Best Budget CPUs 2021

Buying any PC components is a little painful right now. The high-end GPU market is the worst, but even the budget CPU market is affected with prices up on the RRPs. Unfortunately, that means that if your budget is super tight then you should probably wait if you can for the market to calm down, or check out second hand offers. Sometimes you just can’t wait though, if you need a computer and don’t have much budget there’s not much you can do about it.

It’s important to consider the workload that you’re going to be using the computer for before you choose a CPU. Intel’s and AMD’s strengths are in different areas, and this can make a significant performance difference depending on the tasks you ask of it. Generally, unless you’re looking at highly multithreaded workloads, 4 cores should be enough, and clock-speed will be the biggest factor. If you’ve got decent cooling, you may also want to look into the possibility of overclocking to get a little bit of extra performance for free.

To help you pick a great budget option, we’ve drawn up a list of our recommendations for the best budget CPUs in 2021.

The AMD Ryzen 3 3300X has 4 cores and 8 threads that run at a base clock of 3.8GHz and can boost up to 4.3GHz. It comes with a Wraith Stealth cooler, which is enough to cool the processor but if you’re wanting to overclock you will almost certainly need something better.

DDR 3200 and PCIe 4.0 support allow high-speed data transfers with compatible hardware. This processor does lack integrated graphics, meaning it needs to be paired with a graphics card, this is fine for budget gamers but will increase the price if you didn’t already want or have a dedicated GPU. The Ryzen 5 3600 is only a little more expensive but offers two extra cores, which could be worth it if your workload is highly parallelised.

The Ryzen 5 3400G is basically the same CPU as the 3300X above but with Radeon RX Vega 11 integrated graphics. Unfortunately, it also comes at the cost of most of the CPU cache and a 100MHz penalty to the base and boost clocks. The included cooler is also upgraded, but again, you’ll need better if you’re planning on overclocking.

If you’ve got a graphics card that is better than the integrated graphics in this CPU then you’re probably better off spending less on the 3300X or the 3500X. Alternatively, you might want to look at the 3600X or Ryzen 7 3700X if you’re willing to spend a little extra to get more cores.

The AMD Athlon 3000G offers 2 cores, 4 threads, and a clock speed of 3.5GHz all for less than $100. It also includes Radeon Vega 3 integrated graphics, so a dedicated GPU isn’t necessary. To achieve this almost absurdly low price point, it comes with only a tiny cache and is limited to DDR4 2667 speeds and PCIe 3.0.

This is basically impossible to bet at this price point, a position cemented thanks to the fact that the 3000G is unlocked, meaning you can overclock it to get even more performance out of it. Don’t expect miracles but reasonable performance gains should be achievable with decent cooling.

The Intel Pentium Gold G6400 is a dual-core, 4 thread CPU, with a clock speed of 4.0GHz. currently selling for just over $100 this is a bit of a hard sell over AMD’s 3000G as the LGA1200 socket is new and will almost certainly mean you need to factor a new motherboard into your costs.

The stock cooler is decent, and without the option to overclock will likely be more than enough cooling. The Intel® UHD Graphics 610 is the bottom-tier integrated graphics, it will be enough for normal usage but not gaming. This CPU s also limited to DDR4 2666 memory and PCIe 3.0.

The Intel Core i5-10400 is a 6 core,1 12 thread CPU with a base clock of 2.9GHz and a boost clock of 4.3GHz. it has 12MB of cache and comes with a stock cooler which can handle it but would be better served by something slightly stronger. It also includes Intel UHD Graphics 630 integrated graphics which is decent for basic gaming and normal usage.

The limitation to PCIe 3.0 is pretty painful as AMD’s competing products have PCIe 4.0 which allows twice the transfer speeds. The CPU is locked, so overclocking isn’t an option, additionally memory speed is also capped at 2666MHz.

Those were our recommendations for the best budget CPUs in 2021. Have you recently bought a budget CPU? Which model did you go for and what sold you on it?