Though every PC has a number of core components that it cannot function without, the central processing unit, or CPU, is often seen as the most important one, given that it controls all of the other components and is thus a major factor in overall PC performance.
But how important is a CPU in a gaming PC?
In this buying guide, we’ll be presenting you with the best CPUs for gaming that you can get in 2024, as well as a short guide that will answer some common questions and help you choose the CPU that best suits your needs in this respect.
So, without any further ado, here are today’s best processors for gaming. We will start with the most affordable CPUs today.
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Best Budget CPUs
If you’re building a gaming PC but are on a tight budget, there are always more affordable CPUs on the market that would be a good fit for those who don’t have a lot of money to spend on a CPU or on a PC as a whole.
The Pros:
- Solid budget performance for gaming
- Features hyperthreading
- Cooler included
- Approachable price
The Cons:
- Doesn’t support overclocking
- Not very future-proof
Our first entry is a modest but nonetheless solid solution coming from Intel. While the Intel Core i3-10100 may be one of the cheapest, lowest-ranking CPUs in Intel’s 10th generation Core lineup, it is more than worth considering for those who are on a tight budget, as it definitely delivers good value for the money.
With four cores and eight threads, the i3-10100 is a definite step up from its predecessor, the i3-9100, which only had four cores and no hyperthreading. This is no small deal in this day and age where multi-threaded performance is becoming more and more important for gaming, and it’s especially important if you want to keep future-proofing in mind.
The i3-10100 also comes with a stock cooler that, despite looking better than older Intel coolers, still only offers the bare minimum performance that you’d expect. It can keep this particular CPU running at acceptable temperatures, but you might still be tempted to go with a quieter aftermarket cooler if noise generation proves to be an issue.
Sadly, the i3-10100 doesn’t have an unlocked multiplier, so it’s not really an overclocking CPU, though you’re unlikely to care about that if you’re on a budget anyway. Other than that, it’s also not the most future-proof solution, as quad-cores (even those with hyperthreading) are slowly being driven obsolete by ever-increasing core and thread counts.
Overall, there’s not much to say about the Intel Core i3-10100 other than that it is a great budget pick for those who can’t afford to spend more than roughly $100 on a CPU. It will go well with a budget GPU, but if you’re aiming at any of the more powerful mid-range solutions, you may want to go with a more powerful CPU, too.
On a final note, we’d also like to mention that the i3-10100F could actually be an even better budget choice since it shaves a few bucks off the price by excluding the integrated graphics that you’d likely have no use for anyway, but sadly, it’s not as readily available as the regular i3-10100 at the moment.
The Pros:
- Decent performance
- Unmatched integrated graphics
- Affordable
- Great value
The Cons:
- Limited CPU performance
- Dated architecture
If the above Intel Core i3 model doesn’t strike your fancy or fit your budget, we have something a little bit different for our next pick. It’s been a while now that AMD APUs have been out on the market, but it’s only recently that they’ve become viable for gaming.
But what is an APU, exactly? Short for Accelerated Processing Unit, the term “APU” is little more than a marketing name coined by AMD to indicate CPUs that come with CPU and GPU cores on the same die, which essentially means that the CPU comes with integrated graphics. Now, the main difference between AMD’s and Intel’s integrated graphics is that AMD’s integrated graphics are actually good.
Equipped with eleven Vega graphics cores, the Ryzen 5 3400G offers some of the best integrated graphics performance ever seen. It’s capable of running even the latest AAA games at acceptable framerates in 1080p, and it fares even better in 720p. Granted, it’s nowhere near the level of even the cheapest budget gaming GPUs, such as the GTX 1650 Super, but the savings alone might make it a worthwhile choice for some people.
Of course, no processor is without its share of flaws, and a budget APU is no exception. The main drawbacks of the Ryzen 5 3400G are its limited CPU performance, which makes it unappealing if you actually intend on getting a discrete GPU. The 12nm Zen+ architecture also feels quite dated in 2024, what with the new 7nm Zen 3 models blowing last year’s Zen 2 lineup out of the water.
That said, the Ryzen 5 3400G is a great pick for those who can’t afford to get a dedicated graphics card or don’t intend on playing any overly demanding games and mainly focus on eSports and indie titles.
