AMD Or Intel: Which $100 Gaming CPU Should You Buy? [Tom's]

[Bond007]

We benchmarked nine of the most popular games available with four CPU specimens, each of which costs close to the $100 mark: the new Athlon II X4 620, the new dual-core Pentium E6500, the Phenom II X3 710, and the Phenom II X2 550 Black Edition.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...-cpu,2439.html

Thought this was an article that may interest many budget minded people like myself. I am glad I went with the x3 710 when I did, but I would have loved an article like this when I was researching. Enjoy.

[Silvgearx]

its a no brainer choosing from that list for budget gaming, dont even have to read the reviews to know, the PH II 550 is the best choice of the bunch and it might even have a magic trick up its sleeve

[JD]

Weak. Didn't do any overclocking.

That's the whole point of budget rigs IMO, clock 'em to the max!

[frontier204]

The lack of OC surprised me as well, given that THG almost always overclocks low-end CPUs for their benchmarking.

As a side note, I'm a little surprised to not have noticed this until now, but my "flagship" Phenom I CPU (see sig) is clocked the same as a budget Athlon II quad at 2.6GHz?

[Caldezar]

X2 550BE... Don't even have to think about it. As it sits, it's an awesome performing chip with great OC potential. But if you're lucky and can unlock the 2 extra cores, you're blowing away the competition.

[gingerbee]

amd with out thinking quad core for a hundred bucks sold

[Bond007]

Originally Posted by 5ILVgeARX

its a no brainer choosing from that list for budget gaming, dont even have to read the reviews to know, the PH II 550 is the best choice of the bunch and it might even have a magic trick up its sleeve

Actually the x3 710 had better average framerates then the 550 in the games tested. Its definitely a personal choice though. They all have advantages. I personally would rather 3 guarantied cores with a chance for 4 then only 2 with a chance for 4. The 620 had the highest average frame rates, but also the lowest average min frame rates (a summary of frame rates is on the last page).

Definitely agree that they need to do the test over again with overclocked results.

[Silvgearx]

Ok so i read the article after you quoted me.

and damn why are there results SO different than what i read HERE

[Bond007]

Originally Posted by 5ILVgeARX

Ok so i read the article after you quoted me.

and damn why are there results SO different than what i read HERE

I have no idea. The 550 and 720 in that review are close enough to what the 550 and 710 in the tom's review are to accept, but the 620 numbers are very different in gaming. In tom's the 620 is competitive in gaming, but in anand it does significantly worse than the Phenoms. No idea what would cause that variance.

[Silvgearx]

even to this time and date. not all game can take advantage of 4 cores. so i stick with anandtech and forget what i saw at toms

maybe someone can elaborate more about this.

wheres enab