If you want to buy a CPU for $100 today, you have three options. There’s AMD’s Ryzen 5 5500 at $80, alongside Intel’s Core i3-12100F at $90 and Core i3-14100F at a clean $100. Of course, you can go back in time to pick up something like the Core i7-6700 or Ryzen 3 4100, but if you’re after the best CPU for gaming, those chips won’t cut it. I wanted to see how much performance you could get out of a chip for $100, brand new, without mucking around eBay or dusting off DDR3 DIMMs.

Although AMD and Intel have mostly abandoned the sub-$150 price point with newer generations, it’s still a popular segment among budget builders. That’s evidenced by the fact that the Ryzen 5 5500 is (and has been for months) the second best-selling CPU on Amazon. And despite being much lower in the rankings, Intel’s Core i3-12100F ranks higher on that chart than the newer Core Ultra 5 250K Plus.

This segment has only become more important over the past six months, as well. Rising SSD and RAM costs, along with GPU shortages, have bloated the price of building a PC. These chips not only represent a cheap entry point into a relatively modern PC, they also represent a big cost-savings with memory; all three CPUs support DDR4, which is about half as expensive as a kit of DDR5 right now.

We put all three chips through our full gauntlet of benchmarks, as featured in our CPU reviews, to see how they stack up to each other. The goal here is to look at the entry point for building a PC today, taking into account the full cost of a build. You can bump up your budget and get a much better CPU, such as the Ryzen 5 7600X, but that carries with it the baggage of DDR5 prices. We’re capping the budget at $100 to truly segment what the state of entry-level CPUs looks like in 2026.

To that end, we’re mainly comparing these CPUs to each other. In our testing below, we’ll call out some neighboring chips at the budget end of the market, but we’re really focused on our three main test subjects. We evaluate all aspects of the chips as they relate to each other more so than the broader market that starts to pick up closer to the $200 price point. If you want to see more comparisons, make sure to look at our CPU benchmark hierarchy.

$100 CPU Shootout: Specs and Features

$100 CPU Shootout: Specs and Features

The Ryzen 5 5500 and Core i3-12100F are both from 2022, and the Core i3-14100F is from 2024, but the specs for these CPUs feel ripped straight out of 2015. We have two quad-core Intel chips with relatively high boost clocks facing off against an AMD hexa-core chip, and despite AMD packing more cores, it has the cheapest price of the three CPUs in our lineup at only $80 on sale.

Architecturally, the Ryzen 5 5500 is the most dated CPU here, packing six Zen 3 cores that originally debuted in late 2020. However, it doesn’t come from the Vermeer range like most other Ryzen 5000 CPUs. Rather, it falls under the Cezanne codename for Ryzen 5000 APUs, and in particular, the Ryzen 5 5500 lives in a small lineup of those APUs with the integrated graphics disabled. Vermeer and Cezanne are identical when it comes to the node and architectural design. However, Cezanne only supports up to PCIe 3.0, while Vermeer supports PCIe 4.0.

Outside of the PCIe limitation, the Ryzen 5 5500 is a familiar Zen 3 CPU. It comes with a relatively large L3 cache at 16 MB, and you’ll find 512 KB of L2 cache per core. Power demands are low with a 65W TDP and PPT of 88W, and the chip comes bundled with AMD’s Wraith Stealth cooler, which is enough to keep the chip within normal operating temperatures. It exclusively supports DDR4 memory, with official speeds up to 3,200 MT/s, and it slots into AM4 motherboards. As usual with AMD’s long-standing AM4 support, you should check compatibility with your motherboard; the Ryzen 5 5500 is technically supported on 500- and 400-series chipsets, and even some 300-series chipsets, but support varies from board to board. You will likely need an older AM4 chip to flash a BIOS update, as well (short of BIOS Flashback features available on some boards).

The Core i3-12100F and Core i3-14100F are both similar chips, leveraging the same silicon with minor modifications. Starting with the Core i3-12100F, it’s a quad-core chip from Intel’s Alder Lake range. Unlike other 12th-gen CPUs, however, it doesn’t come with a hybrid architecture. It comes with four Golden Cove P-cores and no E-cores, giving you access to a total of eight threads.

