In the world of PC gaming, there’s no greater influencer of performance than your PC’s processor. A fast processor is crucial for a great PC gaming experience because it’s central to performance.
We’ve selected 5 PC gaming processors that can help you maximize your gaming fun. Our list includes a couple of budget friendly processors as well.
AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
As part of AMD’s latest generation, the Ryzen features a 3D V-Cache technology which helps boosts the gaming performances by expanding the caching memory. This is plain and simple – a beast. Its great for gaming and of course most things computing.
- Clock speed: up to 5.7 GHz
- Cores/Threads: 16/32
- Cache: 144MB
- Why it’s great: Similar incredible gaming performance boost from 3D V-Cache as the 7800X3D, but with more cores for demanding productivity work as well.
Intel Core i9-13900K
This is one of Intel’s most impressive undertakings in the Raptor Lake series. The i9-13900K offers a high core count and wildly impressive clock speeds. It handles intensive multitasking. Its popular not only with gamers but with PC owners who need to process lots of data in the professional world.
- Clock speed: up to 5.8 GHz
- Cores/Threads: 24/32
- Cache: 36MB
- Why it’s great: Top-of-the-line performance in both gaming and productivity tasks. A beast if you also stream or do heavy content creation work.
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Still powerful, the AMD Ryzen 7 78000x3D is also a bit more affordable. Excellent gaming performance at a much lower price point when compared to the 9 series makes it an optimal choice.
- Clock speed: up to 5.0 GHz
- Cores/Threads: 8/16
- Cache: 104MB
- Why it’s great: The 3D V-Cache technology gives incredible gaming performance gains, often outperforming higher-priced chips.
Intel Core i7-13700K
Like the Ryzen 7 series, the Intel Core i7-13700K also strikes balance between performance and cost. Its a great choice for mainstream gamers.
- Architecture: Raptor Lake (Intel 10nm process)
- Cores/Threads: 16 (8 Performance Cores + 8 Efficient Cores) / 24
- Base Clock Speed: 3.4 GHz
- Boost Clock Speed: Up to 5.4 GHz (Performance Cores)
- L3 Cache: 30 MB
- TDP (Thermal Design Power): 125W (Base), 253W (Max Turbo)
- Socket: LGA 1700
- Memory Support: DDR5-5600, DDR4-3200
- Integrated Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 770
AMD Ryzen 5 7600X
If you’re looking ot build a budget friendly PC that’s still powerful, the Ryzen 5 7600X is a great deal. It features the latest AMD architecture and provides a ton of power that is great for most modern games.
- Architecture: Zen 4 (TSMC 5nm process)
- Cores/Threads: 6 / 12
- Base Clock Speed: 4.7 GHz
- Boost Clock Speed: Up to 5.3 GHz
- L3 Cache: 32 MB
- TDP (Thermal Design Power): 105W
- Socket: AM5
- Memory Support: DDR5 (up to 5200 MHz)
- Integrated Graphics: Radeon Graphics 2 cores
Why do processors matter in gaming?
One of the top reasons why processors matter to gamers is the frame rate. Higher frame rates equate to smoother gaming experiences. With a high frame rate, you’ll experience less lag and your characters will feel more responsive.
But its more than the high frame rates that matter.
Gaming is CPU intensive. For examples, strategy games, simulation games, and open-world games eat up CPU. If you have a weak processor, you’ll bottleneck your graphics card which will lead to stuttering and an inconsistent frame rate.
A robust processor will help prevent these instances by allowing the machine to process data more efficiently.
A good CPU allows you to run other tasks alongside your games without impacting performance. Think Discord voice chat, streaming software, or music playing in the background.
Processors also effect cache size. A larger CPU cache reduces the need to retrieve data from slower RAM.
Also, new processor generations often have beeter Instructions Per Clock (IPC), which means better performance as similar clock speeds.