Best CPU for gaming in 2024: these are the chips I recommend for gaming, productivity and peace of mind

The best gaming CPU is one of the most hotly contested titles in the industry, changing hands with each successive new generation of processors. Both Intel and AMD have some excellent CPU contenders in the mix, but on this hallowed page, we'll reveal the very best.

AMD's 3D V-Cache CPUs offer stiff competition for Intel and the best gaming CPU is now the exceptional AMD Ryzen 9 9800X3D. For a much more affordable option, the best budget CPU is the Intel Core i5 13400F, although as noted below, Intel chips come with a potential caveat as things currently stand. The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X is the best mid-range chip, thanks to its excellent all-round performance and reasonable price.

A note on Intel CPUs: Due to voltage problems causing crashes with a number of Intel chips, we've changed our picks to reflect this. We've also added caveats to our remaining Intel CPU recommendations. A fix has now been issued by Intel and while it may prevent new chips from running into problems, processors already damaged may need to be replaced.

Curated by

Curated by

Jacob Ridley

Jacob knows a thing or two about CPUs. The first being which to spend your hard-earned money on; he's tested, benchmarked, and tinkered with chips from Intel and AMD going back half a decade. The second is what not to do when overclocking to keep your processor alive. He's killed a chip or two in his time, but all in the name of science. Promise.

The quick list

Best gaming CPU

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It used to be the Ryzen 7 7800X3D but now its successor, the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D, is the best gaming CPU you buy right now. On paper, it doesn't seem like it should be a whole lot better but there's a lot more going on than just higher clock speeds.

One of the problems with the first two generations of X3D chips is that the extra slice of L3 cache had to be bonded to the top of the CCD (core complex die). The additional layer of silicon meant that AMD's engineers couldn't push the chip's clock speeds very high because the 3D V-Cache would act as a thermal barrier.

That's been resolved for the third iteration and the extra L3 cache now lies underneath the CCD, allowing the chip to run free reign with its clocks. So much so, that the Ryzen 7 9800X3D is the first 3D V-Cache chip to come unlocked, letting you overclock it to your heart's content.

While AMD's other Zen 5-powered processors were a little disappointing, in terms of how much better they were than their predecessors, it's clear that AMD was saving its star of the show for a later appearance and it couldn't have come at a better time. Intel's Core Ultra 200S range has much better power efficiency than previous chips but gaming performance took a hit to get energy consumption under control.

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D, though, has improved gaming power consumption and better gaming performance. In the likes of Baldur's Gate 3 and Homeworld 3, games that are heavily CPU-limited, the 9800X3D sweeps Arrow Lake aside and even makes the standard Zen 5 chips look average in comparison.

Of course, the more GPU-limited a game is, the less of an impact that extra cache will have so it's not like the new chip will top the charts in every situation. And if you already have a Ryzen 7 7800X3D in your gaming PC, then there's little reason to upgrade, unless you absolutely must have the very best performance.

It's also worth noting that this is still an eight-core, 16-thread processor, so there are better CPUs for handling content creation tasks (such as rendering or video editing) from AMD and Intel. In those cases, core counts really matter so if you use your PC for more than just gaming, you'll be better off waiting to see what the dual CCD Zen 5 models are like when AMD releases the X3D versions of those.

The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is undeniably the best gaming CPU you can buy. Drawing just 77 W on average in Baldur's Gate 3 is an astonishing achievement. There's only one other chip that stands in the 9800X3D's way of total dominance and that's the Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

AMD has no plans to phase it out yet and although high demand has kept stocks low and prices high, the release of the 9800X3D should ease those issues somewhat. No matter which chip you get, though, you're still going to have an outstanding gaming processor.

Read our full AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D review.

Best budget CPU for gaming

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For a gaming PC, there's no better value CPU than a Core i5. For most of 2022, we recommended the Core i5 12600K as the best gaming CPU and the Core i5 12400 as the best gaming CPU on a budget. Last year, the Core i5 13600K took over the top spot. And now, the Core i5 13400F pushes Alder Lake out of the running with an even more impressive specification for the money, making it the best budget gaming CPU you can currently buy.

