The best CPU for gaming is that processor which is cable of offering a heady combination of powerful single-threaded performance, some tasty multi-threaded chops, and a price tag that doesn’t instantly nuke your bank balance.

Despite the dominance of quad-core CPUs – or above – in today’s gaming rigs, the difficulty in coding for multi-core processors has meant we’re still not seeing many modern game engines taking full advantage of the powerful CPUs many of us now have in our machines. In fact, since AMD has decided to take the fight to Intel in terms of core-count, even six cores is becoming more and more common.

But games are slow to catch up. We had hoped that the rise in DirectX 12 games, and AMD’s promise of burgeoning Vulkan API support from developers, that the CPU would become more and more important for good gaming performance. That hasn’t come to pass, and the GPU is still the most important component of your gaming rig… but that doesn’t mean any old processor will do – you still need a quality chip to get the most out of your graphics card.

AMD has usurped the top spot for the best CPU for gaming with its Ryzen 2 processors, but it still has fierce competition from Intel’s Coffee Lake chips. At least until 3rd Gen Ryzen processors turn up on the scene. Take a look below to find the processor that fits you best.

WINNER: BEST CPU FOR GAMING

AMD RYZEN 5 2600
Approx. – $165 | £159

Pros
Tick Great value
Tick Decent single core performance…
Tick …with genuine multi-threading pace

Cons
Cross You need to overclock to match 2600X

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 isn’t just a great gaming CPU with serious multi-threading chops, it’s also an incredibly good-value chip, too. We had originally pegged the 2600X as the go-to gaming chip due to its high-end performance, but struggled a little with how much more expensive it was compared with the Core i5 8400.

The 8400 still retains a slight gaming performance lead, but the fact the Ryzen 5 2600 costs considerably less than the rival Intel chip means that there’s only going to be one winner in this battle for the title of best CPU for gaming. With a little judicious overclocking, at a level which isn’t going to put any undue strain on your silicon, you can get the same level of performance as the 2600X. That puts it only a few fps lower than the Core i5, but with a huge amount more multi-threading capacity for way less cash.

RUNNER-UP

AMD RYZEN 5 2600X
Approx. – $210 | £218

Pros
Tick Great computational performance
Tick Decent high-end gaming prowess
Tick Cheaper than Intel options

Cons
Cross Not much quicker than the 2600

The 2600X has double the thread count of its closest Intel rival, the Core i5 8400, which makes it a genuinely impressive computational chip – as fast as the far more expensive i7 8700K. And though we are talking about the 8400 being quicker in gaming frame rates it’s only ever by a few frames per second on average. And that’s at 1080p. Push the resolution up to a more GPU-intensive 1440p or 4K and the difference becomes essentially zero.

But it’s the straight 2600 CPU from AMD that gets the best CPU for gaming crown, pushing the X-series variant down into second place. It’s a cheaper chip that just needs a very small amount of overclocking effort to get running at the same speed. If you know you’ll never bother, and have the spare cash, go for the 2600X, but everyone else would be better off with the non-X Ryzen 5 2600.

RUNNER-UP

INTEL CORE I5 8400
Approx. – $216 | £200

Pros
Tick Six Intel cores
Tick Great gaming frame rates

Cons
Cross Much more expensive than AMD’s 2600
Cross No HyperThreading weakens compute power

I’ve been struggling with which chip to pick from the i5 8400 and the new Ryzen 5 processors as to the best CPU for gaming. While the 8400 does have marginally better gaming performance I’d struggle to really recommend it as an overall package. The mainstream H370 and B360 chipsets mean the non K-series Coffee Lake SKUs have an affordable platform, but the 14nm production issues mean the CPUs are still more expensive than AMD’s competing Ryzen.

When the 8400 was cheaper it was a tempting option, thanks to its traditional Intel gaming performance lead, but as it is you’re paying more for less CPU power. And that could hobble your rig going forward.The future-proofing, multi-threaded chops, and near-as-dammit gaming performance, means the Ryzen 2 CPU is the better overall CPU.

