The 10 Best Desktop Processors For PC Gaming In 2025

In this best-of rundown, we're going to outline the top 10 best gaming processors available in 2025. The CPUs featured here should offer some of the best gaming performance per-dollar in their respective price ranges. In fact, many of the cheaper options are still powerful contenders in modern gaming workloads, thanks to the advancements made in gaming CPU performance we've seen over the past few generations.

While the best experiences for high-refresh gaming, or high-image quality path-traced ray tracing, will require a combination of high-end gaming CPU and GPU and plenty of RAM, the customization possibilities offered by PC gaming make satisfying, smooth experiences possible even on modest hardware configurations.


An important note about buying a gaming CPU of any kind is to also consider what GPU and display you can actually afford to it pair up with, and to be prepared to make appropriate settings adjustments to match them. High-end CPUs can be great for nearly any kind of build, but will be wasted with a high-refresh display if you don't make the right graphics settings compromises or pair it with an anemic GPU. On the other end of the scale, entry-level CPUs can also bottleneck high-end GPUs and prevent them from reaching their full potential for high framerates or enabling cutting-edge ray traced graphics. That said, modern entry-level CPUs can be more than adequate for stable 60 FPS gaming in current-gen titles, when paired with an appropriate GPU and reasonable in-game settings. 

Note: All CPUs listed below are presented in order of price range at time of publication. Pricing may fluctuate, but general order of expected gaming performance has been maintained below, with the exception of the Ryzen 5 8600G, which makes some CPU horsepower compromises to provide the most powerful iGPU on this list.

Best Budget CPUs For Gaming In 2025

10. AMD Ryzen 5 4500

• Current Pricing: $68.00
• CPU Architecture: Zen 2
• CPU Cores and Threads: 6 cores and 12 threads at up to 4.1 GHz
• Cooler Included?: Yes
• iGPU: N/A
• Why We Recommended It: While it's one of the lower-end AMD CPUs for socket AM4, its price point serves as a killer budget entry into what it is still a capable, flexible PC ecosystem. This processor should be fine for 60+ FPS in all but the most demanding titles, just don't get greedy with ray tracing.
• Recommended Upgrade Path: Since you'll be limited to the AMD AM4 socket, your best upgrade path will either be the Ryzen 7 5700X3D or the Ryzen 7 5800X3D.

Best Mid-Range CPUs For Gaming In 2025

8. Intel Core Ultra 5 225F

• Current Pricing: $168.35
• CPU Architecture: Intel Arrow Lake
• CPU Cores and Threads: 10 cores and 10 threads at up to 4.9 GHz
• Cooler Included?: No
• iGPU: No
• Why We Recommended It: Arguable the best value for any Intel Arrow Lake CPU, bringing you onto Intel's latest desktop socket at a competitive price point with strong mid-range gaming performance and modern RAM and storage support.
• Recommended Upgrade Path: Up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K or consider waiting for Intel's next socket.

7. AMD Ryzen 5 8600G

• Current Pricing: $158.50
• CPU Architecture: AMD Zen 4
• CPU Cores and Threads: 6 cores and 12 Threads at up to 5 GHz
• Cooler Included?: Yes
• iGPU: Radeon 740M
• Why We Recommended It: The cheapest entry into the AM5 socket, with a reasonably powerful iGPU to boot. While CPU performance is middline, the included iGPU will allow for entry-level 720p/1080p gaming experiences, and gaming performance with a discrete GPU should be solid. If you're starting with a beefy GPU, though, you'll want to shell out more for an appropriate, higher-end Ryzen 9000 Series CPU with the latest socket.
• Recommended Upgrade Path: Any higher-end socket AM5 CPU, but especially the X3D CPUs like the Ryzen 7 9800X3D (below). However, if you're using the iGPU, you'll definitely want to get a discrete GPU before considering a higher-end CPU, since the integrated graphics will limit gaming performance more than anything else.

Best High-End CPUs For Gaming In 2025

4. AMD Ryzen 7 9700X

• Current Pricing: $294.01
• CPU Architecture: AMD Zen 5
• CPU Cores and Threads: 8 cores and 16 Threads at up to 5.5 GHz
• Cooler Included?: No
• iGPU: Radeon Graphics
• Why We Recommended It: This is arguably the best value non-X3D AMD CPU for gaming, and a mighty overall gaming contender, even against more expensive 14th Gen Intel CPUs.
• Recommended Upgrade Path: Higher core count Ryzen 9000 series processors, or wait for a next-gen AM5 socket X3D CPU.

3. Intel Core i7-14700KF

• Current Pricing: $313.29
• CPU Architecture: Intel Raptor Lake Refresh
• CPU Cores and Threads: 20 Cores (8P+12E) and 28 Threads at up to 5.6 GHz
• Cooler Included?: No
• iGPU: No
• Why We Recommended It:  This is the most competitively-priced Intel gaming CPU overall, often outperforming 13th Gen Core i9s and coming within spitting distance of the higher-end Core i9-14900K. Any meaningful gaming performance gains past this are currently limited to AMD Ryzen 9000X3D Series CPUs.
• Recommended Upgrade Path: Same as other Intel 14th Gen CPUs—up to Core i9-14900K. For this CPU, though, you don't have much reason to take it that far unless you're playing a heavily multi-threaded game (like a particularly well-optimized MMO) or also running heavier multi-threaded workloads.

2. AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D

• Current Pricing: $459.98
• CPU Architecture: AMD Zen 5
• CPU Cores and Threads: 8 cores, 16 threads at up to 5.2 GHz
• Cooler Included?: No
• iGPU: Radeon Graphics
• Why We Recommended It: The best value option for pure gaming performance on the market, scoring on par with or slightly better than the much more expensive Ryzen 9 9950X3D.
• Recommended Upgrade Path: Wait for a next-gen X3D CPU, since the 9900X3D and 9950X3D increase core count but don't meaningfully increase gaming performance unless you're also multi-tasking, streaming/etc.

The Best Overall CPU In 2025: No Compromises