The best gaming CPU - leaderboard 2024

Which CPU is best suited for computer games? We'll give you the answer in our up-to-date leaderboard. With a gaming CPU, the clock frequency, the intermediate memory (cache) and of course the number of CPU cores and the CPU architecture are particularly important. We tested the following processors in the Geekbench 5 multi-core benchmark, but the popularity of each processor is also included in this list.

Find the best processor

It's not always easy to find the best processor for your needs. While many visitors only pay attention to the theoretical speed of a processor, others want to read detailed test reports that also deal with the processor's speed in practice. Therefore, we have collected a large number of benchmarks in order to meet as many requirements as possible.

We have not only listed our results for you in map form at the top of this page, but also in a clear table at the bottom of this page. So everyone can quickly find their way around and find the best processor for themselves.

What is important in a good gaming CPU

At the beginning we already listed some criteria that are important for a gaming CPU. Above all, the clock frequency or the clock in turbo mode of a processor is important, as many games (including modern ones) still cannot use all of a processor's CPU cores evenly. This is also due to the fact that a significant part of the computing tasks is outsourced to the graphics card and the processor has to pass this data on to the GPU.

If you now decide on a gaming CPU, we recommend a minimum of 16 GB of RAM, which should ideally be operated in dual-channel mode. To do this, at least two main memory sticks (always in pairs, e.g. 4 are also possible) must be installed in the computer, otherwise only one memory channel is used, which halves the memory bandwidth of the processor. Memory speed can also have a major impact on gaming performance.

The best games CPUs clearly listed

In this list view, we have presented the currently best desktop processors in tabular form for you. We sorted the processors by popularity and the Geekbench 6 multi-core result achieved.

	Processor	Socket	TDP	Memory
	AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D 16C 32T @ 4.20 GHz	AM5 (LGA 1718)	120 W	DDR5-5200
	AMD Ryzen 9 7900X3D 12C 24T @ 4.40 GHz	AM5 (LGA 1718)	120 W	DDR5-5200
	AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 8C 16T @ 4.20 GHz	AM5 (LGA 1718)	120 W	DDR5-5200
	AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 8C 16T @ 3.40 GHz	AM4 (PGA 1331)	105 W	DDR4-3200
	AMD Ryzen 9 7950X 16C 32T @ 4.50 GHz	AM5 (LGA 1718)	170 W	DDR5-5200
	AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 12C 24T @ 4.70 GHz	AM5 (LGA 1718)	170 W	DDR5-5200
	AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 16C 32T @ 3.40 GHz	AM4 (PGA 1331)	105 W	DDR4-3200
	Intel Core i9-14900KF 24C 32T @ 3.20 GHz	LGA 1700	125 W	DDR5-5600, DDR4-3200
	Intel Core i9-14900K 24C 32T @ 3.20 GHz	LGA 1700	125 W	DDR5-5600, DDR4-3200
	Intel Core i7-14700KF 20C 28T @ 3.40 GHz	LGA 1700	125 W	DDR5-5600, DDR4-3200
	Intel Core i7-14700K 20C 28T @ 3.40 GHz	LGA 1700	125 W	DDR5-5600, DDR4-3200
	AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 8C 16T @ 4.50 GHz	AM5 (LGA 1718)	105 W	DDR5-5200
	AMD Ryzen 5 7600X 6C 12T @ 4.70 GHz	AM5 (LGA 1718)	105 W	DDR5-5200
	Intel Core i5-14600KF 14C 20T @ 3.50 GHz	LGA 1700	125 W	DDR5-5600, DDR4-3200
	Intel Core i5-14600K 14C 20T @ 3.50 GHz	LGA 1700	125 W	DDR5-5600, DDR4-3200
	Intel Core i5-14500 14C 20T @ 2.60 GHz	LGA 1700	65 W	DDR5-5600, DDR4-3200

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