RUNNER-UP

INTEL CORE I5 8600K
Approx. – $270 | £245

Pros
Tick Serious overclocking – 5.1GHz stable
Tick Classic Intel gaming performance

Cons
Cross Comparatively high price
Cross Lacks compute power against 12-thread Ryzen

I genuinely thought that, after what happened with previous Intel generations, the K-series Core i5 would be the go-to chip for the best CPU crown. But because the Ryzen 5 2600 has the multithreaded chops, and the Core i5 8400 is just so damned good when it comes to pure gaming performance, there’s almost no need to spend the extra on the 8600K.

Where the 8600K does have relevance is its overclocking skills. Running at a comfortable, stable, 5.1 GHz the Coffee Lake chip is capable of delivering the same level of multi-threaded CPU performance as the competing 12-thread Ryzen 5. To be honest, that seems to have been this processor’s raison d’être – beating Ryzen at all costs, but you need a high-end Z370 board to get there.

WINNER: BEST HIGH-END CPU FOR GAMING

INTEL CORE I9 9900K
Approx. $539 | £525

Pros
Tick The fastest gaming processor around
Tick Perfect CPU for RTX 2080 Ti

Cons
Cross Hard to find at its already high MSRP
Cross In most games an AMD 2700X is as capable

The Intel Core i9 9900K is the world’s fastest gaming CPU, but its painfully high price tag means it doesn’t get our nod as the outright best CPU for gaming. But if money really isn’t a thing for you then the octa-core from Intel is the best processor to pair with your high-end graphics card. But it’s inevitably in short supply right now, meaning prices are utterly prohibitive.

When it comes to GPU-bound games, which are the majority of titles, even with a proper high-end graphics card there isn’t a huge amount of difference between the in-game performance of Intel’s top chip and AMD’s best octa-core CPU, the 2700X, especially at 4K. It is a great chip from a technical and performance point of view, but as a value proposition – especially in the face of fierce competition from AMD – it’s a bit of a tough one to recommend.

RUNNER-UP

AMD RYZEN 7 2700X
Approx. – $309 | £341

Pros
Tick Serious multi-threaded performance
Tick Great value for a 16-thread CPU
Tick Comparable gaming frame rates

Cons
Cross Limited overclocking potential

If you’re after a mix of great multi-threaded computational chops, decent gaming performance, and great value then look no further than the new 2700X. It’s a well-priced Ryzen CPU that’s the top-chip in the latest range, and yet costs way less than the 1800X did when it first launched. Importantly it’s also considerably cheaper than either Intel’s 8700K or eight-core i9 9900K.

But it’s still got gaming performance that’s comparable with Intel’s top chips when you’re gaming at 1440p or 4K. That makes it a great chip in productivity terms and a CPU with gaming performance that is practically indistinguishable from the Intel competition in any GPU-bound game.

RUNNER-UP
INTEL CORE I7 8700K
Approx. – $370 | £400

Pros
Tick Higher gaming frame rates than Ryzen
Tick Extra overclocking potential

Cons
Cross Much more expensive than AMD’s octa-core
Cross Gaming lead evaporates at 1440p or 4K

Intel’s top first-gen Coffee Lake K-series is still a quality gaming processor, offering high-end frame rate performance and decent multi-threaded power for computational tasks. It has now been superseded by Intel’s new 9th Gen CPUs, but good luck either finding them in stock, or at close to their MSRP.

The issue for the 8700K, however, is that the second-gen AMD Ryzen 7 processors offer another two cores and four threads of computational power, and gaming frame rates that are right up there when you game at the higher resolutions. Combine that with its own relatively high price and it’s tough to see beyond the AMD CPUs.

RUNNER-UP

AMD RYZEN 7 1700X
Approx. – $194 | £178

Pros
Tick Great price for an octa-core CPU
Tick High-end multi-threading power
Tick Affordable AM4 platform

Cons
Cross First-gen Ryzen gaming weakness

At this price the first-gen Ryzen 1700X is a great shout as a CPU if you weight the computational power of your rig slightly above its gaming performance. That’s not to say it’s not a decent CPU for a gaming rig – when you’re playing GPU-bound titles it is still a mighty capable processor – but it is definitely behind the second-gen Ryzens.