Although the Core i3-14100F is two generations newer, it uses the same die with H0 stepping as the Core i3-12100F, just with higher boost clocks and a more aggressive MTP, along with elevated base clocks. Both chips come with a pool of 12 MB of shared L3 cache, along with 1.25 MB of L2 cache per core, totaling 5 MB across the chip.

Both chips are compatible with LGA 1700 socket motherboards, including 600- and 700-series chipsets, though you may need a BIOS update to use the former. Both chips also support DDR4 and DDR5 memory given you have a compatible motherboard. DDR4 and DDR5 are physically incompatible, so make sure you have the proper motherboard version before picking out your memory.

Like AMD, Intel offers a bundled cooler with both chips: the Laminar RM1. Given the low power demands and locked multiplier, the RM1 is enough to keep both chips within operating temperatures. However, Intel’s 12th- through 14th-gen chips tend to run hot, so investing in an inexpensive tower cooler ($20 - $30) is worth it. Unlike the Ryzen 5 5500, both Intel chips support PCIe 4.0 for storage and graphics.

We’re looking at the F-series variants of the Core i3-12100 and Core i3-14100 without integrated graphics, which are the versions you’ll still find available for around $100. The pricier versions with integrated graphics perform identically, though they’re way too expensive to recommend right now with resellers asking north of $220 for them.

$100 CPU Shootout: Gaming Performance

$100 CPU Shootout: Gaming Performance

When we review CPUs at Tom’s Hardware, we use the most performant gaming GPU available to consumers in order to isolate CPU performance as much as possible — that’s currently the Nvidia RTX 5090 FE. This approach has a flaw when we’re looking at CPUs as weak as the Ryzen 5 5500, Core i3-1200F, and Core i3-14100F, however. We are forcing the system into a full CPU bottleneck and ignoring the influence of the GPU in a budget system running one of these chips, which is an influence that we need to account for in this situation.

Performance with the RTX 5090 FE is important, as we’ve isolated CPU performance as much as possible to get an accurate view of how these chips compare to one another. However, we also ran a test pass with an Asus Dual RTX 4060 8GB as a more grounded, “real-world” comparison point. The choice to use the RTX 4060 was deliberate, as it only has 8GB of VRAM, and some of the games in our test suite have performance issues with 8GB graphics cards. If you’re buying one of these CPUs, there’s a good chance you’re pairing it with a GPU that has 8GB (or less) of VRAM, so we wanted to reflect that situation in our testing.

You can see both configurations represented in our chart above, with a natural split between the RTX 5090 and RTX 4060. We’re testing with DDR4 here to keep the playing field level, as well as focus on the budget builders that don’t want to shell out for a DDR5 kit. Based on our testing, adding DDR5 into the mix with the Core i3-12100F or Core i3-14100F represents around a 5% to 8% improvement, depending on the title.

Performance falls in-line with price, with the Ryzen 5 5500 at the bottom and the Core i3-14100F at the top. With the RTX 5090, the Core i3-14100F was a minor 3.8% faster than the Core i3-12100F, but 11.8% faster than the Ryzen 5 5500. With the RTX 4060, the difference between the two Intel CPUs is less than two frames (about 2%), while the Core i5-14100F is 10.7% ahead of the Ryzen 5 5500. The scaling is slightly less dramatic with the RTX 4060, but it’s still very much present.

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In our other geomeans, you can see the Core i3-14100F consumed the most power out of our test pool, averaging 55.1W across our suite of games. This chart is interesting because it shows the influence of the GPU, and how the CPU becomes the bottleneck as it tries to keep pace with a much faster GPU.

The Core i3-14100F was the least efficient of our test pool, while the Core i3-12100F was the most. But really, we’re dealing at the extreme low end here. All of these CPUs are exceptionally efficient in games, so much so that we had to reset the X-axis on our efficiency chart to fit the data in. As we’ll get to later, none of these chips come close to 100W, even under a full workload. And in games, less than 50W is the norm.

