Naturally, you’ll want to combine speed and features with your PC budget while looking for the best CPU for gaming. Nowadays, purchasing a processor for a gaming setup is both more straightforward and more complex. The performance of AMD’s Ryzen 7000-series and Intel’s 13th-generation Core CPUs are excellent, especially now that the conflict between the two firms has escalated into a full-scale war. If you want robust performance, the biggest core counts, the quickest clock rates, and the largest cache sizes ever are available.
The complexity of these new chip lines is the challenging aspect. Do you invest all of your resources in the best products, such as Intel’s 6GHz 13900KS? Alternatively, do you use AMD’s Ryzen 7000 CPUs, which feature the company’s fast V-Cache? Nowadays, there is more complexity to grasp, especially if you want to get the most out of your gaming budget. Smart purchasing can free up more money for more important purchases, such as your graphics card and potentially even finer motherboard features that improve quality of life.
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Due to their superior price, performance, or cool bonuses, a select few particular chips stand out from the competition as the finest gaming CPUs. Due to an ongoing price war between AMD and Intel, there are also a ton of runners-up from which to choose.
Well, in this article, we’ll be listing the best CPU for gaming that is worth considering if you’re planning on obtaining one for yourself. Note that, this is not a sponsored post, all CPUs for gaming mentioned below are based on top-performing, best-suited ones in today’s industrial market.
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So, let’s dive in!
List of best CPU for gaming
Below shows the list of the best CPU for gaming;
- Intel Core i5-13400
- AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
- Intel Core i5-12400
- AMD Ryzen 5 7600
- Intel Core i7-13700K
- AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
- Intel Core i3-13100F
- Intel Core i9-13900K
Intel Core i5-13400
The Raptor Lake Core i5-13400 ($221), which has 10 cores and 16 threads, and the Core i5-13400F ($196), which lacks graphics, improve on the gaming performance of the previous-generation model, which has long been the standard mid-range gaming chip. However, the addition of 4 e-cores boosts performance in threaded productivity workloads. The 13400 is the preferred CPU for gaming in mid-range gaming PCs because it supports DDR4 memory and offers an unmatched value proposition in the $200 price range.
The processor features six P-cores that can enable hyper-threading and run at a base speed of 2.5 GHz and a boost speed of 4.6 GHz. For threaded tasks, the four e-cores can run at 3.3 GHz. With support for DDR4-3200 or up to DDR5-4800 memory, 16 lanes of PCIe 5.0, and an additional four lanes of PCIe 4.0 from the chip for M.2 SSDs, the 13400 provides cutting-edge connectivity.
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In comparison to the Ryzen 5 7600, the Core i5-13400/F’s DDR4 option and generally less expensive Intel motherboard pricing can save about $135 on system costs overall. Naturally, this results in a considerably better overall value since the Ryzen system costs 35% more and each frame costs 25% more for the 7% improvement in 1080p gaming performance.
If the BIOS supports the chip, you can use either a more recent 700-series motherboard or an older 600-series model since the Core i5-13400 comes with a capable cooler that can handle its 65W/148W base/peak power ratings. The majority of gamers will appreciate DDR4’s reduced cost and equivalent performance, but if you require access to additional memory throughput, you can upgrade to the more expensive DDR5. B- and H-series motherboards from Intel’s partners are readily accessible, and a B660/B760 motherboard and Core i5-13400 CPU form an excellent gaming combination.
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AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
This choice will likely spark debate because the $450 AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D isn’t always the best CPU for gaming. But boy, does it punch hard—enough to perform much beyond its weight category. Benchmark results show that it generally outperforms the $589 Intel Core i9-13900K at 1080p. Additionally, it greatly reduces energy consumption. This indicates that it is the wiser purchase for many people—possibly even the majority of people.
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Having said that, not everyone will find it to be the best option. The 7800X3D performs in the center or even at the bottom of the group of top-end CPUs in games that are better optimized for Intel processors or that react to higher clock speeds rather than cache capacity. Its primary function is as a gaming chip. The 16-core, 32-thread 13900K is the 16-core CPU you want if you require more cores for production work and flawless gaming performance across the board (and don’t care about your electricity costs).