This recommendation comes with a caveat, however. Intel chips have been experiencing crashing issues due to voltage errors, although to the best of our knowledge, the issue seems to primarily affect the higher-end models. Whereas this budget chip is much less likely to experience an issue thanks to its lower power requirements. 

A microcode BIOS update is now available to fix the issue, so if you do decide to pull the trigger on one of these, we'd highly recommend checking for BIOS updates for your particular motherboard and installing them as soon as possible to prevent potential problems. Still, given the lower power requirements here, your risk is likely to be minimal, meaning we're still comfortable recommending this chip as things stand.

The Intel Core i5 13400F is a 10-core hybrid-design processor made up of six Performance cores (P-cores) and four Efficient cores (E-cores), the Core i5 13400F has a total of 16 threads. Its fastest cores will run up to 4.6 GHz out of the box, a clock speed that wouldn't have seemed out of place on the box of a Core i7 only a few years back.

In our testing, neither the Core i5 13400F nor the Ryzen 5 7600X can claim an outright win across the testing suite, though when AMD's chip is faster, it is quite a bit faster. AMD's chip does come out as the clear winner on the productivity and content creation side of things, but it is that much more expensive for it.

AMD-compatible motherboards have tended to fall on the expensive side versus the cheaper Intel-compatible 600-series boards, but there are now some cheaper options coming through.

Intel's platform is surprisingly cheap for the inclusion of both the latest 700-series motherboards and older 600-series motherboards. Similarly, we're saving a little cash here on the 'F' designated model. The 'F' denotes the Core i5 13400F's lack of integrated graphics, which isn't a deal breaker by any stretch of the imagination. Generally, that integrated GPU isn't going to come much in handy for gaming, and even today's cheapest discrete graphics card will outperform it by a country mile. 

While the Core i5 13600K remains the pick for the best all-round gaming CPU, and AMD is very competitive in the ~$275 market, Intel's Core i5 13400F is still a shoo-in for the best budget gaming CPU in 2024. Keep your eyes peeled for that BIOS update though, just in case.

Read our full Intel Core i5 13400F review.

The best mid-range CPU

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While a great CPU is definitely the heart of a fast PC for both gaming and productivity, you don't have to head straight for the high-end to get excellent performance. As a case in point, the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X delivers gobs of gaming grunt, is no slouch for productivity tasks, and is available for very reasonable money. That makes it the best mid-range gaming CPU we currently recommend.

AMD's AM5 platform has been out for a little while now, but it's still new enough that motherboards can be a little pricey for the feature set you receive. As a result, it makes sense to go for a more expensive motherboard and a more mid-range chip, especially when AMD's offering here is genuinely impressive in what it can deliver for the money.

It's an eight-core, 16-thread CPU with a...wait, come back! While that's not the most exciting of configurations, the headline news here is that eight core is really the sweet spot for gaming right now, and this particular chip can clock itself all the way up to 5.4 GHz to really push itself to the maximum. That means seriously impressive Zen 4 performance and eeks the Ryzen 7 7700X ahead of one of AMD's previous gaming heavyweights, the Ryzen 7 5800X3D.

That chip still comes highly recommended as an AM4 platform contender, and is by no means a slouch. In fact, it runs right at the center of many a high-performance gaming rig to this day, so to outright beat it in gaming performance without any fancy 3D V-cache shenanigans is a very impressive result.

There is a drawback, however, and that's heat. The 7700X likes to give cooling systems a workout, so you'll need a sizeable air cooler or significantly chunky water cooling system to prevent it from throttling back. Here though, the 7700X has a trick up its sleeve, and that's something called Eco Mode.

Running in 65 W Eco Mode configuration (as opposed to the full fat 105 W TDP), you'll still receive, on average, 90-95% of the performance in most scenarios. That significantly reduces the thermals, so for small form factor systems or those that don't want to buy a large cooler, you can be assured that your chip is still delivering great performance without sucking down too much juice.

So why didn't AMD simply make this a 65 W chip to begin with? Well, when it runs into Intel's mid-range competition, the blue team chips do often pull slightly ahead. As a result, the 7700X has been configured to squeeze as much performance possible out of its eight cores, hence the high clock speeds and heavy power draw.