Despite drawing the most power, the Core i3-14100F sits in the middle of our temperature rankings. Although these are great thermal results, we test with a 360mm all-in-one liquid cooler. If you plan on using the stock cooler included with any of these CPUs, expect much higher temperatures under load.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Benchmarks

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At 1080p, Baldur’s Gate 3 is completely CPU-bound with this test pool, as we can see virtually identical performance across both the RTX 4060 and RTX 5090 passes. The Core i3-14100F is a clear favorite here, outpacing the Ryzen 5 5500 by just over 10% overall, and coming in a few frames ahead of the Core i3-12100F.

Borderlands 4 Benchmarks

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Borderlands 4 is one of the reasons we opted to test the RTX 4060, as this game struggles with 8GB GPUs. With the RTX 5090, we see the Core i3-14100F only 3% ahead of the Ryzen 5 5500 and 6% ahead of the Core i3-12100F. However, the Intel chips handled the 8GB RTX 4060 more gracefully, with the Core i3-14100F outperforming the Ryzen 5 5500 by 21.9%.

Regardless of your CPU choice, playing this game with an 8GB graphics card is a bad experience with consistent stuttering, as shown by the 1% lows.

Crimson Desert Benchmarks

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Crimson Desert is another game where it helps to have data from the RTX 4060. With the RTX 5090, the Core i3-14100F outpaces the Ryzen 5 5500 by 13.5%, but that lead shrinks to just 4% with the RTX 4060 as the GPU becomes a bigger influence on performance.

Counter-Strike 2 Benchmarks

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We see the opposite behavior in Counter-Strike 2, with the CPUs offering identical performance with the RTX 5090, but the Core i3-14100F coming out 6.8% ahead of the Ryzen 5 5500 with the RTX 4060, likely on the back of its boosted clocks. Despite similar overall performance, the Intel CPUs show better stability in 1% lows.

Cyberpunk 2077

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In Cyberpunk 2077, there’s a wall that the Core i3-14100F runs into around 68 FPS, but we see scaling with the different GPUs with the Core i3-12100F and Ryzen 5 5500. Regardless, the Core i3-14100F clearly leads here.

Doom: The Dark Ages Benchmarks

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Doom: The Dark Ages is mostly GPU-bound with its always-on ray tracing, and that’s clear immediately in our chart. Still, the Core i3-14100F beat the Core i3-12100F by 3.2% and the Ryzen 5 5500 by 4.5% with the RTX 5090. With the RTX 4060, the two Intel chips are in lockstep, beating out the Ryzen 5 5500 by around 4%.

F1 2024 Benchmarks

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We can see our test pool is once again bound by the GPU with the RTX 4060 in F1 2024, with the Core i3-14100F marginally outclassing the two other chips by around 2%. Shifting the load back to the CPU with the RTX 5090, the Core i3-14100F is a massive 17% ahead of the Ryzen 5 5500, as well as 5% ahead of the Core i3-12100F.

Far Cry 6 Benchmarks

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Final Fantasy XIV Benchmarks

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Flight Simulator 2024 Benchmarks

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Flight Simulator 2024 is one of the more interesting benchmarks for this test pool. With the RTX 4060, you can see we’re completely GPU-bound. However, with the RTX 5090, the Core i3-14100F and Core i3-12100F post identical results, which are more than 20% ahead of the Ryzen 5 5500.

Hitman 3 Benchmarks

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Hitman 3 shows strange results at first glance, but that’s mainly a consequence of including two GPUs in the same chart. What we’re really seeing here is that the Core i3-12100F and Core i3-14100F offer identical performance in this title, which is marginally ahead of the Ryzen 5 5500 with the RTX 5090 and about 13% ahead with the RTX 4060.

Marvel Rivals Benchmarks

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We run into the exact same situation with Marvel Rivals, though the data is a bit cleaner. The two Intel CPUs are about 8.5% ahead of the Ryzen 5 5500 with the RTX 5090, and just shy of 4% ahead with the RTX 4060. This is an Unreal Engine 5 game, and UE5 is generally GPU-bound, but we still see a bit of scaling here.

