At a list price of just $129, the quad core, Ryzen 3 1300X is a great budget CPU. The Ryzen 3 series is based on AMD's powerful and energy efficient Zen core architecture as already featured in the mainstream Ryzen 5 series and performance Ryzen 7 series, both launched earlier this year. The 1300X is fully unlocked with a stock base clock speed of 3.5 GHz running up to 3.7 GHz for boost and has a TDP of 65W. The 1300X comes with AMD's Wraith Stealth cooler, but significantly, it is devoid of integrated graphics. Although this can be inexpensively rectified, it may be a stumbling block to those at the entry-level of the market. By comparison, Intel's dual core, four thread i3-7350K comes with 630 HD integrated graphics. In terms of effective speed, early benchmarks for the 1300X just pip the 7350K to the post but results in specific games will depend on the extent to which the game is able to use more than two processing cores simultaneously. The 1300X scores around 20% higher on quad-core tests whereas the 7350K scores 16% higher on single-core tests. The Ryzen 1300X has been released alongside the similar Ryzen 3 1200 which is also an unlocked quad-core with slightly lower base / boost clock speeds of 3.1 / 3.4 GHz and a slightly lower price of just $109. [Jul '17CPUPro]
The hex-core i5-8500 hails from Intel’s eighth generation of Coffee Lake processors, known for featuring a higher number of cores at each SKU than in previous generations and their refinement of the 14nm architecture as seen in 6th and 7th generation processors. At an estimated price of $184 it offers good multi-core value for money. Its quad core performance nearly rivals the more expensive i7-7700K (the 2017 CPU of choice for many top-end gamers). However based on preliminary benchmarks, the i5-8500 is only marginally faster (2% greater effective speed) than the i5-8400 which is also a recent and competitively priced hex-core Coffee Lake processor. Also, like the i5-8400, the 8500 features 9MB of L3 cache and a frugal TDP of 65W, leaving not much to choose between them. As is the case of all Coffee Lake processors, currently the only motherboards that the 8500 can be paired with feature Intel’s high-end Z370 chipset for overclocking. However, alternative and more suitable 300 series motherboards are long overdue and expected to be available soon. [Mar '18CPUPro]
We calculate effective speed which measures real world performance for typical users. Effective speed is adjusted by current prices to yield a value for money rating. Our calculated values are checked against thousands of individual user ratings. The customizable table below combines these factors to bring you the definitive list of top CPUs. [CPUPro]
Welcome to our PC speed test tool. UserBenchmark will test your PC and compare the results to other users with the same components. You can quickly size up your PC, identify hardware problems and explore the best value for money upgrades.