In terms of real-world usage though, that matters little. While some Intel chips have been experiencing crashing issues recently, the 7700X keeps on trucking day after day. We know this for a fact, as two of our hardware team currently use PCs featuring this excellent CPU as daily drivers, and neither has had any issues to report.

It simply gets on with the job of being a fantastic eight-core CPU, for a reasonable price, on a platform with plenty of upgradeability in future. It's for this reason that the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X takes our best mid-range CPU spot, as it's everything you could want from an affordable yet high-performance chip with the minimum of fuss.

Read our full AMD Ryzen 7 7700X review.

Best high-end CPU

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Our previous recommendation for the best high-end CPU was the Ryzen 9 7950X3D, due to its thundering blend of gaming and content creation performance, but with the release of the new Zen 5 chips, the Ryzen 9 9950X is now the best high-end processor.

But it's a close-run thing. The Ryzen 9 7950X3D is still going to be the better choice if gaming is really important to you but if you simply want the best CPU for productivity and content creation tasks, then the Ryzen 9 9950X is the absolute best. Only AMD Threadripper and Intel Xeon chips are going to be better in such workloads but they're far more expensive.

The 9950X is no slouch in gaming but thanks to the power of 3D V-Cache, the Zen 4-powered 7950X3D will produce better 1% low frame rates in games. Then again, if gaming is a higher priority, you should really be buying the best gaming CPU, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D.

What makes the Ryzen 9 9950X better than the Ryzen 9 7950X or 7950X3D at demanding, multithreaded workloads isn't immediately obvious when you look at the specifications. They all have 16 cores, 32 threads, and 64 MB of L3 cache (128 MB in the case of the 7950X3D); the 9950X and 7950X also have the same 5.7 GHz boost clock and 170 W base power limit.

For the Zen 5 architecture, AMD significantly redesigned the cores, focusing on improving internal bandwidth, branch prediction, instruction per cycle throughput, and heavy vector performance. But while these updates don't translate to big gains in gaming (read our Ryzen 7 9700X review to see what we mean), they really come into play when all the cores are loaded with threads.

In the Cinebench 2024 multi-core test, the Ryzen 9 9950X is 15% faster than the Ryzen 9 7950X and 12% faster than the Core i9 14900K. The gains are even higher in Blender 4.2—16% better than the 7950X and an enormous 32% faster than Intel's best desktop CPU. 

And then there's the Eco mode. A simple switch in the BIOS drops the base power limit to 105 W (a 38% decrease) and yet it hardly impacts the multithreaded performance, with Cinebench and Blender performance only decreasing by 11% and 13%, respectively. Some games, though, really don't like Eco mode and older engines that only load up a few threads take a bit hit in their 1% low frame rates.

The new Zen 5 chips are also somewhat fussy about motherboard BIOS settings, RAM timings, and Windows configurations and depending on how everything is set up, it can be tricky to get the Ryzen 9 9950X to run at its very best. Software and firmware updates should improve this in time but the launch of the Ryzen 9000-series chips wasn't very smooth.

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X is not cheap, either, and handing over $699 for a CPU is enough to make anyone think twice—especially since the Ryzen 9 7950X is a lot cheaper these days. But if you're looking for the ultimate AMD high-end chip that beats anything in content creation, even the Core i9 14900K, then this is the one to go for.

It's the best high-end AMD chip we've tested and the fastest processor for professional workloads full stop.

Read our full AMD Ryzen 9 9950X review.

Best AMD AM4 CPU upgrade

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Previously, this spot was occupied by the excellent AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D. And that's still a great shout for an AM4-based upgrade. But we've picked the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D as our best AM4 upgrade pick for a reason, and it's this: it still delivers excellent performance, but it's also much cheaper.

Essentially, what you're getting here is almost the same chip as the 5800X3D, just with the base and boost clocks lowered. And for those of you rubbing your hands together anticipating some overclocking to bring it back up to spec for less, I have some bad news: it doesn't support it.

