The low-cost CPU market has been barren for over a year, but Intel’s new Alder Lake processors have made a big impact on the CPU benchmark hierarchy.
AMD is clearly lacking on the low end of the market, but the recently released seven new chips include two models aimed at the low end of the market. AMD’s new Renoir chips take a new approach of tackling the low end with Zen 2 powered APU silicon with the integrated graphics unit disabled. We recently reviewed the Ryzen 5 4500 and Ryzen 3 4100 and found that the Zen 2 architecture simply can’t stand up to today’s modern chips such as the Core i3-12100. Neither newer AMD chip is recommended due to the severe trade-off between performance and connectivity.
Intel’s Alder Lake processors lead the market and top our list of best CPUs for gaming. Intel also has a full lineup, so many of their chips are aimed at the lower end of that market.
We have tested as many chips as we can get our hands on and the Intel Core i3-12100 was the first model to pass our test suite, proving it has an excellent blend of price and performance. , the top spot on the list of best cheap CPUs. It also seems to have ample availability, which is unusual for a cheap chip in the current shortage.
Both AMD and Intel have new lineups ready for release. The AMD Ryzen 7000 and Intel Raptor Lake families are both hitting the market in the coming months.
- you can’t lose AMD or Intel: Both companies offer affordable chips, and the overall CPU performance between the compared parts is closer than it has been in years. You can see how the chips stack up in the CPU benchmark hierarchy. That said, if you’re primarily interested in gaming, Intel’s chips generally perform slightly better (and consume more power) when paired with graphics cards. On the other hand, AMD’s APUs do an excellent job of delivering game-ready performance on moderate settings.resolution without it Need for graphics card.
- clock speed more important than core count: Higher clock speeds generally give better performance for simple and common tasks like gaming, but more cores can handle time-consuming workloads faster.
- CPU overclocking Get more performance out of your budget. Intel doesn’t have an overclockable processor for the sub-$125 market, but AMD’s processors are tunable, and the bundled AMD cooler is sufficient in most cases. Even less tech-savvy users can benefit from the automatic overclocking feature of most motherboards, which simplifies the process.
For more information, see the CPU Buyer’s Guide. This guide will tell you how much money you should spend on what you’re trying to do and when cores are more important than high clock speeds. If you can afford a mainstream or high-end processor with more budget, check out our list of the best CPUs for gaming and the best CPUs for workstations. Below you’ll see our favorite budget picks.
Best Cheap CPUs of 2022 at a Glance:
Best $100-$130 Cheap CPU Picks:
1. Intel Core i3-12100 (opens in new tab)
Best budget CPU selection for $85-$100:
2. Intel Core i3-12100F (opens in new tab)
Best $60-$85 entry-level cheap CPU picks:
3. Intel Core i3-10100F (opens in new tab)
Our picks for cheap entry-level CPUs under $60:
Four. AMD Athlon 200GE (opens in new tab)
Best cheap CPU in 2022
Like the rest of the Alder Lake family, the $130 Core i3-12100 hits the market at a bargain price. The chip is also available as the $104 F-series Core i3-12100F, with Intel shipping the deactivated integrated graphics for $25 less than the full-featured model, pushing it into a slightly lower price point below. In fact, AMD has no clear current-gen competitors and the Core i3-12100 easily leads the CPU benchmark tier in the $105-$130 bracket as it performs well in its price range. . Overall, the quad-core i3-12100’s strong combination of price, performance, and improved stock cooler dominates the $100-$130 price range, putting it against more expensive competitors.
The Core i3-12100 currently reigns as the fastest budget gaming CPU on the market and is impressive enough even for light threaded apps. Alder Lake chips for faster performance. The Core i3-12100 is impressive for its price, even for threaded productivity workloads.
The Core i3-12100 comes with 60W PBP (base) and 89W MTP (peak) power ratings. The chip operates at a 3.3 GHz base and boosts up to 4.3 GHz. It also comes with 12MB of L3 cache. Intel’s Alder Lake will drop on the 600-series Socket 1700 motherboards which include the Z690, H670, B660, and H610. Core i3-12100 is a locked chip. In other words, it cannot be overclocked. However, Intel does support memory overclocking on his Z690, B660, and H670 motherboards (although Z690 makes no sense for this class of chips).