Best Mid-Range CPUs
As we move up the price ladder, we get to the mid-range section.
It is these CPUs that usually make for the best balance between performance and value, as they are reasonably priced and they can handle most of the GPUs currently on the market without any significant bottlenecking.
The Pros:
- Matches Ryzen in terms of core and thread count
- High clock speeds
- Solid overclocking performance
- Approachable price
The Cons:
- No cooler included
- No PCIe 4.0 support
- Not as good value as the competition
First up in this category, we have Intel’s formidable mid-range solution that marked Team Blue’s long overdue return to form.
Like the i3-10100, the Intel Core i5-10600K belongs to the 10th generation Comet Lake CPUs that finally caught up with Ryzen when it comes to core and thread counts, making them much more appealing than the earlier generations of Intel Core CPUs that were sorely lacking in that department when compared to the competition.
Compared to Ryzen, the main advantage of Core models is still their higher base clock speeds, as well as their superior overclocking performance. This translates into better single-core performance, which is generally more important for gaming than multi-core performance is. And in that respect, the i5-10600K has the upper hand over its main competitor.
However, some extra raw performance doesn’t necessarily mean that a CPU offers good value; sure enough, one of the main issues with the Comet Lake lineup is that they don’t support the PCIe 4.0 interface. While PCIe 4.0 is far from necessary for gaming right now, there are PCIe 4.0 SSDs on the market already, so the lack of this feature does make future-proofing a bit of a dubious issue here.
On top of that, like all unlocked Intel CPUs, the i5-10600K doesn’t come with a cooler included in the box. This isn’t as big of a downside since you’d likely want to go with a higher-quality aftermarket cooler anyway, but since AMD has raised their prices and is shipping its Ryzen 5000 series either without coolers or with subpar ones, having a slight edge in that department really could’ve made Intel more appealing value-wise.
In any case, the Intel Core i5-10600K is a solid all-around CPU for gaming, but it’s not a great pick at the moment now that AMD has largely caught up in terms of gaming performance and considering that the new Rocket Lake Intel CPUs will be launching in a few months.
The Pros:
- Good performance for gaming
- PCIe 4.0 support
- Low TDP
- Cooler included
The Cons:
- Not the best cooler for this kind of CPU
- More expensive than last-gen model
Up next, we have the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, the latest mid-range CPU released by AMD. Much like its predecessors, it doesn’t disappoint. It still does what AMD Ryzen 5 CPUs have done well over the past few years, but it does so even better.
The Zen 3 architecture offers a solid increase in performance compared to the Zen 2-based Ryzen 3000 models, while maintaining the core and thread count that is more than enough for gaming in 2024. Not only that, but it also catches up with Intel in terms of single-core performance this time around, it fares a bit better than its predecessor when it comes to overclocking and has a noticeably lower TDP than the competition.
Like most other Ryzen models, the Ryzen 5 5600X comes with a cooler included, though it’s not the Wraith Spire that most Ryzen 5 models used to ship with. Rather, this time AMD set the customers up with a much more modest Wraith Stealth cooler. And while it is a much better cooler than those you’d get with Intel CPUs, it’s not a very good fit for a CPU this powerful.
In addition to that, AMD has also bumped up the pricing on this model, as it now comes with a $300 price tag attached instead of a $250 one like the 3600X or the 3600XT. And with the cheaper cooler in the box, the Ryzen 5 5600X doesn’t seem like such a great pick compared to its predecessors at first glance.
Regardless, while it may not be very appealing for those who already have solid mid-range CPUs, we’d say that the Ryzen 5 5600X is still the best mid-range option as far as value is concerned. As mentioned above, it offers the kind of single-core performance that Intel can, but the multi-threaded performance is even better and it’s also more future-proof thanks to the PCIe 4.0 support, which is missing from Intel’s lineup.
Best High-End CPUs
Finally, we get to some high-end solutions that are not only more than powerful enough to run even the beefiest modern GPUs but also offer even better performance for those who intend on using their PC for professional applications rather than just gaming.