In contrast, the Core i7-13700K (MSRP $409) offers good all-around performance, albeit 1080p gaming will result in a performance loss of roughly 5%. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D is a fantastic upgrade choice for people with first- or second-generation Ryzen motherboards, especially given its current street pricing ($300 to $330, depending on the day).
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Intel Core i5-12400
The sweet spot for PC gamers is midrange CPUs. In reality, this type of chip gives essentially the same gaming experience as processors that cost hundreds more if you don’t need the extra cores of more expensive CPU options. The cause? Your graphics card carries the lion’s share of the computing load.
The Intel Core i5-12400 successfully balances performance and cost at a street price of roughly $180. It was replaced by the Core i5-13400, yet it continues to dominate the sub-$250 market. According to TechSpot, this six-core, 12-thread processor has enough power and is still closely followed by the 13400 in gaming benchmarks. Additionally, it supports DDR5 motherboards and memory, enabling you to construct a system with a little more built-in future-proofing.
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However, you can also take into account the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X if DDR5 support is not important to you. It delivers a little performance improvement at 1080p (about 5%). However, be sure to think about which games you play the most and which might favor AMD over Intel. However, we advise the 5700X over the 12400 if you’re upgrading your CPU on an older AM4 motherboard because it is a drop-in replacement and requires no additional purchases, making it a very affordable upgrade. (Only remember to update your BIOS before performing the switch).
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AMD Ryzen 5 7600
The Ryzen 5 7600 from AMD is another alternative for the best CPU for gaming, which has six cores and 12 threads and costs $229, is very comparable to the Ryzen 5 7600X but costs $20 less and performs almost as well, falling 5% short in gaming. If you want to use DDR5 memory, the Ryzen 5 7600 competes with the $196 Core i5-13400F, a formidable opponent on the pricing front.
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Although the Ryzen 5 7600 outperforms the Core i5-13400F in gaming at both stock and overclocked settings by 7%, the two chips’ prices aren’t as close as they first appear to be. That’s mainly because of Ryzen’s tight necessity for expensive DDR5 memory and AMD’s B-series motherboards’ normally higher pricing dramatically raises the cost of your setup. The Ryzen 5 7600 is more desirable if you already want to spend more money on DDR5, but the entry price is greater. When performance is taken into account, a Ryzen 5 7600 system costs about $50 (10%) more than a Core i5-13400F system or about 4% more per frame.
Six cores on the Ryzen 5 7600 are clocked at 3.8 GHz base and 5.1 GHz boost, and they are each fed by 32 MB of L3 cache. The chip is compatible with all of the newest processing standards, including DDR5, PCIe 5.0, and the most recent USB interface standards. For a basic display out, AMD has also provided integrated graphics, which is beneficial if you need to debug. Similar to the Core i5-13400/F, the Ryzen 5 7600 has strong cooling. Since the most recent Zen 4 processors are not backward compatible, you will need a new AM5 motherboard.
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Intel Core i7-13700K
One of the best CPUs for gaming with good performance value is the Core i7-13700K. The Core i7-13700K, priced at $409, easily defeats the pricy $590 Ryzen 9 7950X and the $399 Ryzen 7 7700X while offering nearly identical gaming performance to Intel’s own $589 flagship Core i9-13900K. Additionally, for $395, you can get rid of the integrated graphics processor and purchase the Core i7-13700KF.
As always, the Core i7 model dulls the luster of the Core i9 if you aren’t looking for top performance in demanding productivity tasks. At its pricing range, the Core i7-13700K is an excellent high-performance gaming CPU, providing 95% of the performance of the Core i9-13900K’s flagship model for $190 less. Even better, you can overclock the chip to achieve performance that is nearly comparable to that of the Core i9-13900K. The Ryzen 7 5800X3D and the 13700K are nearly equal in speed, but the 13700K outperforms the Ryzen 7 5800X3D with overclocking.
