Choosing the best processor is crucial for optimizing the performance of your PC and aligning it with your budget and specific requirements.
As the most pivotal component of your computer, selecting the right processor can be challenging but is vital for achieving peak performance. Whether you are an avid PC gamer or a dedicated creative professional, investing in a top-quality processor can significantly enhance your workload management and multitasking capabilities. Even affordable processors offer substantial performance, making it unnecessary to overspend to meet your computing needs.
The decision between leading brands like Intel and AMD is key, as it influences the type of system you can build or upgrade. Each brand offers unique advantages, depending on your current system setup and future computing goals.
At TechRadar, our extensive experience in testing and benchmarking processors for over a decade positions us as your go-to guide in navigating the processor market. Our rigorous performance evaluations and industry-standard tests ensure that we provide you with the most reliable recommendations and the best processor deals available. This guide aims to assist you in finding the best processor that not only fits your needs but also offers the best value.
The best processor in 2024
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Here you’ll find the best processors in 2023, backed by our rigorous testing and decades of collective experience working with the best CPUs Intel and AMD have to offer. If you want to learn more about CPUs before you buy, check out our what is a processor page for more details.
The best processor overall
The Intel Core i7-14700K is a heck of a processor to end the LGA 1700 era with, thanks to its very solid performance and excellent price for a midrange processor. It’s only a small improvement over its predecessor, but it does pack four additional efficiency cores for better multitasking and freeing up the performance cores to focus on the workloads that need that extra power.
It also comes with discrete WiFi 7 and Thunderbolt 5 support out the box, and even though those technologies are still a ways away from becoming mainstream, it’s nice to have a certain level of future proofing a new processor.
While this chip boasts similar performance to the Intel Core i9-13900K, it also has a similar problem managing heat, so you will need the best CPU cooler around to keep this chip from throttling, which is something some i7 users might not have been used to in the past.
Read the full Intel Core i7-14700K review
The best affordable processor
The most value-oriented processor in the new AMD Zen 4 lineup is the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X, but don’t let its price fool you: this chip is anything but a lightweight. Sure, it can’t hold up against the massive, 16-core Ryzen 9 7950X, but its single-core performance is nearly on par with its beefier cousins.
What’s more, the lack of V-Cache doesn’t slow this chip down one bit when it comes to gaming performance, and gamers looking to make the jump to AMD’s AM5 platform will find a lot to love about this processor, especially as its more accessible cost helps to offset the cost of a new motherboard and RAM.
Fortunately, you won’t need a different CPU cooler if you already have one compatible with AM4, and fortunately the Ryzen 5 7600X manages to stay cool under load.
Read the full AMD Ryzen 5 7600X review
The best processor for performance
The Intel Core i9-14900K normally wouldn’t be the kind of chip I’d put on this list, given its fairly mild gen-on-gen performance increase, but there’s no denying that the 14900K is the fastest chip Intel — or anyone, really — has put out.
Right out of the box, this chip is capable of hitting 6.0GHz, something no other consumer processor can do. And while it can only do so under the right conditions, it still counts, and it’s why Intel maintains its performance lead over AMD as it heads into a new era next year with a redesigned Meteor Lake processor.
And all for the same price as its predecessor, which is a relief given the way inflation has been wrecking havoc around the world.
It’s not without its faults. The 13900K will likely be a better value for you, if you can find it, and this level of performance comes with more heat than any other chip we’ve ever teted, so make sure you’ve got the best cooling solution possible.
Read the full Intel Core i9-14900K review
The best processor for gaming
The AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D is easily the best AMD processor on the market for gamers, thanks to its outstanding performance in just about any game you throw at it thanks to its 3D V-Cache technology.
Its non-gaming performance isn’t as great, however, so if you’re looking for a chip that can do everything, the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X is a great option in this tier, assuming you don’t want to go with the Intel Core i7-14700K listed above.
This is also an expensive chip, though it’s somewhat more reasonably priced than the Ryzen 9 7950X3D. If you don’t already have an AM5 motherboard though, by wary that you will need to upgrade a lot of components in your PC as well in order to run the new AMD ryzen processors.
Read the full AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D review
The best processor for AM4 motherboards
The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D is – without question – one of the best processors for gaming on the market. With incredible performance thanks to AMD’s 3D V-Cache technology, the 5800X3D punches way above its weight class and can even beat out the more expensive Core i9-12900K when it comes to gaming.