The Pros:
- High core and thread count
- Great gaming performance
- Plenty of overclocking headroom
The Cons:
- No cooler included
- No PCIe 4.0 support
The first CPU we have lined up for this category is another 10th generation Intel model, the Intel Core i7-10700K, and it is one of the most appealing high-end models that Intel has released to date.
As we’ve already mentioned when talking about the i5-10600K, Intel has only now caught up with Ryzen in terms of core and thread count. However, Intel’s main advantage still remains their single-core performance and their CPUs’ superb overclocking capabilities, and the i7-10700K is a perfect example of this.
The Intel Core i7-10700K is capable of hitting staggering clock speeds as high as 5.1 GHz and it remains remarkably stable even when pushed that far. Of course, you’d have to invest in a proper cooler that can keep it from melting down when it hits those speeds, as it doesn’t come with a cooler included.
Moreover, like its i5 counterpart, the i7-10700K doesn’t support PCIe 4.0, which is a bit of a bigger deal with a pricier CPU like this one. As mentioned above, it’s not that big of a deal when it comes to gaming at the moment, but if you do any sort of memory-intensive work and might consider getting a PCIe 4.0 SSD now or further down the line, then it’s definitely something to keep in mind.
As such, while the i7-10700K is definitely an impressive CPU that would be at home in any high-end gaming PC as well as many workstations, it is currently overshadowed by AMD’s latest addition to their high-end lineup, which you can see below.
The Pros:
- High core and thread count
- Improved single-threaded and multi-threaded performance
- PCIe 4.0 support
- Great power efficiency
The Cons:
- More expensive than its predecessor
- No cooler included
- Not the best overclocking performance
Now, we’ll take a look at the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, a CPU that, as mentioned above, overshadows the competition and its predecessor in a number of ways.
The core and thread count may have remained the same since the very first Ryzen 7 models released in March 2017, but the same can’t be said for the overall performance, which has improved significantly compared to even the last-generation Ryzen 7 3800XT.
And much like the Ryzen 5 5600X, this is a very power-efficient CPU that comes complete with PCIe 4.0 support, something that certain users should definitely keep in mind, as mentioned above.
However, the Ryzen 5 5600X isn’t the only Zen 3 CPU that came with a price increase. Not only is the Ryzen 7 5800X more expensive than its predecessor, but it also comes without a cooler included. This is quite a disappointment, considering that the Ryzen 7 3800X came with the stunning, RGB-equipped Wraith Prism cooler that had both the performance and aesthetics departments covered.
It’s also worth noting that the Ryzen 7 5800X doesn’t fare all that well in terms of overclocking either, when compared to the competition. Where the i7-10700K remains stable at speeds above 5 GHz, the Ryzen 7 5800X maxes out at around 4.7 GHz.
Obviously, this won’t appeal to overclocking enthusiasts, but it’s not really a deal-breaker, especially when it comes to gaming.
Ultimately, the Ryzen 7 5800X is a great CPU that handles both single-threaded and multi-threaded workloads remarkably well, so it’s a good fit for games and professional software alike. Also, as previously mentioned, it’s a more future-proof option, considering that it supports PCIe 4.0.
The Pros:
- Very high core and thread count
- High clock speeds
- Top-notch gaming performance
The Cons:
- No PCIe 4.0 support
- Pricey
- Dubious value
As we move up the price/performance ladder, we get to enthusiast-grade solutions that can make Core i7 and Ryzen 7 models seem diminutive in comparison. First up, we have the Intel Core i9-10900K, the most powerful CPU in Intel’s current desktop lineup.
With ten cores and a total of twenty threads, combined with clock speeds that can go as high as 5.3 GHz with the help of Intel’s Turbo Boost Max 3.0 technology, the i9-10900K is nothing to scoff at. It packs more than enough processing power to squeeze maximum performance out of even the most powerful GPUs currently on the market.
However, as great as it may be, the i9-10900K still doesn’t support the PCIe 4.0 interface, and it’s an even bigger issue here than with the cheaper Comet Lake models since it will appeal mainly to professionals, or at least those who intend on using their PC for both gaming and work.
