With today’s guide to the best processor deals, you can save yourself some serious cash on the most important part of your PC build. Whether you’re building a machine or not, we’ve rounded up all the latest from Intel and AMD and searched tirelessly to find the cheapest prices on the top processors.
What is the price range?
We’ve divided this week’s best CPU deals into sections for high-end, mid-range, and budget shoppers. You can jump to it using the navigation links provided.
In a nutshell, if money is not your goal and you want the best then you can definitely see the benefits of using a high end chip as these beast processors will provide great performance for years to come That said, this week’s midrange processor deals should be more than enough for anyone looking for top-end gaming performance and wanting to build a machine that will last for years. Our budget CPU deals are for those who simply want a functional and reliable machine, but you might be surprised at how much performance you can get from these options. In recent years, inexpensive processors have made great strides.
Discounts from Amazon, Best Buy, and other well-known retailers can be found in our Roundup of Processor Deals. All CPU prices on this page are updated daily, so bookmark and revisit.
Best high-end processor deals
High-end processors are aimed squarely at the hobbyist and professional markets and, as you can imagine, can carry a pretty hefty price tag. But if cost isn’t an issue, these 8-core, and possibly even 16-core beasts offer the best possible performance. In fact, it might be overkill for some users.
AMD’s Ryzen 7 and Ryzen 9 chips are currently the company’s flagship chips, with the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X being Team Red’s current performance king. A retail price of over $700 / £700 means this chip is a serious investment but the good news is that the Ryzen 9 7900X is available for around $500 / £500 if you can find a CPU deal. am.
For Intel processors, Core i9-12900K and Core i7-12700K are the current high-end chips, the latter being sufficient for most applications including gaming. The i9-12900K’s performance is about on par with the Ryzen 9 7950X for most applications and games, but the good news for Intel fans is that the i9 tends to sell for significantly less than the Ryzen 9 right now.
Best mid-range CPU deals
Mid-range CPUs are generally aimed at most mainstream gamer builds and are more cost-effective than high-end enthusiast chips. It’s also something you’ll want to invest in if you want something that works well for intensive applications and will last for years to come. It has dominated the range processor market, but recently its near-monopoly has been shattered by AMD’s equally popular Ryzen 5 chips.
The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X is Team Red’s latest mid-range entry and at $349 / £349 it’s a bit more expensive than the previous iteration of the 5600X, but it’s a very powerful chip for the price. If you want to save a little money, the older 5000 series chips are available for just $200/£200 and are still widely available at most major retailers. This older chip is about 20% slower than recent entries, but it’s still a great cost-effective mid-range build component for both gaming and productivity.
On the Intel side, the Core i5-12600K is the current mainstream performance flagship and is built for easy overclocking. Its full retail price is the same as the Ryzen 5 7600X, but retailers generally seem more than happy to offer price cuts on this model over AMD’s counterparts. is still around at the moment, but I would only recommend it if you can get it in the $200-$150 range. It’s not a slow chip, but it’s definitely not as fast as the latest models (benchmarks are improving by about 20% each generation).
Best entry level CPU trading
Budget CPUs mainly come in the form of the latest Intel Core i3 and AMD Ryzen 3 series processors. These are essentially consumer-grade chips aimed at cost-effective productivity builds. Typically retailing around $100/£100, these chips are great if you work from home or just want to build a desktop for everyday use.
Amazingly, these chips have come a long way in recent years, and while they can actually handle a bit of gaming, they can become bottlenecked when paired with a full-blown graphics card.
AMD’s latest Ryzen 3-3200G is a great value-for-money processor, with built-in Vega graphics processing offering amazing graphics performance. That said, retailers often run out of stock, and remaining sales prices tend to be above the original retail price of $99/£80.newer and faster
There’s also an AMD Ryzen 3 4100 model on the market, but this one doesn’t have graphics built in, making it a much more expensive option overall considering you’ll have to buy a separate graphics card. There is a possibility that
On the Intel side, we got the Intel Core i3-12100 as our current latest budget CPU and like the Ryzen 3-3200G this one has graphics built in so if you’re not going to be gaming you’re going to get the graphics A great option if you want to skip the card. Note that there is also an Intel Core i3-12100F version of this chip. It’s another great option, but it doesn’t have convenient built-in graphics. Consider this if you are building a budget gaming machine with a separate graphics card.
Watch the video here: Best Cheap Processor Sales and Prices for January 2023
