Best Gaming CPUs For The Money: January 2014

The holiday season sees the FX-6200 price drop lower than ever before. In addition, slight drops on key Intel processors coupled with the arrival of low-cost Socket 1250 motherboards prompt us to reconsider our high-end recommendations. More inside!

If you don’t have the time to research benchmarks, or if you don’t feel confident enough in your ability to pick the right processor for your next gaming machine, fear not. We at Tom’s Hardware have come to your aid with a simple list of the best gaming CPUs offered for the money.

Some Notes About Our Recommendations

This list is for gamers who want to get the most for their money. If you don’t play games, then the CPUs on this list may not be suitable for your particular needs.
The criteria to get on this list are strictly price/performance. We acknowledge that there are other factors that come into play, such as platform price or CPU overclockability, but we're not going to complicate things by factoring in motherboard costs. We may add honorable mentions for outstanding products in the future, though. For now, our recommendations are based on stock clock speeds and performance at that price. Remember to check out our new performance per dollar comparison page, where you can overlay the benchmark data we’ve generated with pricing, giving you a better idea where your ideal choice falls on the value curve.
Cost and availability change on a daily basis. We can’t offer up-to-the-minute accurate pricing information in the text, but we can list some good chips that you probably won’t regret buying at the price ranges we suggest (and our PriceGrabber-based engine will help track down some of the best prices for you).
The list is based on some of the best US prices from online retailers. In other countries or at retail stores, your mileage will most certainly vary. Of course, these are retail CPU prices. We do not list used or OEM CPUs available at retail.     

 

January Updates: 

With no new models from AMD or Intel, this holiday season's CPU news is firmly anchored to price adjustments.
From AMD, we see a $10 drop on the A6-3500 (now $50) and the FX-6300 (now $100). While the A6-3500 APU offers little to the hardcore gaming crowd, that FX-6300 is a more impressive deal. Given a 30 W-lower TDP compared to the $90 FX-4130 and a third Piledriver module, the FX-6300 comes away with our lone recommendation.
Beyond those two tweaks, AMD continues playing strange pricing games with its FX-9370 and FX-9590. As I write this, the former is down to $150 without a cooler and $220 with a closed-loop solution, which is $30 less than last month. The FX-9590 is now more expensive, priced at $350 sans cooler and $400 with the liquid-based system.
Finally, the FX-8120 was de-listed from Newegg. We've seen roadmaps showing the FX family stagnating. AMD says it doesn't plan to discontinue the line-up, but without an update to the Steamroller micro-architecture imminent, we wonder how long these CPUs will remain relevant parts of the company's portfolio.
Intel dropped the price of its Core i3-4330 by $10 to $140, though we'd still probably prefer the Core i3-4130. The Core i5-4670K and Core i7-4770K also fell a few dollars. They're now almost on par with the previous-generation Core i5-3570K and Core i7-3770K. Because of this, and due to a tighter focus on LGA 1150-based motherboards, we think it's time to start recommending Haswell-based CPUs in the $150-and-over space, rather than older Ivy Bridge-based models. This includes adopting the Ivy Bridge-E-based Core i7-4930K over older Sandy Bridge-E-derived processors.