Even though it offers excellent gaming performance, this is a CPU that will appeal mainly to those who would be able to take advantage of the excellent combination of high clock speeds, and high core and thread counts that this i9 model offers, and those same professionals are the ones who’d want to have PCIe 4.0 support for the sake of future-proofing and in case they wanted to invest in a PCIe 4.0 SSD.
Ultimately, the Intel Core i9-10900K is a great CPU, but like the cheaper Comet Lake models that we’ve already taken a look at, it really does offer very dubious value at the moment, due to the fact that Ryzen is both more future-proof and doesn’t lag behind in terms of performance as much, while the new Rocket Lake CPUs are only a few months away.
It’s worth noting that a version without integrated graphics, the Intel Core i9-10900KF, is also available, so you might want to keep that one in mind if you can catch it at a lower price.
The Pros:
- Amazing multi-threaded performance
- Great gaming performance
- PCIe 4.0 support
- Good power efficiency
The Cons:
- More expensive than its predecessor
- No cooler included
- Limited overclocking performance
- Expensive
Following up, we have a CPU that easily overtakes the i9-10900K in nearly every respect: the Ryzen 9 5900X. Much like the i9, this CPU will appeal more to professionals rather than gamers or simply to those who intend on using their PC for both gaming and work.
With twelve cores and a whopping twenty-four threads, the Ryzen 9 5900X offers some of the best multi-threaded performance you can find in a mainstream desktop CPU today. As before, the Zen 3 architecture is a major step up from the Zen 2-based Ryzen 3000 models, and it still uses the same AM4 socket and is compatible with older chipsets.
While the i9-10900K still has a slight advantage due to better single-core performance, Ryzen beats it due to all of the reasons we’ve mentioned previously: it has more threads, the PCIe 4.0 support makes it more future-proof and more appealing to professionals, and it’s more power-efficient.
However, the same downsides that we’ve mentioned when talking about the other Ryzen 5000 models still apply here: the Ryzen 9 5900X is more expensive than its predecessor that was not only cheaper but also came with an excellent RGB-lit cooler, while the overclocking performance still isn’t on the same level as Intel.
So, while the Ryzen 9 5900X isn’t a great pick if you’re specifically looking for a CPU for gaming, it’s one of the best CPUs for those who need good multi-threaded performance for professional applications and those who intend on using PCIe 4.0 products now or in the near future.
The Pros:
- Highest core/thread count of any mainstream CPU
- Unmatched multi-threaded performance
- Great power efficiency
- PCIe 4.0 support
The Cons:
- More expensive than last-gen model
- Extremely expensive overall
- Doesn’t overclock as well as Intel
- Not the best value
Now, for the last (but definitely not least) entry on the list, we have the monster CPU that is the Ryzen 9 5950X.
In short, the Ryzen 9 5950X offers all of the benefits that the Ryzen 9 5900X does, all the while taking the core and thread count to another level. Like its more modestly priced counterpart, it is based on the Zen 3 architecture that allows it to maintain better power efficiency than the competition, it’s compatible with earlier AM4 chipsets and it supports the PCIe 4.0 interface.
On the downside, it’s not quite on the same level as Intel’s high-end solutions as far as single-core performance and overclocking are concerned, but these shortcomings are overshadowed by its merits. One major flaw that will be a dealbreaker for most potential buyers is, as you might expect, the price.
Priced at $800, it’s the most expensive Ryzen CPU released to date, excluding the high-end Threadripper models, but it offers limited improvements compared to the Ryzen 9 5900X when it comes to gaming, and sometimes even when it comes to CPU-intensive professional software.
That said, the Ryzen 9 5950X is truly a product aimed at enthusiasts and those who need the absolute best performance they can get and are willing to pay good money for it. So, unless you’re building a workstation or you simply have cash to burn, this probably isn’t your ideal CPU for gaming.
How To Pick The Best CPU For Your Needs
Now that we have gone over what we feel are some of the best CPUs for gaming available at the moment, the question remains: How do you find the one that best fits your needs?
Below, we’ll answer some of the common questions that you might find yourself asking when trying to find the right CPU for your needs, so read on!
AMD vs Intel
First, let’s address something that will likely be the first question that many will ask: Which company currently offers the best CPUs for gaming, AMD or Intel?
