Best Budget Processor
Oftentimes budget is equated with "slow" in the computer world. However, this trend couldn't be further from the truth. Budget processors can very well provide enough computing power for a very decent budget gaming computer. Budget processors also make ideal home theater PCs and home servers given their price and relative horsepower for what they are intended to do. Therefore, budget processors are great for those who either are on a tight budget or require a processor that is "good enough" but also carries some weight in its processing power for its price. A good price for a budget processor lies around $100 and this list is populated with such processors.
Why it's best:
AMD's recent Athlon II X4 quad cores are targeted towards buyers on a budget. Being priced very competitively at $100, the Athlon II X4 620 Propus is clocked in at 2.6GHz on stock and comes with four cores for avid multitaskers. $100 for a quad core is something that Intel h... read full review
Price Range:
$99.00 - $119.74
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Newegg.com $99.00
PC Connection $119.74
Why it's a best pick:
An inexpensive, no-frills, LGA 775 45nm processor, the Intel E6500 Wolfdale makes an ideal budget processor if you're somewhat partial towards Intel processors and their performance-to-power usage ratios. Being a dual core processor, the Wolfdale would probably be ideal for ...
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Amazon.com
Why it's a best pick:
Priced well under $100, the AMD Athlon X2 7850 is an unlocked processor for the habitual overclocker. It being unclocked allows for easily attaining high multipliers. Stock-clocked at 2.8GHz, speeds over 3.0GHz from this $80 processor are not unheard of. While this processor...
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Amazon.com
Why it's a best pick:
A socket AM3 processor, the AMD Athlon X2 250 "Regor" is stock clocked at 3.0GHz. One of AMD's newer 45nm processors, its TDP is similar to the E6500 Wolfdale but with a higher stock clock. It only has 1MB of L2 cache for each of its cores, so the X2 250 is disadva...
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Directron $72.99
Why it's a best pick:
Identical to the E6500 except for clock speed, the E6300 Wolfdale 2.8GHz is still as viable a choice for a budget processor. Usually found around $15 less than its E6500 bigger brother, the E6300 may appeal to those who want to minimize expense as much as possible, though an...
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$78.99 - $84.99
See all sellers ››Available From:
Newegg.com $80.99
Directron $78.99