Which CPU for your budget

With such a large selection of CPU’s out there, it can be a difficult choice to pick which one will suit you best. Loyd Case over at ExtremeTech has done extensive benchmarking on twenty-three current desktop processors from both AMD and Intel:

The Right Desktop Processor: CPU Price/Performance

From the article:

When you build a PC, you're often making a series of delicate trade-offs. After all, most of us have budget limits on any PC we build, and making the most of that budget is key. Last spring, we took a look at graphics hardware price/performance, in order to find the sweet spot for gamers.

Trying to determine the sweet spot where price and performance cross over for CPUs is a more daunting task. For one thing, the applications mix is far more complicated. People use office applications, create content for web sites and games, encode video for building DVDs, and play games. Each application mix may have different issues when it comes to determining the optimum price/performance ratio.

Certainly an interesting read if you really want to build your PC to better suit your needs and don’t have an unlimited budget.