Best CPUs Under $150

[NewYorksFinest]

When it comes to:

-performance per price (USD)
-integrated graphics if there is any
-power consumption
-speed while Overclocking (if capable)





Of course when I was typing the poll, my iPhone died .

Options:

Removed; just post your favorite.

 

[crashtech]

Oh, another AMD vs Intel thread (even though you may have not intended it as such). I say the answer currently is the i3-4130. Many game benchmarks bear out the fact that best in class IPC + HT produces superior results even with only two cores. Opinions and mileage may vary.

 

[NewYorksFinest]

Oh, another AMD vs Intel thread (even though you may have not intended it as such). I say the answer currently is the i3-4130. Many game benchmarks bear out the fact that best in class IPC + HT produces superior results even with only two cores. Opinions and mileage may vary.

I never intended it to be, but only Intel out vice versa will be a meaningless thread...

 

[SPBHM]

i3 4130, 4330
Athlon X4 760K
FX 6300

are very nice choices if you don't need IGP

if you need the IGP for (very)basic gaming and other tasks the i3s are also fine
if you want something a little better 5600-5800K is pretty reasonable for the current price, but you should probably already be looking for a graphics card + cheaper CPU, no point in going with faster IGP like the 7850K because the price difference is to big, and enough to buy a much faster graphics card.

760K or 4130 + cheap MB and a discrete graphics can be quite nice.

 

[positivedoppler]

Cyrix 200mx

 

[blackened23]

These polls are stupid ... So I shall reciprocate stupid with stupid

Celeron 300A
Nvidia Riva TNT2
Abit BH6

 

[positivedoppler]

These polls are stupid ... So I shall reciprocate stupid with stupid

Celeron 300A
Nvidia Riva TNT2
Abit BH6

worthy of consideration
http://www.anandtech.com/show/392/12


"....[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif], the TNT2 was, arguably, king of the hill.[/FONT]"

 

[Midgetguy]

I probably would go for an FX-6300

 

[Maximilian]

FX8320
i5 4570

Honourable mention: celeron G1820

 

[TeknoBug]

i3 4330, Athlon X4 760K, Pentium G3220, FX 4350, FX 8320 (if you're lucky).

What I like about the FX 4350 is the high stock clock and OC's easily even on a 4 phase motherboard, but sucks power like no tomorrow. i3 4330 can run modern games prety well, and does just about every other task no sweat. The X4 760K is rather decent bang for buck for under $100, OC's well on a decent FM2+ motherboard (and you can upgrade to a Steamroller version of Athlon later) but doesn't have an IGP.

 

[Shamrock]

You can currently get an AMD FX-8320 for $151.99 shipped @ Amazon

 

[sm625]

i5-670 on ebay for under $70. Aint nothin gonna touch that. 3.46GHz stock, with 4.2 GHz probably easily attainable. I'm tempted to rip out my i5-750 and stick that in there just for the potentially higher max single thread clock.

 

[crashtech]

i5-670 on ebay for under $70. Aint nothin gonna touch that. 3.46GHz stock, with 4.2 GHz probably easily attainable. I'm tempted to rip out my i5-750 and stick that in there just for the potentially higher max single thread clock.

Would love to see you bench that with Cinebench 11.5 and post your results here.

 

[nwo]

If we exclude used options then I would say...

If you have no specific (high end) requirements then the best price/performance CPU is a Celeron. Low power consumption, capable of handling all everyday tasks including HD video playback with onboard graphics. What more could you ask for from a CPU that costs less than $50?

For multi-threaded applications an FX 8320 would be the best CPU for ~$150. A Haswell i3 is arguably a better choice for gaming though, especially if OCing is taken out of the equation.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

I bought a fx 6300 and an asrock motherboard for $140 total at microcenter. That is insane bang for the buck imo.

 

[Rakehellion]

Probably one of the LGA1156 i5's.

 

[SlowSpyder]

You can currently get an AMD FX-8320 for $151.99 shipped @ Amazon

Was going to post this. Great bang for the buck if you overclock.

 

[blake0812]

FX 6350, only $20 more than the 6300

 

[AllWhacked]

At the $150 price point, the FX-8320. it's currently about $150 now and it's been as low as $130-$140 online and $100 at Microcenter. If you can't get the FX-8320 for $130, the FX-6300 for $110 is a good 2nd choice. I don't bother with FX-8350/6350 cpus as they are more expensive than the 6300/8320 and with a 970/990 board you can easily overclock the 8320/6300 with stock cooling to 8350/6350 speeds without much effort.

An i3 i admit would perform faster than the FX-6300/8320 at single and dual threaded apps, but newer games like Crysis 3 and Battlefield 4 like multi-core CPUs better. Since the next-gen console is an 8-core AMD chip, I'm guessing future games will benefit more from multi-core processors. So if I were building a new machine now, i wouldn't settle for anything less than FX-6300/8320 or i5/i7. Also, in terms of older games that only utilize single or dual threads, the FX-6300/8320 perform well enough that it doesn't really matter as with a good video card they provide acceptable FPS at 1920 x 1080 resolution.

In the $70 range, the G3220 or Celeron G1820 are good choices. Frys had the G1820 and G3220 for as low as $30. At that price point, you really can't ask for much more considering that a G3220 is faster than my e8400 OC at 4GHz.

 

[Enigmoid]

As far as a cheap gaming CPU goes the FX 6300 is almost unbeatable. (With a mild OC on the stock cooler).

 

[jacktesterson]

I play console port type games with a 360 controller from my couch on my HTPC

I have a $75 X4 750K @ 4.2 GHz (on stock voltage) + a 2GB 7850 @ 1200/1375 Clocks. (I bought for $139)

Cheap but Native 1080p Capable Machine - More capable than a PS4. It pushes my 7850 just fine at 1080p.



A 2500k can be had in this range and would be a good choice.

 

[Blue_Max]

I'd vote for scrounging up another $10-20 for ANY i5 processor, which will blow everything else out of the water - bar none.

 

[crashtech]

There is definitely value at this price point in AMD CPUs if you are going to run heavily threaded apps all the time, but for the majority of users this is simply not the case. Tom's Gaming CPU Hierarchy shows that dual-core Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge i3s are in the same tier as AMD's fastest ever eight-core CPU. This means that the current generation Haswell i3s represent a value that can't be ignored. An i3-4330 at 3.5GHz runs single-threaded code 17% faster than an AMD FX-9590 at 4.7GHz. While we'd love to make use of all those core that AMD provides at a discount price, software generally just hasn't caught up.

The takeaway is that you better know what your usage pattern is before you decide whether to back more, slower cores, or fewer faster ones.

 

[MongGrel]

X5650, but you'd probably have to get another MOBO.

 

[rvborgh]

Best cpu upgrade i've ever done in terms of cost/performance... upgrading from dual socket F Opteron 2212s (2x2 core) to dual Opteron 8439 SE (2x6 cores) (around $100-$120 each cpu these days). All that was necessary was a bios upgrade, install the chips and multicore cpu benchmarks typically came back almost 5x faster. For eg... Cinebench R15 scores went from 174 to around 830 with no other changes (Cinebench 11.5 = 9.8). i honestly do not think i'll ever go back to a single processor motherboard again.

X5650, but you'd probably have to get another MOBO.