The Core i3-12100 has no similarly priced AMD competitors. However, despite the complete lack of contention, it still gives the table a significant improvement in intergenerational performance. In fact, for 1080p gaming, the $129 Core i3-12100 offers 88% of the performance of the $299 Core i5-12400, but with 56% less cache.It’s a winning blend for the price When performance.
read: Intel Core i3-12100 Review
The Core i3-12100F has all the features of the highly competitive Core i3-12100 that reigns as our top pick, but Intel has disabled the integrated graphics engine (iGPU). Intel has slashed the price to make up for it, creating quite a bit of value in the $100 price range, but if you don’t plan to use the chip, use the chip’s iGPU for troubleshooting tasks and basic display output. lose the ability to game.
That said, you don’t lose much because you can’t get meaningful gaming performance out of a full-featured 12100 with an iGPU. However, AMD doesn’t have a comparable value at this price point, beating out the Core i3-12100F. This chip has the same strong price/performance combination as it offers the same performance as the Core i3-12100 which easily leads the CPU benchmark tier in the $105-$130 bracket. It also comes with Intel’s new and improved cooler, saving you cash.
Like the non-F model, the Core i3-12100F comes with 60W PBP (base) and 89W MTP (peak) power ratings. The chip operates at a 3.3 GHz base and boosts up to 4.3 GHz. It also comes with 12MB of L3 cache. Intel’s Alder Lake will drop on the 600-series Socket 1700 motherboards which include the Z690, H670, B660, and H610. Core i3-12100 is a locked chip. In other words, it cannot be overclocked. However, Intel does support memory overclocking on his Z690, B660, and H670 motherboards (although Z690 makes no sense for this class of chips).
read: Intel Core i3-12100 Review
We don’t often endorse previous generation parts on our best cheap CPU list, but most of AMD’s competitive chips in the lower end, such as the Ryzen 3 3300X, have been completely absent for over a year. AMD’s new low-end models are based on the previous generation Zen 2 architecture, which is not as competitive in price and performance as the previous generation Intel chips.
This makes the surprisingly affordable Core i3-10100F the clear leader in the $60-$85 price range. The Core i3-10100F features 4 cores and 8 threads paired with 3.6 GHz base and 4.3 GHz boost clock rates. The 65W chip has 6MB of L3 cache, supports DDR4-2666 memory and PCIe 3.0 and is manufactured on the 14nm process. The non-F models have a UHD 630 graphics engine running at up to 1.1 GHz, but you can’t really use that. Instead, go with a discrete GPU and save some cash by opting for the F-series model and getting a pretty impressive quad-core for $68. Since the 10100 is the previous generation product, we have to choose the right set of motherboards for these chips.
Looking at the CPU benchmark tier, we can see that the 10100F averages over 105 fps in games. That’s an amazing value of $65. And that’s when the chip is paired with the powerful RTX 3090. This is actually pretty ridiculous for a chip in this price range. To keep the results fair with all chips tested, we only test with expensive cards like this. It can supply enough power for the GPU.
AMD’s sub-$60 Zen-based Athlon is a great value overall, thanks to four compute threads and Vega 3 graphics that allow for lighter gaming at lower resolutions and settings. Light thread performance isn’t great, but when you’re spending this much on CPU, you should expect to find a compromise somewhere. And although it’s not officially supported by AMD, with a compatible motherboard you can overclock this chip to get even more performance out of your CPU.
If your build budget fluctuates, the $100 Ryzen 3 2200G is a much better chip with more cores and stronger graphics. But if you’re spending less than $60 on a CPU and don’t want to add a dedicated graphics card, the Athlon 200GE is hard to beat. Intel’s competing Pentiums, the Gold G5400 and G4560, offer better CPU performance. But their high MSRP and lack of production make them hard to find unless you’re willing to spend close to $100 or more, making them unmatched in terms of budget CPUs.
read: AMD Athlon 200GE Review