Spider-Man 2 Benchmarks

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Again, the two Intel CPUs are in lockstep here, posting identical performance with the RTX 4060. With the RTX 5090, the Core i3-14100F shows a minor 2.1% jump over the Core i3-12100F. The Ryzen 5 5500 really struggles in this game. Intel is around 20% ahead with the RTX 5090, and about 25% ahead with the RTX 4060.

Starfield Benchmarks

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We run into a GPU-bound situation with the RTX 4060 in Starfield, and all three chips posted similar performance with the RTX 5090. Still, the Core i3-14100F technically leads here, beating out both other chips by around 7% with the RTX 5090.

$100 CPU Shootout: Productivity Performance

$100 CPU Shootout: Productivity Performance

The CPUs in our test pool are on the lowest-end of chips you can still find in stock at retailers, and because of that, they’re going to end up at the bottom of the charts below. That’s how these chips stack up to some more expensive options around $150 to $200, but again, our focus here is to look at your options if you only have $100 to spend. So, although we’ll show the context of other CPUs in our charts, we’re mainly focusing on the comparison between the three chips in our test pool.

As with games, we stuck with 32GB of DDR4 memory running at 3,200 MT/s for the three chips we’re looking at. In our charts, we’ve also included the Core i3-13100F running with DDR5-4800 memory as a comparison point for what you can expect out of the Core i3-12100F and Core i3-14100F if you opt for a DDR5 motherboard. However, we’re focused mainly on the DDR4 performance here given how largely that influences the total cost of a budget build.

Starting with multithreaded performance, The Ryzen 5 5500 unsurprisingly tops the charts with a 50% increase in core/thread count compared to the two Core i3s. Those extra two cores drive a 13.7% improvement over the Core i3-14100F and an 18.2% jump over the Core i3-12100F.

Looking at Intel, the Core i3-14100F has a minor 3.9% improvement over the Core i3-12100F, matching the Core i3-13100F running with DDR5 memory. All three of these CPUs use the same silicon, just binned differently, and that really shows up in our multithreaded geomean. Unlike games, where DDR5 memory can represent a decent jump in performance, you shouldn’t expect more than a 5% improvement in heavily-threaded workloads.

The script flips in single-threaded performance, with the Ryzen 5 5500 sliding into last place with its limited 4.2 GHz boost clock. The Core i3-12100F is 11.9% faster, while the Core i3-14100F is 22.1% faster. Comparing the two Intel CPUs, the Core i3-14100F is 9% ahead of the Core i3-12100F.

Single-threaded performance levels the playing field in our test pool a bit, with the Core i3-14100F actually coming out ahead of the Ryzen 5 7600X. However, the two Intel CPUs have locked multipliers, so you can’t squeeze out extra single-threaded performance by overclocking. The Ryzen 5 5500, on the other hand, has an unlocked multiplier and supports Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO). Manually tuning the Ryzen 5 5500 won’t change the performance story here broadly, but it could help close the gap in single-threaded workloads.

Rendering Benchmarks

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Starting with rendering tasks, the Core i3-12100F and Core i3-14100F broadly take a backseat to the Ryzen 5 5500 in multithreaded workloads, with the two Intel chips sitting close to each other in the rankings. Despite how close they are, the Core i3-14100F offers some meaningful improvements, such as an 8.1% jump in Blender Monster. Otherwise, the Ryzen 5 5500 wins in multithreaded rendering tests, short of V-Ray 6, where it matched the Core i3-14100F.

The Ryzen 5 5500 falls into last place when looking at single-threaded rendering via Cinebench and POV-Ray. The Core i3-12100F is 33% faster in POV-Ray, while the Core i3-14100F is 45.7% faster. Again, this feels like a flashback to generations past, with Intel excelling in single-threaded performance with a quad-core chip, while AMD makes up lost ground with weaker single-core performance but a large array of cores to work with.

Encoding Benchmarks

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The performance picture with encoding workloads is almost identical to what we can see with rendering, mainly due to the fact that encoding workloads are either heavily-threaded or exclusively single-threaded. In video encoding via Handbrake, AMD leads by upwards of 17% depending on the codec. Outside of Handbrake, we can see the Ryzen 5 5500 leading by a margin of 13% in our HEVC encode, and by a margin of 25% in our AV1 encode.

