Best CPUs for Gaming
Introduction
The central processing unit (CPU) is the most crucial hardware component for a PC while talking about speed and efficiency. It’s administrating how your games will be running, loading, and operating in the system memory of the operating computer. The storage devices like SSDs are holding the games we’re playing. It’s the responsibility of the CPU to run a game, stored in the memory in no time. The best gaming processors last for years, unlike graphic cards that can be swapped every other generation. So, make sure and do good homework while purchasing a good quality CPU.
Another term, Graphics processing unit (GPU) is quite famous along with CPU. Observations state that CPU is the second most important component to gain a good gaming experience that comes after GPU. It’s obvious, GPU manages the resolution, quality, and frames rate of the games providing users with good visuals. However, the CPU has a key role in deciding how your games will run on your machine.
Well, buying the best gaming CPU isn’t that expensive with little knowledge. The tech market is evolving day after day leaving numerous options for high-tech gaming users. To make things easy for us, the team of Best Tech Reviews is here with a detailed review on the best CPUs for gaming. The PC fanatic team spends several hours researching through the evolving tech market ensuring you guys are up-to-date with the latest inventions. They also ensure that no stone is left unturned when exploring the tech hardware components.
What to take into consideration?
While researching the topic, we’ve come across numerous questions that gaming users ask. Like what should we look at in a CPU? Which one is perfect for high-end games? How many cores should it have? So, let’s go through some factors to answer these questions that you may have:
Type of the processor
The processors can be differentiated into two types, mainstream and high-end desktop (HEDT). The functionalities and features that come along with these types defined their uses.
Mainstream processors typically hold up dual-channel memory with a maximum limit of four DIMMs up to 64GB. Furthermore, it has 24 PCle lanes which makes it capable of making a high-speed connection to graphics cards, NVMe SSDs, and 3 ports thunderbolt. Intel’s i3, i5, i7, i9, and AMD Ryzen 3, 5, 7 series are mainstream processors.
HEDT processors are larger processors to provide room for more cores plus carrying quad-channel memory channels. Eight sticks of 128GB of RAM and 64 PCle lanes enable it for high-end use. AMD’s Ryzen Threadripper brand manufactures these processors.
Number of Cores
The processors are structured upon a varying number of cores. In simple, if we assume that a single core stipulates one way of CPU to perform a task. If a processor has multiple cores, it would be able to perform multiple tasks at the same time. Today’s supercomputers are so fast because they are built upon 70+ cores to use at the same time. The CPUs we normally use in day-to-day life generally carry 4 to 8 cores while AMD’s latest CPUs can carry up to 16 cores.
Threading
Threads can be considered as wires while each thread carries information and operates individually. The computers take threads as virtual CPUs to boost efficiency. The number of tasks being performed by a processor is equal to the number of threads it has. Simultaneous Hyper-Threading (SMT) is a term frequently used by Intel, AMD, and CPUs manufacturers to showcase the ability of a processor to handle various sets of instructions simultaneously using threads structure.
Clock speed
Frequency or clock speed is a commonly used term in the tech industry for processors. The simplest definition to refer to clock speed would be, its cycle speed at which a CPU can execute instructions in one second. Processors with 3.5 GHz rated clock speed process 3.5 billion instructions in one second. This is one of the critical factors while working out the performance of a processor in seconds. The higher clock speed of processors implies higher computing power.
CPU cache
The memory used by the CPU of the computers to access data from the main memory while reducing average time is the CPU cache. In every computing system, a small portion of high-speed storage (cache) is assigned to store and execute frequently used instructions to boost the speed. Cache has various levels like 1, 2, and 3 while level 1, the fastest cache, and level 3, the slowest one.
Socket type and size
How would it be if you’ve just purchased a CPU but are unable to connect it with the motherboard? To avoid such scenarios it’s crucial to check the socket type and size of the motherboard to fit in the CPU. Each brand manufactures processors with its own socket type which won’t pair up with an alternative one. Just for an example, the AMD Ryzen 7 uses an AM4 type socket which would not fit into Intel’s LGA 1151 socket.
