Best CPU for Gaming 2022

ign.com:

Grabbing a solid graphics card for your gaming PC build may be your top priority, given it determines the resolution and other settings you can run your games at. But a quality CPU is just as important. This chip isn’t known as the ‘central processing unit’ for kicks, as it’s essentially the brains of your entire rig. Dictating how efficiently everything runs from the system memory to the SSDs holding your games. So, even if you have a top-tier GPU, a less-than-stellar processor will bottleneck your whole system.

To ensure you don’t regret choosing the wrong CPU for gaming, we’ve compiled a list of the best you can find. You are limited to an Intel or AMD chip, but both companies release a myriad of quality options almost constantly. It can be hard to keep up. You’ll find more wallet-friendly processors that have no problem handling typical gaming loads or speed demons ready to be overclocked and pushed to the extreme. Check out our favorites for every type of PC gamer below – and click here to find them in the UK.

Cores: 14 (6P+8E) | Threads: 20 | Base Clock: 3.5GHz (P-core), 2.6 (E-core)| Boost Clock: 5.1GHz | Graphics: Intel UHD Graphics 770 | L3 Cache: 24MB | TDP: 125W

For a perfect balance of performance and price, look no further than the Intel Core i5-13600K. As part of Intel’s latest 13th gen lineup, it utilizes a hybrid architecture, offering six P-cores and eight E-cores with 20 threads for a processor that divides and conquers tasks easily. Those P-cores can clock up to 5.1 GHz and are capable of hyperthreading for a major boost in processing muscle, so you can run a game and even stream simultaneously.

The Intel Core i5-13600K will future-proof your rig thanks to the support of 16 lanes of the PCIe 5.0 interface