I’ve been slowly working towards putting together a new PC build to replace my current one, a Core 2 Duo- based system I built about three years ago, which is starting to show its age.  In the interest of comparison shopping, I put together a spreadsheet and some charts looking at the newer Intel (i5/i7) and AMD (Phenom X4/X6) processors.  Turns out that Intel’s Core i5-750 seems to be the best deal in processors for what I’m looking for in a system at the moment.

Raw Data

Clock speeds are in MHz, TDP in Watts, and cost is price in USD at newegg as of 5/3/2010.  Processors with SMT (hyperthreading) are noted in the Cores column.

Performance Charts

I started by charting the benchmark scores for each processor in the table in Cinebench R10 and Crysis, using benchmark results from bit-tech.  The Crysis results are very limited since Bit-Tech’s benchmark settings varied.  I used 1680x1050, all settings on High, no AA or AF.

{% comment %}

Cost Comparison

{% endcomment %}

Finally, I compared the benchmark results and cost, charting how each processor scored when the cost was divided by benchmark scores.

AMD’s processors generally offer better price-to-performance ratios, but Intel wins out in terms of raw performance (I didn’t include Intel’s 6-core processor here, so the 1090T still tops the charts, though).

Intel’s newer i5 and i7 cores performed noticeably better in Crysis, and perform better per-core in general.  Given the low cost-performance ratio and good raw performance numbers, the Core i5-750 seems to be the best choice for processors in my price range at the moment.  Even better, the TDP of the i5-750 is a full 30 Watts below that of the comparable AMD processors, all of which weigh in at 125 W.

The one factor that remains to be seen in this cost analysis is motherboards, but I think it’s pretty safe to assume that costs for AM3 and LGA1156 boards are similar.