But that really doesn't mean you should discount this chip's performance, because it's still excellent. Minimum frame rates are often a giveaway as to how well a chip is performing in strenuous gaming tasks, and thanks to that hefty dose of 3D V-Cache, the 5700X3D does remarkably well. It might have lower clock speeds than its bigger brother, but in real-world gaming terms, it still has the goods to muscle its way into the "serious gaming chip" category.

Not only that, but you can usually find one for around $200. That's budget CPU money, whereas the 5800X3D, thanks to its reputation, power and desirability means it's held onto its value in a remarkable way. A little too remarkably, if you ask us, as it's still often a comparable price to the AM5 platform AMD Ryzen 7 7700X, which handily beats it in most benchmarks.

Here though, you'll be spending a lot less. That means that the money you saved can go towards a better GPU, more RAM, or something else that's going to make a difference in your gaming PC. Remember, while CPUs are still a very important component in a gaming build, spending up on a GPU or more RAM can make more of a difference than putting it into a similar CPU with slightly higher clocks.

There are still a few things to consider here, though. For a start, like its bigger brother, it does like to run hot, which means you might need to invest in a better air cooler or water cooling solution to keep it from throttling back.

The other is AM5 itself. While AM5 motherboards are still a little on the pricey side, they have dropped, along with AM5 chips themselves. The AM5 socket is likely to be sticking around for quite a while, so spending a bit more now to get yourself on the AM5 train will provide an upgrade path for the future. That Ryzen 7 7700X is tempting as a mid-range pick, although it's still a fair bit more expensive, and of course you'll need to shell out for the motherboard and the DDR5 to go with.

Still, if you're looking for something that'll drop into your AM4 machine, deliver great performance, and won't break the bank, this is where we'd put our money. The AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D is the best way to upgrade an AM4 PC right now, and a rare combination of things: a cheap component for an older spec that really makes a whole lot of sense, with very little to complain about.

Read our full AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D review.

Best integrated graphics in a CPU

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In case you haven't noticed, graphics cards are pretty expensive. If that puts you off PC gaming, then AMD has something for you: The Ryzen 8000-series APUs include the most powerful integrated graphics ever, and the Ryzen 7 8700G is the top chip of the lot. They're positioned to challenge entry-level graphics cards, meaning you might not even need a graphics card for 1080p gaming today.

It's been over a year since AMD announced its Phoenix range of laptop processors. They took their time to come to market, but we did get a good idea of what to expect from a desktop APU by looking at devices like the Asus ROG Ally. Though ostensibly a handheld, it's capable of functioning as a desktop replacement when docked and delivers genuine gaming performance. If a power-restricted APU in a handheld can do that, its unleashed potential in a desktop form factor sounds pretty exciting to me.

It's now well over a year since the launch of AMD's Zen 4-based Ryzen 7000-series CPUs. They're generally an evolutionary upgrade over the Zen 3 5000-series models. A tweaked front end, a doubling of L2 cache, AVX-512 support and improved branch prediction helped to deliver an IPC gain of around 13%. Add to that clock speed improvements partly thanks to a shift to TSMC's 5 nm process (for the Core Complex Dies) and we've got ourselves a competitive AMD CPU family.

The 8700G incorporates many of these improvements, but it is a different beast. Most especially it uses a monolithic die as opposed to the chiplet design of the regular 7000-series CPUs. It includes a dedicated XDNA AI engine, but the major selling point of the 8000-series APUs is their integrated graphics.

Tucked away inside the Ryzen 7 8700G's die is the top-of-the-line Radeon 780M integrated graphics. It's the most powerful integrated graphics solution ever seen on the desktop platform. Based on the RDNA 3 architecture, there are 12 Compute Units, giving it 768 shader cores in total, clocked at up to 2.9 GHz. The Vega 8 IGP of the 5700G is 3 generations behind and clocked at just 2.0 GHz. It's not even in the same ballpark.

While we're happy to shout about the gaming performance of the 8700G, we're less impressed with its all-round CPU performance. Gamers with discrete graphics cards should look towards one of AMD's 7000-series CPUs, or the excellent Ryzen 7 5700X3D if you're sticking with AM4. That's without even mentioning the plethora of Intel 12th, 13th and 14th Gen options.