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Along with supporting DDR4-3200 or up to DDR5-5600 memory, 16 lanes of PCIe 5.0, and an additional four lanes of PCIe 4.0 from the chip for M.2 SSDs, the 13700K also supports cutting-edge connectivity. The power ratings for the 13700K are 125W PBP (base) and 253W MTP (peak). However, compared to its predecessor, we measured significantly lower power consumption, and in return, you get performance that is very competitive.
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AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
The $699 AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D Is one of the Highest Performance Best CPUs for Gaming and is designed primarily for gamers who want to run CPU-limited games quickly while still having the threading power of 16 cores to perform the toughest productivity jobs. With sixteen Zen 4 cores and the second-generation 3D V-Cache technology from the manufacturer, which unlocks 128MB of L3 cache, the new chip offers the fastest gaming performance currently on the market. In our tests, the 7950X3D outperformed Intel’s 6 GHz Core i9-13900KS by an average of 13% and as much as 40% in some titles.
The 7950X3D offers an astounding 128MB of L3 cache thanks to AMD’s cutting-edge 3D chip-stacking technology, known as 3D V-Cache. Similar to AMD’s first X3D processor, the Zen 3 Ryzen 7 5800X3D, the additional L3 cache is provided via a 3D-stacked SRAM chipset that is hybrid-bonded on top of the processor, accelerating gameplay in many titles to new levels. In order to distribute the improvements more evenly across a wide variety of games, AMD has also developed a new thread-targeting method.
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Due to the compromises made by the 3D chip-stacking technology, the Ryzen 9 7950X3D does fall behind its direct competitors in some productivity applications, and it doesn’t accelerate all games equally. As a result, before taking action, you should carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages of the chip. It is, however, unquestionably the world’s fastest gaming chip. All of the features we would anticipate from a contemporary processor, like support for DDR5, PCIe 5.0, and the most recent USB interface standards, are included in the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. For the first time, AMD has also included integrated graphics for a basic display output, which is helpful if you need to troubleshoot.
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Intel Core i3-13100F
Although there may not be much of a performance improvement over the Core i3-13100F’s predecessor (our previous winner in this category), the newer chip is the one to buy given that both have the same list price (roughly $110). Benchmarks (like those from TechSpot) show that you’re receiving the greatest performance among budget chips regardless of your choice. The entry-level CPU from Intel outperforms AMD’s Ryzen 5 5500 on average and in more specific 1080p games while having a comparable retail price. Even though the difference is small, every frame matters when every penny counts.
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The Core i3-13100 has six p-cores and 12 threads that run at 3.4 GHz base and 4.5 GHz boost speeds, but it lacks the e-cores that the Core i5 versions provide for background activities. Additionally, it has a 12 MB L3 cache. The 13100 supports up to DDR4-3200 and DDR5-4800 MT/s and has 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes and 4 PCIe 4.0 lanes. However, there are certain restrictions with DDR5 support. While Intel’s non-K models do not support CPU core overclocking, they do support memory overclocking.
Additionally, the Core i3-13100F includes the updated cooler from Intel, saving you some money. The Core i3-13100F has the same power ratings as the non-F variant, 60W PBP (base) and 89W MTP (peak), making it simple to cool with the included cooler.
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Intel Core i9-13900K
Intel’s Core i9-13900K is also one of the best CPUs for gaming with high performance. While AMD’s Ryzen 9 5900X3D is faster, Intel’s Core i9-13900K is the company’s fastest gaming processor. It is also faster than the other Ryzen 7000 family chips, despite not being quite as fast. It is a fantastic deal for high-end game streaming as well, outperforming AMD’s Ryzen 9 7950X in our gaming testing and the most taxing content creation chores at $569. Additionally, it dominates x86 single-threaded performance. Additionally, Intel now has the advantage in total core counts for the first time since AMD’s Ryzen launched in 2017.
