This isn’t an exhaustive value assessment of all current desktop processors, nor should it be your one-stop guide to picking a new CPU. Once again, we threw our test results and official pricing information into a big spreadsheet, laid out the data into a veritable smorgasbord of graphs, and compiled everything neatly here for your reading pleasure.īefore inviting you to bask in the glow of our many charts and scatter plots, we should clarify this article’s purpose. The stars have now fallen into place again (or so it would seem), and we’ve therefore taken another gander at CPU price-performance relationships using fresh numbers from our Socket AM3 Phenom II review. Setting the stage for these articles is a bit like waiting for the stars to align, because a number of criteria must be met: we need performance numbers from a broad enough cross-section of current processors, we need to skirt new processor launches, and we need to wait for prices to be reasonably stable. Our first stab at the concept dates back to June 2007, and we tried again with a new batch of CPUs last May. Evaluating the latest processors based on a price-performance analysis is turning into a yearly tradition here at TR.