Read our full AMD Ryzen 7 8700G review.

PC Gamer CPU reviews

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
The king is dead, long live the king. Actually, it's not dead at all and you'll be able to buy the Ryzen 7 7800X3D for a good while yet. Can't get your hands on the new 9800X3D? Just buy this instead. It's still a stonkingly good gaming chip.
PC Gamer score: 91%

Read our full AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D review.

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Intel Core Ultra 9 285K
The king of the Arrow Lake pack is a monster in Cinebench but a mouse in gaming. The Ryzen 9 9550X also beats in most content creation tasks, too. Sips at power but just not worth buying.
PC Gamer score: 65%

Read our full Intel Core Ultra 9 285K review.

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Intel Core Ultra 5 245K
As a budget content creation and productivity CPU, the little Arrow Lake chip is pretty good. It's soundly beaten in gaming by the Core i5 14600K and 13600K, as well as AMD's Zen 5 processors. A bit too niche for most PC users.
PC Gamer score: 70%

Read our full Intel Core Ultra 5 245K review.

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AMD Ryzen 9 9900X
A great CPU for content creation but only so-so for gaming. Compared to its predecessors, the Ryzen 9 7900X, it's a step backwards due to the rubbish Eco mode and relatively high price.
PC Gamer score: 72%

Read our full AMD Ryzen 9 9900X review.

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AMD Ryzen 7 9700X
Fast in games and pretty decent in content creation, the Ryzen 7 9700X is a great all-round CPU. The only problem is that the 7700X is a lot cheaper and really not much slower.
PC Gamer score: 86%

Read our full AMD Ryzen 7 9700X review.

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AMD Ryzen 5 9600X
Just like its bigger sibling, the Ryzen 7 9700X, the Zen 5-powered 9600X is a speedy little chip. But it's not speedy enough to justify buying one over the last-gen Ryzen 5 7600X, which is around half the price of this.
PC Gamer score: 81%

Read our full AMD Ryzen 5 9600X review.

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Intel Core i9 14900K
It's a brilliant CPU, in the same way the Core i9 13900K is a brilliant CPU. Almost exactly the same, actually, making us wonder why you'd buy the newer model instead.
PC Gamer score: 79%

Read our full Intel Core i9 14900K review.

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Intel Core i7 14700K
It's a step up over the Core i7 13700K, and that makes it a great CPU for gaming and productivity tasks. It does run hot, however, and the power draw is substantial.
PC Gamer score: 83%

Read our full Intel Core i7 14700K review.

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Intel Core i5 14600K
A brilliant all-rounder of a chip...as is the 13600K. This is nominally better, but really the older chip is still the better buy. Runs power-hungry, too.
PC Gamer score: 80%

Read our full Intel Core i5 14600K review.

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Intel Core i5 13600K
A simply stunning all-rounder of a CPU, and one that was in this guide until very recently. Unfortunately, ongoing Intel issues make it difficult to recommend until they're resolved.
PC Gamer score: 96%

Read our full Intel Core i5 13600K review.

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AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
This used to be the best high-end CPU until the Ryzen 9 9950X appeared but it's still a great choice for anyone who needs excellent content creation power but doesn't want to give up gaming performance. It is quite pricey, though.
PC Gamer score: 86%

Read our full AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D review.

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AMD Ryzen 7 7700
We loved this chip at the time, but thanks to some price drops we now rate the Ryzen 7 7700X more highly. Still, it's a more efficient version, with plenty going for it.
PC Gamer score: 87%

Read our full AMD Ryzen 7 7700 review.

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AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
A monster of a gaming and productivity chip, but the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X pips it to the post thanks to its slightly better gaming performance. Just.
PC Gamer score: 81%

Read our full AMD Ryzen 9 7950X review.

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AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D
It might be AM4, and it might be getting on a bit, but this is still a brilliant gaming CPU. The 5700X3D, however, represents much better value these days.
PC Gamer score: 81%

Read our full AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D review.

