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The Best Budget CPUs of 2022 – Intel & AMD Ryzen Cheap Processors

We are all about value for money here so find out what we think are the best budget CPUs to get you up and running
Last Updated on March 14, 2022
Best Budget CPUs

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Your central processing unit (CPU) is the brain of your gaming rig. In fact, it processes all the information that your computer touches. Much like our own brains, the CPU sends electrical signals to other parts of the computer to communicate.

While the GPU determines more of what you are capable of doing without a good CPU, it will be bottlenecked resulting in lower framerates and in some cases, severe stutters.

While this might sound cataclysmic, picking a good processor– especially a budget CPU– doesn’t have to be that hard. If you’re able to buy a cheap CPU with a stellar price to performance ratio, you’re in business!

In this guide, we’re going to be talking about the best budget CPUs on the market in 2020. And at the end we will give you the tools you need to make the right choice for your next gaming setup!

Products at a Glance

Our Recommended

The Best Budget CPUs of 2022 – Intel & AMD Ryzen Cheap Processors

1
PROS
  • Price/performance
  • Integrated graphics
CONS
  • Poor single-threaded performance
2
PROS
  • Four physical cores
  • Good for gaming/workstation tasks
CONS
  • No hyper-threading
3
PROS
  • Cheap
  • High clock speeds
  • Unlocked multipliers
CONS
  • Compatibility issues with older motherboards
4
PROS
  • Dirt cheap
  • Good overclocked performance
CONS
  • Poor single-threaded performance
5
PROS
  • Zen architecture
  • Great overclocking potential
CONS
  • Poor single-threaded performance

How Do I Pick the Best Budget Gaming CPU for Me?

When building a gaming PC on a budget, it’s imperative that you select the right CPU for your build. Although the processor is the brain of your PC, responsible for computing just about everything, it is not the primary component that drives your performance in gaming related tasks.

In fact, your PC’s GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) is going to be doing the heavy lifting. Rather than using all of your CPU’s processing power, games rely heavily on the GPU, as it is designed to handle 3D rendering.

If your CPU isn’t fast enough to keep up with your GPU, you’re going to suffer a CPU bottleneck. This occurs when the GPU is processing information at a much faster rate than your CPU.

So, how do you go about choosing the best CPU for gaming when you’re on a budget?

Buying the best budget gaming CPU isn’t necessarily about picking the best performing CPU– rather, it’s all about finding the best price to performance CPU.

Bottlenecks can occur for different reasons. If you have an NVIDIA Titan GPU paired with an Intel Pentium G4560, the Titan is obviously going to be limited by the weak processing power of the Pentium CPU.

On the other hand, an Intel Core i7-8700K is going to be bottlenecked by a GTX 1050 Ti, at least while gaming.

The secret to picking the best gaming CPU on a budget is to buy the best GPU that you can afford, while still being able to include a CPU that won’t bottleneck the GPU.

Our Verdict

Best Budget CPU
Best Budget CPUs

The Best Budget CPUs of 2022 – Intel & AMD Ryzen Cheap Processors

In truth, all of these processors are great budget-dependent picks. AMD is still currently kings of the castle but if you are wedded to Intel there is a very solid choice in this round-up too. The Ryzen 3 2200G is the best value CPU if you are intended to not upgrade for a while. The performance it puts out will survive the market longer than the others here. If you want to overclock though you will need to spend extra on better cooling.