Key Takeaways
- Budget CPUs are good value, but you’ll have to deal with limited performance in gaming and productivity.
- A more powerful CPU can make multitasking a breeze, allowing you to freely run multiple applications without thinking about it.
- Upgrading from a budget CPU to a higher-end option may be necessary sooner, potentially negating short-term savings.
Budget CPUs have always been the favorites of value-conscious PC builders, thanks to their impressive performance per dollar. And in some cases, a cheap CPU is all you really need for your use case. But, despite the value and clear demand for budget CPUs, there are also some disadvantages that one should consider before finalizing a budget CPU for their gaming or productivity build.
In 2024, both gaming and non-gaming workloads require significant CPU chops to deliver anything above an adequate experience. Irrespective of whether you have one of the best GPUs or not, your CPU should be powerful enough to keep pace with it. The fact of the matter is that you should consider all the factors before making a purchase decision so that you avoid a bad case of buyer’s remorse.
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4 Capped gaming performance
Your CPU matters for gaming
Conventional wisdom dictates that if you’re building a gaming PC, you should spend most of your budget on the GPU and get a budget CPU to pair with it. But, your CPU performance is crucial to your gaming performance, no matter which resolution you’re playing at. At 1080p, your games are most likely to be CPU-bound, requiring a strong CPU to avoid performance bottlenecks.
A more powerful CPU will be able to provide that extra performance whereas a budget CPU might have already hit its performance cap.
Even at higher resolutions like 1440p and 4K, your CPU matters a lot. At these resolutions, you’re more likely to use DLSS or FSR and lower in-game settings slightly to get that extra FPS boost. This is when a more powerful CPU will be able to provide that extra performance whereas a budget CPU might have already hit its performance cap.
A cheap 4-core or budget 6-core CPU might be your only option, depending on your budget, but you should make that choice consciously rather than assuming that a budget CPU will have no downsides whatsoever.
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3 Below-average multitasking performance
You aren’t just gaming on your PC
This might not feel like a big deal but if you’re in the habit of running multiple things on your PC at the same time, your budget CPU will quickly start to feel like a slowpoke. I remember the days when I used to have a game install running in the background while I was busy playing another game, and my PC slowed down to a crawl. Even minimizing the game to run a quick Google search felt like a bit too much for the PC to handle.
Upgrading from my 6-core to 8-core CPU gave my PC a huge shot in the arm.
If you have programs like Steam, Epic Games Store, Discord, and Wallpaper Engine always open in the background, this problem can get even bigger. You might argue that you might not care about multitasking when you’re immersed in a gaming session, but having the ability to instantly access a browser tab or run a demanding application simultaneously can feel like a big feature, especially if your PC struggles to do that.
Upgrading from my 6-core to 8-core CPU gave my PC a huge shot in the arm, as I no longer had to break my head over which applications to close before running what I wanted to run.
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2 Poor productivity performance
This is a big one
Of course, you need a seriously powerful CPU for serious productivity performance. After all, if you’re building a PC for video editing, streaming, 3D rendering, or any other CPU-intensive workload, a budget productivity CPU will only get you so far. Most of these applications rely heavily on multi-threaded performance, and hence benefit from more cores. An 8-core, 10-core, or 12-core CPU is usually preferred when building a productivity-focused build.
If your goal is to put together a PC for your professional needs, you should ideally consider the best CPUs you can afford.
You can always install a modern 6-core CPU and be done with it — these chips will have enough power to run most of your CPU-intensive applications. But, if your goal is to put together a PC for your professional needs and create something that’s going to be the primary tool for your business, you should ideally consider the best CPUs you can afford.
Even for non-business users who only need a PC for streaming and occasional content creation, having at least an 8-core CPU will have a huge impact on performance compared to a 6-core chip.
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1 Limited longevity
Buy cheap, buy twice
In many cases, picking a budget CPU over a more powerful (and slightly more expensive) one will prove a tad nearsighted. When you gradually figure out that the chip isn’t up to snuff for your gaming, multitasking, or productivity needs, you’ll probably start thinking about an upgrade. But, at that point, you’ll have to concede that it would have been a better decision just to buy a mid-range CPU in the first place.
You’ll need to make your peace with reduced performance and wait longer than you want to for an eventual CPU upgrade.
By saving money in the short term, you’ll probably have to spend more in the long term due to more frequent upgrades. This can also happen if you upgrade, say, your graphics card and discover that your budget CPU is no longer powerful enough to extract the maximum performance out of the GPU. You’ll have to shell out more for a CPU upgrade if you want to have a balanced build.
Otherwise, you’ll need to make your peace with reduced performance and wait longer than you want to for an eventual CPU upgrade.
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Budget CPUs aren’t always better
While a budget CPU makes sense for a large majority of users, it might not be the best option for you. Budget CPUs are intended to provide your PC with enough performance while saving you money which you can invest in the other components of your build. But, you need to ensure that you’re aware of the various disadvantages that come with a budget CPU, whether your main concern is gaming or productivity.
If you’re not on a strict budget and want to build a balanced build, there are enough advantages to picking a mid-range or high-end CPU over a budget one. You don’t have to suffer from capped gaming FPS, poor productivity performance, less-than-desired multitasking prowess, and limited lifespan. The way things are progressing in the computing space, a powerful CPU might go a long way in saving you headaches and a bit of money as well in the long run.