Once again, single-threaded encoders show big leads for Intel. In a standard LAME run, the Core i3-14100F outpaces the Ryzen 5 5500 by 13.8%, which shrinks to a 12.8% lead when looking at an extended run. In a single-threaded JPEG-XL decode, the Core i3-12100F is 8% faster than the Ryzen 5 5500, while the Core i3-14100F is 18.8% faster.

Creative Application Benchmarks

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The Adobe suite features a broad range of workloads that helps drill down on which CPU from our test pool really stands out when considering tasks that aren’t exclusively single- or multithreaded. Starting in Photoshop, there’s a bit of an upset. AMD’s new CPUs usually excel in Photoshop, but we can see the Core i3-14100F taking a marginal lead over the Ryzen 5 5500 overall. Still, AMD managed to beat the Core i3-12100F by 4.6% in this test.

In video editing, the Ryzen 5 5500 claims the lead in Premiere Pro, outpacing the Core i3-14100F by 3.9%. The same is true in DaVinci Resolve, though the Ryzen 5 5500 holds a more commanding 8.1% lead. After Effects mirrors what we can see in Photoshop, with the Core i3-14100F marginally leading the pack.

Broadly, the two extra cores available to the Ryzen 5 5500 help out in video editing workloads. However, the margins aren’t as large here, with AMD usually leading by less than 10%, and in many cases, less than 5%. Although it’s interesting to inspect the difference between the chips in our test pool, context is important here. None of these CPUs are well-suited for creative workstations, so you’ll likely run into performance limitations regardless of which chip you use.

Web and Office Benchmarks

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Web and office performance is important for our test pool. Although you should expect some bumpy performance with more demanding apps like the Adobe suite, basic web and office applications are firmly in the wheelhouse of budget CPUs. Most of our tests here are lightly-threaded, giving Intel a leg up with its superior clock speeds.

Starting with WebXPRT 4, the Ryzen 5 5500 and Core i3-12100F match each other at the bottom of the chart, while the Core i3-14100F claims a lead of 8.8%. In Tesseract OCR, both Intel chips come out ahead, with the Core i3-12100F completing the text-to-image scan 5% faster, and the Core i3-14100F completing it 23.7% faster.

There’s a big divergence in the Microsoft Office suite, as well, with both Intel chips coming out ahead of the Ryzen 5 5500. In Excel, the Core i3-12100F is 10% ahead of the Ryzen 5 5500, while the Core i3-14100F is 23% ahead. The story is similar in Powerpoint, with the Core i3-12100F beating the Ryzen 5 5500 by 12.5%, and the Core i3-14100F beating AMD by 20.5%.

Security, Compression, Chess Engines, and Workstation Benchmarks

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For this test pool, we’re putting a lot of emphasis on our main suite of encoding, rendering, creative, and general productivity benchmarks. However, we still ran these chips through our normal suite, which includes a broad range of workstation tasks, spanning everything from data science to web server workloads.

We’ve included the results in the album above if you’re interested in taking a look, but none of the chips we’re looking at today are well-suited for workstation applications.

$100 CPU Shootout: Power and Efficiency

$100 CPU Shootout: Power and Efficiency

All three chips in our test pool barely sip power. So much so that you can reasonably get by with the bundled cooler included with each CPU. Throughout our power testing, the highest result we recorded across the test pool was 78W, which the Core i3-14100F climbed to during an all-out render via Blender. Even with more power available to the platform, these chips play things safe.

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In some power tests, you can see the three chips we tested in lockstep. There’s no meaningful difference in power consumption between them in a multithreaded Y-Cruncher pass, nor a significant difference in Linpack. We can see more significant differences in Cinebench, Blender, and Handbrake, however.

In multithreaded Cinebench 2024, the Core i3-12100F consumed 16.6% more power than the Ryzen 5 5500, while the Core i3-14100F consumed 23.3% more power. In Blender, the Core i3-12100F is 24% ahead of AMD and the Core i3-14100F is 56% ahead. Even in these workloads, the Ryzen 5 5500 isn’t climbing over its rated 65W TDP, which is a good thing. Given that it’s unlocked for overclocking, you certainly have some power headroom to play with.