Since this is essentially an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X with triple the cache memory thanks to a new microarchitecture that lets AMD ‘stack’ cache on the CPU die, it keeps the same AM4 motherboard socket as earlier Ryzen chips – meaning that you don’t need to spend more to upgrade your motherboard if you’re already rocking an AM4 system.
This is still a last-gen chip though, so you’re not going to get all the perks of the AM5 platform like PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 RAM, but if you’ve got an AM4 system and you want an upgrade but not ready for a total overhual, this is a great chip to carry you for another couple of years at least.
Read the full AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D review
The best processor for LGA 1200 motherboards
Intel’s 11th-gen processors generally weren’t much to celebrate, given that they didn’t provide all that much of a gen-on-gen performance increase. But the Core i5-11600K is a noteable exception, providing outstanding performance for the price, making it a great chip to upgrade to if you are still using an Intel LGA 1200 system.
You won’t be able to take advantage of the latest PCIe 5.0 and DDR5 RAM, however, and the i5-11600K’s performance comes at the cost of power consumption and heat, which might require you to upgrade your CPU cooler to compensate. This might possibly even mean upgrading to an AIO cooler, whereas earlier generations could get away with air cooling.
Still, if you’re not ready just yet to make the jump to Intel’s 12th- or 13th-gen chips — especially if you are waiting for Intel’s 14th-gen chips, which will use a whole new LGA 1851 socket.
Read the full Intel Core i5-11600K review
The best processor: FAQs
Which processor is fastest?
If we’re talking about the fastest CPU in the world, that would be AMD’s monster 64-core/128-thread Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5995WX, but that’s a High-End Desktop (HEDT) processor. This means it’s designed for serious content production like 3D rendering for movies or film scoring with dozens of digital instruments at a time – not the average consumer looking to build a PC. It’s also hilariously expensive, with an MRSP of $6,499.
Bringing it back down to Earth, the fastest consumer desktop processor by benchmark scores is the Intel Core i9-12900K, hands down. But things get interesting when it comes to gaming. There, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D absolutely crushes it, punching way above its weight and outperforming even the i9-12900K at 4K gameplay.
Is Intel or AMD better?
Nobody likes this answer, but it depends.
If you are looking for raw performance regardless of price, the Intel Core i9-12900K is the reigning champ, but it’s going to require a whole new motherboard as it uses the new LGA-1700 CPU socket, and you’ll most likely need a whole new cooling solution as well.
Meanwhile, if you’re looking for the best gaming processor, the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D not only outperforms just about every other processor out there, it slots right into any AM4 motherboard and doesn’t require much more in the way of cooling – though we’d highly recommend liquid cooling for optimal performance.
In terms of value for money, AMD still reigns. Intel has the high-end covered (unless we’re discussing AMD’s absurdly expensive Threadripper chips, which are mostly used for business purposes), but AMD offers a broad variety of processors that offer a consistently excellent performance-to-price ratio.
How we test processors
It’s impossible to tell the best processors from the worst just by looking at them. All of the core components are hidden away in near-identical packaging, and even if you were to peel back that packaging, the transistors on the CPU die are literally measured in nanometers. How can you tell a million transistors on a chip from a billion, and how can you measure a processor’s clock cycle by looking at the box?
Fortunately, there are tests we can run to see how well a processor performs in the real world, and the best way to do that is to push a processor to its limits by running finely-calibrated benchmarking tools that produce comparable scores based on how well a processor performed a specific task – like compressing a video file, or performing the complex math used for 3D gaming.
We use industry-standard tools like Geekbench 5, Cinebench R23, and PCMark 10 to synthetically push processors to the limit using realistic workloads that you’re likely to experience in day-to-day use.
We also use modern PC games set to the lowest graphical settings on the best available gaming hardware to isolate CPU performance while gaming, which we measure in frames per second.
Then, with the scores in hand, we look at the price of the processor. The best processors offer either best-in-class performance regardless of price, or compelling value for the customer. We won’t score a CPU highly if its performance is just fine but it’s out of reach for most people’s budgets.
For more information, see How We Test.
How to choose the best processor for you
Finding the best processor for your needs and budget isn’t just about finding the fastest processor out there since it’s easy to spend far more than you need to. It’s important to look at what you actually want out of your PC and shop accordingly.
If you’re looking for the best gaming CPU on the market, definitely look at the Intel Core i9-12900K and AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D – the same goes if you’re planning on performing high-level content creation tasks, like 4K video editing. But if you’re planning on gaming at lower resolutions or you’re just looking for something to handle everyday tasks faster with some medium-duty processing work, anything from a Core i5 to a Ryzen 7 should do the trick.