherboard, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a killer-albeit pricey-upgrade option. Each costs roughly $450 and offer 12 and 8 cores, respectively. If you simply want ultra-fast gaming frame rates and don’t need a borderline insane amount of CPU cores for productivity work, consider the step-down Core i7-12700K and Ryzen 7 5800X as well.

You may as well invest that money instead into cutting-edge (read: pricey) DDR5 memory and get most out of the 12900K.ĪMD’s $550 Ryzen 9 5900X is another solid option that offers high frame rates, but paying that much for a 12-core chip doesn’t make sense if pure gaming is your goal. Paying an extra $150 nets you just a tiny bump in gaming performance. Its even faster variant, the newly released Core i9-12900KS, now holds the title of “fastest gaming processor,” but this standard version is the one you want. Need more cores for productivity tasks, want eight cores for streaming or future-proofing against console hardware configurations, or simply demand the absolute fastest potential frame rates in any situation? The $589 Intel Core i9-12900K is the 16-core, 24-thread processor for you. If you’re upgrading from an older AM4 B450 motherboard, you may find it more cost-effective to stick with AMD, but otherwise, the 12400 is the chip to get. This CPU also outperforms AMD’s rival Ryslightly, which also just launched.

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You also don’t need to upgrade to Windows 11 to get the most out of this chip. Have a peek at gaming benchmarks in reviews (like those at Guru3D and PCGamer) and you’ll see the Core i5-12400 usually trails behind the $320 Core i5-12600K and $589 Core i9-12900K by only a handful of frames at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K. Sure, you don’t get the fancy mix of performance cores and efficiency cores found in the faster Alder Lake chips, but this six-core, 12-thread processor doesn’t suffer by having only performance cores. The reason? Most of the computing burden falls on your graphics card.Īt an MSRP of about $200, the Intel Core i5-12400 strikes a smooth balance between performance and affordability. In fact, if you don’t need the additional cores of pricier CPU options, this class of chip offers essentially the same gaming experience of processors that cost hundreds more. Midrange CPUs are the sweet spot for PC gamers.

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