There’s a big divergence in demanding workloads between our three chips, but an even bigger split between Intel and AMD when looking at idle power consumption. In a true idle state, both Intel chips consumed nearly triple the power of the Ryzen 5 5500. And in an active idle situation (YouTube playback), Intel consumed more than double the power. In both cases, we’re looking at a difference of 10W, but that’s still significant considering just how little power the Ryzen 5 5500 requires.

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Turning to efficiency, the Ryzen 5 5500 comes out on top with its overall lower power draw, though the margins are tighter. We’re mainly looking at heavily-threaded workloads when talking about peak power consumption, so it’s no surprise to see the Ryzen 5 5500 dominate in efficiency. It offers better multithreaded performance due to packing six cores, and it requires less power than the Intel chips overall.

$100 CPU Shootout: Pricing and Platform Considerations

$100 CPU Shootout: Pricing and Platform Considerations

These CPUs are all around the same price, ranging from $80 to $100 depending on availability and sales. However, there’s a broader pricing conversation when looking at the overall platform. With Intel, you have the option between DDR4 and DDR5 along with an accompanying motherboard, while with AMD, you’re locked to DDR4 but with more plentiful motherboard options.

Starting with the motherboard, you can find an AM4 board for the Ryzen 5 5500 for as little as $60, though you should expect to spend around $80 to $100 on a decent board. AMD’s B550 chipset works here, as you’re able to overclock the Ryzen 5 5500 on that chipset. Technically, you can use 400-series and even some 300-series chipsets, though you should double-check compatibility and be prepared to flash a new BIOS using an older AM4 CPU. Despite the age of AM4, you can still find motherboards in stock at just about any retailer.

Intel is trickier. You can find Socket LGA 1700 motherboards for as little as $70, though most LGA 1700 boards only support DDR5 memory. Surprisingly enough, you’ll spend a premium on a DDR4 motherboard, likely due to low inventory. The cheapest board we could find is the Asus B760M-AYW Wi-Fi D4 for $90, though as the name suggests, it’s a Micro ATX board. For full ATX, you can pick up the MSI Pro B760-P Wi-Fi DDR4 for $140. If you want to jump to DDR5, you can do so for the same price with the MSI MAG B760 Tomahawk.

Both 600-series and 700-series chipsets work for both Intel chips, though you’ll need to flash a new BIOS if you plan on pairing the Core i3-14100F with a 600-series chipset.

One of the big reasons to go with one of these CPUs is DDR4 support given that DDR5 prices have shot through the room. A kit of Teamgroup T-Force Vulcan Z memory will run you about $130 for a 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) kit at 3200 MT/s. If you want something fancier, the Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 32 GB kit (2 x 16 GB) clocks in at $210 at the time of writing, also at 3200 MT/s.

If you spring for DDR5, expect to spend about double what you spend on DDR4. Currently, one of the cheaper DDR5 kits around is the Corsair Vengeance 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) kit at 6000 MT/s, which is around $450.

Using DDR4 as the baseline, the Ryzen 5 5500 ends up around $310 for the full platform, while the Core i3-14100F will run you about $370 ($10 less if you go for the Core i3-12100F). That’s about 19% more expensive going with one of Intel’s chips compared to the Ryzen 5 5500.

There’s some upgrade potential regardless of the platform you go with, though Intel certainly has a leg up with availability. Intel’s fastest gaming CPU is still the Core i9-14900K (the new Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is marginally slower), and it’s available for sale alongside most of the 14th-Gen lineup. You’ll need a Z-series chipset in order to overclock a K-series SKU, however, along with a much beefier cooler.

Despite the long-standing legacy of AM4, there aren’t a ton of Ryzen 5000 CPUs available for sale. Outside of the lower-end offerings like the Ryzen 5 5500, you’ll mainly find AMD’s XT refresh chips. Rumors suggest that AMD is planning on re-releasing the Ryzen 7 5800X3D, but that hasn’t been confirmed. In fact, you don’t have a reasonable way to unlock AMD’s coveted 3D V-Cache without spending top dollar on the secondhand market for an X3D AM4 chip.