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Processor FAQ

CPU review list

AMD CPU reviews:

• AMD Ryzen 9 9950X
• AMD Ryzen 9 9900X
• AMD Ryzen 7 9700X
• AMD Ryzen 5 9600X
• AMD Ryzen 5 8600G
• AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D
• AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
• AMD Ryzen 9 7900
• AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
• AMD Ryzen 7 7700X
• AMD Ryzen 7 7700
• AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 
• AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D
• AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 
• AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D
• AMD Ryzen 7 5700G 
• AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 
• Threadripper 3970X and 3960X 
• AMD Ryzen 9 3950X 
• AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT 
• AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 
• AMD Ryzen 7 3800XT 
• AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
• AMD Ryzen 5 3600XT 
• AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 
• AMD Ryzen 5 2600X 
• AMD Ryzen 5 2400G
• AMD Ryzen 3 2200G  
• AMD Ryzen 7 1800X, 1700X, and 1700 
• Threadripper 1950X and 1920X 
• AMD Ryzen 5 1600X, 1600, 1500X, and 1500 
• AMD Ryzen 3 1300X and 1200 

Intel CPU reviews:

• Intel Core Ultra 9 285K
• Intel Core Ultra 5 245K
• Intel Core i9 14900K
• Intel Core i7 14700K
• Intel Core i5 14600K
• Intel Core i9 13900K
• Intel Core i5 13600K
• Intel Core i5 13400F
• Intel Core i9 12900K
• Intel Core i5 12600K
• Intel Core i5 12400
• Intel Core i9 11900K 
• Intel Core i5 11600K
• Intel Core i5 11400F
• Intel Core i9 10980XE 
• Intel Core i9 10900K
• Intel Core i5 10600K 
• Intel Core i9 9900K 
• Intel Core i7 9700K
• Intel Core i9 7980XE 
• Intel Core i9 7960X 
• Intel Core i9 7900X 
• Intel Core i7 8700K 
• Intel Core i7 7700K and Core i5 7600K 
• Intel Core i5 8400

CPU jargon buster

Cache - A small segment of high-speed memory dedicated to storing and executing frequently used commands/instructions to speed up software execution. CPUs contain caches designated as Level 1, 2, and 3, with L1 being the fastest and smallest and L3 being the slowest and largest.

Clock speed - The speed at which a CPU can execute instructions, measured in hertz. A processor with a 3.7 GHz clock speed can process up to 3.7 billion instructions a second, per core. Clock speed is one of the most critical factors for determining performance in games and workload functions.

Core - A self-contained block of circuitry that processes instructions and data. Modern CPUs can contain anywhere from two to 128+ cores (in servers and supercomputers), though CPUs housed in most consumer machines will generally carry between six and eight, with AMD's latest CPUs sporting up to 16 cores.

Heat sink - A cooling solution for PCs that utilize fans or liquid cooling (active) or aluminum radiators (passive) that rely on convection to regulate a component's temperature.

Hyper-Threading (SMT) - Intel terminology for a tech that allows a processor to handle two sets of instructions 'threads' simultaneously. AMD and other CPU vendors call this SMT, Simultaneous Multi-Threading.

Socket type LGA (Land Grid Array), PGA (Pin Grid Array), or BGA (Ball Grid Array) - The way a CPU interfaces with the socket on a motherboard. LGA is used on Intel sockets with pins as part of the socket. AMD's AM4 solution, PGA, has the processors' pins, which fit into holes in the socket. AMD's AM5 and Threadripper CPUs also use LGA sockets. A BGA socket is when the processor is permanently soldered to the motherboard, typically on a laptop.

TDP - Thermal design power, the maximum amount of heat a system or chip can produce that the attendant cooling system is designed to deal with under workload. This term can apply to PCs as a whole, GPUs, CPUs, or nearly any other performance component that generates heat and is in large part an indicator of how much power a part draws.

Thread - A thread refers to a series of CPU instructions for a specific program. Older CPUs and SMT-disabled chips run one thread per core, but most modern AMD and Intel CPUs can simultaneously run two threads, sharing some resources (e.g. cache). 

Turbo Boost - Intel technology that allows processors to run at higher clock speeds under demanding loads. AMD also supports turbo or boost clocks, and we use the terms interchangeably regardless of CPU vendor.