The Christmas and New Year period is a time of increased shopping, which also affects gamers and computer enthusiasts. There can be many reasons to upgrade your PC: a generous Christmas bonus, pocket money found under the Christmas tree, the desire to play upcoming titles in higher graphics settings, and maybe even the simple need to give yourself a dream component. It so happens that – apart from all the Christmas or New Year’s madness – we have a very good time for shopping right now. We are already after the premiere of the most important chips from the new generation of Intel and AMD systems. What’s more, older units have become much cheaper, which means that an efficient platform can be built today for relatively little money. So how do you find yourself in current offers?

Author: Piotr Piwowarczyk

On the following pages you will find 13 models of desktop processors selected by us. The main assumption was the selection of units intended especially for games, but it is clear that man does not live by playing alone. In addition to testing the most demanding titles, probably everyone has to surf the web from time to time, perform a few operations in the software of their choice or, for example, make a project in Photoshop. The chips we describe will therefore also work in other applications. The selection can be facilitated by the processor performance charts we have attached. The reference point here is the popular benchmark Cinebench R23, which generally reflects the performance of a specific unit in single and multi-core applications quite well. Just remember that in practice the differences may be slightly different (AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D is the best example here), but don’t worry – almost every model indicated has been thoroughly tested by us, and the link to the relevant article can be found just below the table with specifications. So there is no question of recommending something in the dark.

The main assumption of the article was the selection of units intended for games, but it is clear that man does not live by playing alone. On the following pages you will find processors at prices from PLN 300 to PLN 3000, which will also work great in other applications.

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In the table you will find not only the technical data of the chip we have chosen, but also a comparison with the alternative we propose. In the case of Intel processors, it is a unit with a built-in iGPU, while AMD processors have been combined with a cheaper or more expensive replacement model. At the very end of the table, links to the Ceneo comparison website are placed, although it is clear that the prices of individual models change practically every day. However, this does not have much influence on our choice. After all, sometimes there are one-offs that will not escape the attention of enthusiasts, but they are rare enough that we are unable to adapt them to the entire article.

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Our selection includes processors from various price levels. There is no shortage of basic, very popular systems for a few hundred, efficient mid-range models, as well as flagships at a price of about PLN 3,000. It is worth noting that the situation on the market is very dynamic and changing unit prices are not everything. Shortly after the New Year, the cheaper AMD Ryzen 7000 chips should debut, as well as the “blocked” 13th generation Intel Core models. I do not need to add that their premieres can change the balance of power (although not immediately – at the beginning the prices should be far from promotional). So if someone doesn’t have the urge, they can wait for the situation to develop, although by going this way you can always postpone purchases for later – after all, there are Ryzen 7000 with 3D V-Cache memory in the near future … No matter what, we hope that the processors we propose will satisfy future owners. We invite you to familiarize yourself with the selected layouts.