Regardless of the platform, both AMD and Intel have moved onto newer sockets and chipsets, so you won’t have an opportunity to upgrade to a newer generation down the line. Intel has an edge if you’re moving within the existing product lineup, mainly due to the availability of Raptor Lake chips at retailers.

Test Setup and Notes

We used the same testing procedure for this $100 CPU shootout that we follow in our CPU reviews, including identical test benches short of the CPU and motherboard. We also make some tweaks to the BIOS and operating system to maximize performance while limiting sources of variation between different chips.

That includes turning off Virtualization-Based Security, enabling Resizable BAR, turning on XMP/EXPO (or DOCP in this case), and disabling any automatic boosting features. Intel doesn’t cover its Extreme power profile under warranty, nor does AMD cover Precision Boost Overdrive (PBO), so we manually disable these features.

$100 CPU Shootout: Choosing a Winner

$100 CPU Shootout: Choosing a Winner

Out of the three CPUs under $100 we looked at, the Core i3-14100F is the winner. It’s not as powerful as the Ryzen 5 5500 in multithreaded workloads, but then again, none of these CPUs are great for heavily-threaded tasks. It still manages to trade blows with the Ryzen 5 5500 app-to-app, and it takes a lead when looking at lightly-threaded workloads.

Gaming makes a big difference at this price, however; the less you spend on a CPU, the more you can invest in a better GPU. In games, the Core i3-14100F leads, no caveats required. Even when going down to the RTX 4060 for our more grounded testing scenario, the Core i3-14100F shows consistent scaling over the Ryzen 5 5500. Against the Core i3-12100F, that advantage is less consistent across titles, but it’s still present.

The gaming results bring up an interesting point about core count in the context of gaming, as well. For years, a quad-core was the gold standard for a gaming PC; anything more than that was generally considered a waste if you were just gaming. That slowly crept up to six- and eight-core chips becoming the standard, which might dissuade you from considering a pure quad-core like the Core i3-14100F.

I’m not advocating for more quad-core CPUs. We’ve moved past that point with modern architectures, but a head-to-head battle like this shows just how much architecture overshadows specs, even in a relatively tame comparison between a quad-core and hexa-core CPU without any hybrid architectures or chiplets to contend with.

Outside of performance, the platform plays a big role in choosing among our budget CPUs. You’ll spend more on an Intel platform, not only on the CPU, but also on a DDR4 motherboard. However, there are some significant advantages to Intel’s platform in the context of our test pool.

Most importantly, you get PCIe 4.0 with Intel. Most AM4 boards support PCIe 4.0, as well, but you’ll need to upgrade beyond the Ryzen 5 5500 to unlock it. PCIe 4.0 support of the box is important for a budget platform. We’ve seen budget GPUs like the AMD RX 6500 XT that run into severe performance limitations on PCIe 3.0 due to only using an x4 interface. And, of course, you have access to faster storage.

Upgrades are easier on the Intel platform, as well. Although AMD bolstered AM4’s longevity with its XT refreshes, it moved exclusively to DDR5 and a new socket with Zen 4. During that same period, Intel was releasing LGA 1700 CPUs on both DDR4 and DDR5 platforms. The ceiling is higher on an LGA 1700 platform right now, and short of some sort of re-release, that will likely remain the case.

A lot of the results and conclusions here are counterintuitive if you’re accustomed to the battle we see play out between Intel and AMD in the main product stack each generation. AMD has often been defined by platform longevity and leadership in gaming performance, while Intel excels in application performance with its hybrid architecture and peak clock speeds. In this test pool, we see the opposite. AMD excels with heavily-threaded workloads, while Intel takes the lead in gaming and offers a platform with solid upgrade potential.

• MORE: Best CPU for gaming
• MORE: CPU Benchmark Hierarchy
• MORE: Intel vs AMD
• MORE: How to Overclock a CPU

Jake Roach is the Senior CPU Analyst at Tom’s Hardware, writing reviews, news, and features about the latest consumer and workstation processors.