You are leaving some of your GPU’s potential frame rate in the box when pairing it with a first-gen Ryzen processor. But with the multi-threaded performance on offer, at this price, if you’re interested in using your PC for anything outside gaming this OG Ryzen is a great option.

WINNER: BEST CHEAP CPU FOR GAMING

AMD RYZEN 3 2200G
Approx. – $94 | £89

Pros
Tick Bargain price
Tick Integrated Vega graphics
Tick Impressive overclocking chops

Cons
Cross Lower cache levels than straight Ryzen

The mix of serious quad-core CPU performance with the addition of surprisingly effective Vega GPU silicon make the this APU a winner whether you’re plumbing a graphics card into your rig or not. As the basis for a budget gaming rig the 2200G can deliver decent 720p gaming performance so long as you’re not too ambitious about the game settings that is. It’s the best CPU for gaming on a budget.

The Ryzen 5 2400G does have more about it on that front, but it’s a good chunk more expensive and the performance difference can largely be made up by overclocking the internal GPU. And, because AMD has also managed to jam a full quad-core Ryzen CPU into the package it performs admirably when you plumb in a discrete GPU. It loses a little against the 1300X on straight CPU performance, potentially because it’s got half the L3 cache, but in gaming terms it’s close enough that it doesn’t really make a difference.

RUNNER-UP

AMD RYZEN 3 1300X
Approx. – $127 | £103

Pros
Tick Quad-core CPU for dual-core money
Tick Solid gaming performance…

Cons
Cross …but still suffers from first-gen Ryzen weakness
Cross More expensive than 2200G

I love budget kit. No, scratch that, I love budget kit that turns up offering the same sort of performance you would normally have to pay through the nose for. Loving your work, AMD. The 1300X was the best budget gaming chip around when it first launched, packing four overclockable Zen cores into a dual-core price tag. And it’s only been overtaken by the slightly cheaper Ryzen 3 2200G.

The overall Ryzen 3 platform is excellent too. When you can pick up the overclockable 1300X and a powerful B350 motherboard for the same price as a multiplier-locked Core i5 on its own – it becomes mighty hard to make a case for Intel. That pricing means you can build yourself a Ryzen 3 gaming rig powered by the GTX 1060 for the same price as you’d pay for a locked down Core i5 rig with just a GTX 1050 Ti. And you know which one’s going to be winning the benchmarking battle there, right?

So these are interesting times, then. Where for most of our PC gaming lives we’ve been recommending whichever Intel processor suited your budget it’s no longer that simple. And that’s down to the engineering efforts AMD has put into creating its latest Ryzen lineup of CPUs.

AMD has made it very difficult to recommend an Intel processor as the overall best CPU for gaming, given the fact that you get so much more for your money with an AMD chip right now. That and the gaming performance delta between them is now so small as to be completely inconsequential.

At the mainstream end it’s the six-core, 12-thread Ryzen 5 2600 for the win. It’s a great-value, processing monster that still has a fair amount of overclocking potential inside it – enough that the 2600X is almost irrelevant if you’re happy to overclock.

The Intel i5 8400 comes close, but thanks to Intel’s 14nm production woes, it’s pricing continues to fluctuate. And, if you’re doing serious PC work alongside your gaming hobby, it’s six-core, six-thread design sits behind the AMD chips in pure multithreaded computational terms.

At the high-end the brand new eight-core, 16-thread Intel Core i9 9900K has taken the win over the Ryzen 7 2700X. But it is hard to track down, and even if you can find one, they’re considerably more expensive and only really offers a tangible performance difference in CPU-bound games. Of which there are few. But over time, as GPU power increases, that will change and the performance differential displayed by the two chips will increase.

And for budget chips, the Ryzen 3 2200G will deliver a decent level of CPU performance and has a Vega GPU baked into it which will allow for 720p gaming without the need for a graphics card. A bona fide bargain.