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Along with supporting DDR4-3200 or up to DDR5-5600 memory, 16 lanes of PCIe 5.0, and an additional four lanes of PCIe 4.0 from the chip for M.2 SSDs, the 13900K also supports cutting-edge connectivity. The chip has 16 single-threaded E-cores and eight hyper-threaded P-cores for a total of 24 threads. With Turbo Boost Max 3.0 (this feature is only enabled on P-cores), the P-cores’ peak frequency can reach an astounding 5.8 GHz. The E-cores, meanwhile, have a default frequency of 2.2 GHz and can be overclocked to 4.3 GHz using the common Turbo Boost 2.0 algorithms. Additionally, the chip has 32MB of L2 and 36MB of L3 cache.
Although the 13900K has a 125W PBP (base) and 253W MTP (peak) power rating, we found that it used significantly less energy than its predecessor. In return, you receive performance that leads the industry. You’ll need to purchase a suitable cooler for the chip, as well as a motherboard from the 700-series or 600-series generations. While only lower-end and mid-range DDR4 motherboards are readily available, there is still a large selection of high-end motherboards that support DDR5 memory. The majority of gamers will appreciate DDR4’s reduced cost and equivalent performance, but if you require access to additional memory throughput, you can upgrade to the more expensive DDR5.
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FAQs
What type of CPU is best for gaming?
The Intel Core i5-12600K is currently the finest gaming CPU available. It features a 3.6GHz base clock speed but may be increased to 4.9GHz for even quicker performance. Additionally, it has integrated graphics, so you can play less graphically demanding games without spending money on an expensive, dedicated GPU.
Which CPU is the fastest for gaming?
The new fastest gaming CPU in 2023 is AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D. An 8-core, 16-thread desktop CPU with a boost clock speed of 5GHz, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D. In terms of core and thread count, it is comparable to the 7700X, and it too contains a single CCD.
Which is the No 1 gaming CPU in the world?
- Intel Core i5-13400
- AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
- AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
- Intel Core i5-13600K
Which CPU is the fastest?
The world’s fastest CPU, if we’re talking about that, would be AMD’s massive 64-core/128-thread Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX, but that chip is designed for high-end desktop (HEDT) computers.
How much RAM do I need for gaming?
The majority of games advocate using 16GB of RAM, which will significantly improve performance above 8 GB. Applications can be executed in the background without interfering with gameplay.
Which CPU is more powerful?
For gamers, Intel CPUs often provide superior performance and value than AMD processors. Higher instructions-per-clock (IPC) and single-thread clock speeds are required when computing complicated AI in video games, two areas where Intel excels.
How many CPUs do I need for gaming?
If you’re an engineer, a video editor, or a professional or aspiring gamer, octa-core CPUs are fantastic. Video gamers should choose more cores for as much power as feasible when playing, recording, and streaming demanding games.
How much CPU is enough for gaming?
A CPU speed of 3.5 GHz is more than sufficient for the majority of users to execute their favorite applications. CPU speed is measured in gigahertz (GHz). The ideal CPU speed for gaming, video editing, and other tasks that require several cores is between 3.5 GHz and 4.0 GHz.
How many cores are for gaming?
An agenda that says a massive number of cores are required to assure you can obtain amazing performance in games has been pushed by marketing gimmicks and technical language. However, as we’ve seen, most users manage just fine with CPUs that have four or six cores and can handle games at higher settings.
Is i7 better than i5?
Generally speaking, Intel Core i7 CPUs are faster and more powerful than Core i5 CPUs. The more recent i7 chips are better suited for advanced multitasking because they can have up to six cores and 12 threads.
That’s all for this article where the following list of best CPU for gaming was discussed;
- Intel Core i5-13400
- AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
- Intel Core i5-12400
- AMD Ryzen 5 7600
- Intel Core i7-13700K
- AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
- Intel Core i3-13100F
- Intel Core i9-13900K
I hope it was helpful, if so, kindly share. Thanks for reading.
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