For a long time, Intel has had the undisputed lead and was the only real choice for all but some low-end builds, as AMD simply failed to offer any real competition throughout most of the 2010s.
However, this changed in 2017 when Ryzen finally launched. The scales shifted and it was AMD that seemed to be offering CPUs that either flat-out performed better or just offered better value when it came to the price-performance ratio. And now, in 2024, the two giants seem to be on fairly even terms.
For the past few years, almost all of AMD Ryzen CPUs came with multithreading and offered higher core/thread counts than the competition, while generally being cheaper and more power-efficient to boot. However, as mentioned in the article, Intel finally caught up with its 10th generation Core models in this respect.
Now, of course, there’s more to performance than thread counts alone, and single-core performance tends to be more important for gaming. This is an area where Intel still maintained an advantage for a long while, although AMD did finally catch up.
Intel CPUs still fare better in terms of overclocking, but their advantage becomes less and less obvious as AMD closes the single-core performance gap.
Now, value, that is, how much you’re actually getting for your money, is definitely a big issue when it comes to choosing the right CPU.
AMD had the definite lead due to the fact that their CPUs were cheaper and mostly came with excellent stock coolers. Sadly, since AMD increased the prices and since the higher-quality coolers are nowhere to be seen in the Ryzen 5000 lineup so far, the question of value has become very dubious.
However, that might change with the launch of the Ryzen 6000 series.
If we had to choose, we’d still give the lead to AMD, for all of the reasons that we’ve previously mentioned in the article: they offer comparable gaming performance and are more future-proof right now, but there’s no denying that the situation could indeed be better.
Finally, there’s also the question of compatibility, which is another department where AMD has the lead for a while now.
Since the introduction of Ryzen, all of the Ryzen CPUs (barring the Threadripper models), used the same AM4 socket. Apart from some minor chipset compatibility issues, it was mostly a smooth ride.
In contrast, it was a much bumpier ride with Intel, and in between the LGA 1151 socket revisions and limited chipset compatibility, chances are that if you wanted to upgrade to a newer CPU, you’d have to get a new motherboard as well.
Now, as we’ve previously mentioned in the guide, Intel has just introduced the LGA 1200 socket and AMD will be replacing the AM4 socket with the AM5 in 2021. However, the upcoming Rocket Lake CPUs will also be the second and final generation to use the LGA 1200 socket since Intel will be introducing a new LGA 1700 socket after it.
That said, whatever brand you go with right now, you won’t have a clear upgrade path when the new sockets roll out.
All things considered, we’d definitely be inclined to recommend AMD at the moment, but the situation might change in a few months when Intel releases their new CPUs.
Core and Thread Count
So, we’ve established that AMD and Intel are on even terms when it comes to the core and thread counts, and that the latest Ryzen and Core CPUs are matched in that department. But of course, higher thread counts are reserved for the more expensive CPUs, so just how important is a high core/thread count for gaming?
We’ve already touched upon the subject previously, mentioning that single-core performance is usually more important for games than multi-core performance is. However, due to rising core and thread counts, more and more games are optimized to take care of all that extra processing power.
Of course, outside of gaming, having more threads means that the system will be better at handling multiple tasks simultaneously and various types of professional software can benefit greatly from having access to more threads.
But, at the end of the day, there’s little use worrying specifically about core and thread counts now that AMD and Intel are on even grounds in that department.
When it comes to gaming, a 6-core 12-thread mid-range CPU will be more enough for gaming in 2024.
Clock Speeds and Overclocking
We’ve mentioned that single-core performance usually has a more profound positive effect on the FPS counter than a high thread count does, and that’s where clock speeds and overclocking come in.
A CPU’s clock speed, measured in Hertz, indicates how much data a single core can process each second, so increasing the clock speed also increases the CPU’s processing power. So, what should you consider when it comes to overclocking, and is it even worth it?
First, we should consider the fact that all Ryzen CPUs are unlocked and can be overclocked, but only those Intel CPUs marked with a “K” at the end of their model number can be overclocked. However, while overclocking is more accessible with Ryzen, it is the Intel CPUs that usually fare better in terms of how far they can be pushed.
