When it comes to building a new PC, there are a few things you’ll really want to cut corners on. Some are things where you’ll know exactly what you’re getting if you shirk and pay a little less, and some are areas where you’ll find yourself wondering… will there be a noticeable difference if I drop €50 less?

Of course, the processor business has been ALL about looks for the last three years

Processors tend to be one of those areas where people will most often tend towards caution, throwing money at a processor that’s often going to be at least a little more heavy-duty than they’ll need, while some will push money into a processor that’s several orders of magnitude more than they’ll ever need or use. If nothing else, we’ll hopefully be able to save you from that kind of simple headache.

Essentially, we sat down in the office and looked over the various processors available and weighed up which would be best for low-end, mid and high-end machines for anyone looking to do some upgrading.

Low-End:

If you’ll  just be putting together a machine that’s only going to be seeing general household use, there’s not too much reason to go overboard on processor. You’ll just need something that’s got a little extra overhead in case it comes down to it and you’d like to get some relatively light gaming done or any serious media.

Click through our page for the Core i3 530

Ideally, if you’re just building a machine for general household use, keeping the family satisfied when it comes to a bit of browsing (or maintaining a serious Facebook/Farmville habit), or logging some serious time in Microsoft Office we’ll happily recommend Intel’s Core i3 530.

It’s not an expensive processor, weighing in at the entirely justifiable price of €119, so you can rest assured you’re not going to be breaking the bank when you spring for it. The Core i3 530 is a dual core processor running at 2.93Ghz.

If you’re building a fairly basic machine around the Core i3 530 then you’d do well to check out our Core i3 530 upgrade kit, which boasts the CPU itself, a motherboard and 2GB of RAM with a little bit of a saving over having to pick up all of the various bits and pieces at once.

Mid-Range:

If you’re looking to do a little more than just the relatively low-end bits and pieces we talked about above then you’re likely going to want to look at processors that offer a little more oomph.

Click through to see our oage for the Core i5 750

When it comes to mid-range, we’re talking about people who are going to go for a little more light gaming and might want to do some video editing, but for whom it’s not their main focus. It’s a fairly easy category to tell if you’re part of if you take a look at the low-end options and the description of the category above this and decide, “Yep, I fall somewhere in between those two…”

Essentially, this is one for people whose emphasis isn’t on playing the latest games with all of their settings cranked, but who do enjoy a quick game from time to time. It’s a quad-core processor that runs at 2.66 Ghz.

In this category, we’d recommend Intel’s Core i5 750, which, similarly to the category above, likely won’t be well outside anyone’s expected budget when they were settling down to put together a machine in the first place. It’s a solid piece of kit, and well worth the €184.60.

Again, if you’re looking to rebuild a system or build a machine from scratch you should check out our Core i5 750 upgrade kit.

High-End:

If you have a feeling you’re going to be doing some serious gaming or really heavy duty media editing then you’d do very well to check out Intel’s Core i7 860.

Click through to see our page for the Core i7 860

Naturally those who are normally into their higher-end machines will have a better idea than most of just what they should be aiming to get out of a machine and just what parts need to go into it. Still, there are plenty of people out there who’d be happy of a recommendation when it comes to building a new performance-based machine.

If you’re going to be playing games as they’re released then you can’t go too far wrong with the Core i7 860. It’s a solid, quad core processor clocked at 2.8Ghz. Moreover, it’s received five-star reviews from those of our users who’ve purchased it and come back to leave comments, with both remarking that it’s “blisteringly fast” and pleasantly cool to run.

Intel’s Core i7 860 is €285, which we know is a fairly sizeable chunk of change, but considering what you’ll get for that we honestly think that, given the performance, it’s the best option for price : performance in its range.

Again, if you’re after a fairly high-end system with as much pre-arranged as possible, you should check out the Core i7 860 upgrade kit.

Ridiculous:

Ryan insisted that we include this category for people who want to play the latest games, up to the minute, at absolutely silly resolutions and make sure every other piece of kit in your machine is equally over the top.

Click through to see our page for the Core i7 965

In those cases, there are always going to be people who advocate going entirely mad, giggling mad-scientist style as they show off their various different games running under preposterous conditions with “every setting in there cranked to 11” as Ryan put it.

It should be stressed that this one isn’t necessarily a ‘value for money’ suggestion, as those above were. Rather, this is just the processor that will really suit, as one of our comments put it earlier on in the week, the “benchmark willy wavers” out there

Anyway, for those not put off by the exorbitant price, the Core i7 965 Extreme… it’ll set you back a pretty penny at €800, but it’s a quad core clocked at 3.2Ghz. Perfect if you’re mad about eking out every last drop of performance regardless of the cost.

Closing:

When we were talking about putting together a simple enough piece on what processors would suit people best at different price points and exactly what people would want to use their machines for, one of the questiong that came up was why AMD didn’t manage to make it into the list of processors for recommendation.

For those wondering the same thing, it’s not that there’s anything wrong with AMD, nor is it that we’re Intel fanboys (before anyone suggests it), it’s just that when it comes to performance-to-price ratios, Intel just seems to offer better value at the moment.

If anyone has anything to add then they should absolutely feel free to drop us a line in the comments, or in our forum over at Boards.ie.