What is the best processor with a reasonable price?

Question

when buying a CPU should i mainly be looking for the GHz or the number of cores?

Answer 1

I really advise you to go for AMD. Athlon XP Dual Core or Sempron. They have good prices and good performance!

Answer 2

Number of cores basically means nothing if the speed isnt up to match. They have 6 core processors that can barly put out a gig, and at the same time a single core processor that can put out clos to 2 gig on its own.

What you need to look for is Processor speed, Cache size, and dimms.

Recommended for todays traditional use-

1.8 GHz + 2G cache

Recommended for todays higher performance use -

2.4 GHz + 6G cache

Recommendedfor todays gaming performance -

3.5+GHZ + 6G+ cache

Answer 3

Things to look for:

Clock speed

Architecture: Eg. Allendale, Wolfdale. Newer ones do more work at the same clocking, have newer instructions, and often run cooler or overclock better.

Cores: two if you want to play games, four for rendering video or doing real heavy multitasking.

L2 cache: For most users, 3MB of L2 cache is fine for a two core chip. Above that, the gains are real meagre as of now.

Current best bets:

E7200- 120$, Wolfdale, solid overclocker, 2.53GHZ, 3MB L2

E8400- 169$ high end Wolfdale, 3.0?GHZ, 6MB L2

Q6600- 180$ quadcore, old architecture, but cheap and G0 stepping overclocks really well. 2.4GHZ, but does anyone keep it at the stock clocking?

All prices are from Newegg.

Answer 4

depends on the use. if gaming go for clockspeed if video editing or multi-tasking go for more cores. check out the intel e8400 and q6600. both good, heavily overclockable if you so choose and cheap.