As you can tell from this buying guide, the latest Comet Lake Intel CPUs’ clocks can be pushed noticeably farther than those of their Zen 3-based competitors, which means that you can squeeze more performance out of them this way.
You can refer to gaming CPU benchmarks to get a better overview of the current CPU hierarchy when gaming performance is concerned.
The question remains, however — is this extra performance gained through overclocking even worth it?
Well, as mentioned before, the benefits can range from noticeable to negligible, and this really depends on the game and the rest of the system. Still, overclocking can also help make the CPU slightly more future-proof, so it’s worth keeping this in mind if you’re thinking about the long-term.
However, for the most part, overclocking is an enthusiast’s game. For the average gamer who doesn’t consider the tweaking to be “part of the fun,” the benefits that it offers when it comes to gaming are quite limited, especially when you consider that you’d have to spend extra on a good cooler in order to really push a CPU to its limits.
Integrated Graphics
Integrated graphics aren’t exactly a high-priority feature for gaming CPUs, as the vast majority of gaming configurations rely on discrete graphics cards, and for a good reason — integrated graphics simply can’t compete with them in terms of performance. However, they’re still worth keeping in mind.
We have listed the Ryzen 5 3400G as a good choice for those who are on a really tight budget, or just those who mainly intend to play some less demanding games such as eSports titles, indie games or simply older releases that don’t really pose a challenge for modern hardware.
When compared to Intel’s UHD 630 integrated graphics that you can find in the latest 10th generation Core models (all of the ones listed here), AMD’s Vega graphics simply blow Intel out of the water. While Intel’s integrated graphics are usually only good to have as backup in a gaming PC, AMD’s Vega APUs can actually offer playable framerates, even in AAA games.
Bottlenecking
Finally, we have the question of bottlenecking, which is often the main thing to keep in mind when choosing the right CPU for your gaming build. So, what is bottlenecking?
Essentially, when a CPU cannot “keep pace” with a more powerful GPU, the GPU’s processing power won’t be utilized to its full extent because the CPU won’t be able to issue instructions fast enough — as such, pairing a weak CPU with a powerful GPU is usually a bad idea. Of course, the opposite holds true as well — you won’t get better in-game performance by pairing up the Ryzen 9 5950X with an Nvidia GeForce GT 1030.
So, the main question here is: How do you ensure that you’ve got a good CPU/GPU pair?
Overall, it’s impossible to avoid a bottleneck completely, so the goal is to minimize it to the point where the loss in performance is completely negligible. It’s difficult to estimate the exact extent of a bottleneck, and while bottleneck calculators such as this one can give you a decent estimate as to how well a CPU and a GPU would go with one another, there’s usually little need to delve into the exact percentages.
Namely, a good rule of thumb to go by is to stick to budget CPUs for budget GPUs, mid-range CPUs for mid-range GPUs and high-end CPUs for high-end GPUs. However, mid-range CPUs will usually do fine even for high-end GPUs, too, unless you really want to squeeze every single frame out of your graphics card and/or if you also intend on running some CPU-intensive software.
Conclusion – The Best Gaming CPU For 2024
And now, with all of the above in mind, it’s time to pick our winners! Naturally, since preferences and budget constraints differ from person to person, there’s no single best “one-size-fits-all” CPU, so we have picked three, one from each category.
At the moment, the best budget pick is definitely the Intel Core i3-10100. It offers solid gaming performance and the inclusion of hyperthreading makes it more future-proof than an average quad-core CPU, so it’s an all-around decent pick for those who can’t spend too much.
However, those who can afford to spend a bit more will undoubtedly find that the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X offers the best value for your money, as it is a great mid-range gaming CPU that offers better overall performance and is more future-proof than the competition.
If you’re a professional in need of a CPU that cannot only run the latest games but also some CPU-intensive software, the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X is the obvious premium pick, provided you can afford it.
Those would be our picks for the time being! Let us know if you agree and which of these you intend on getting. Just keep in mind, if you don’t get your new CPU immediately, be sure to check back later.
Like we said before, new Intel Rocket Lake chips are right around the corner and AMD isn’t done rolling out their full Ryzen 5000 lineup, so the list is bound to change in the future!