Core i3-3225

The Core i3-3225 Ivy Bridge processor offers both superb real world performance and excellent value for money. For raw single threaded performance the i3-3225 scores 28% lower than the i7-3770K but costs less than half as much. At first glance one might assume that I am crazy for recommending a puny Core-i3 over the mighty Core-i7's but for real world consumer use there is simply no point in having 4 cores and 8 threads, they will hardly ever be used. All of the third gen Ivy Bridge Core-i3s are superb but the i3-3225 sports the slightly more 3D capable HD 4000 Graphics vs the HD 2500 offered on the other models. For real-world performance in an energy efficient package with modest on-board graphics, this is a superb choice. For most use cases including: email, surfing, watching movies, listening to music and office apps, this processor will deliver almost as good an experience as any other processor on the market. ^{[Jun '13 CPUPro]}