The best budget CPUs for 2024 can give a great performance today and upgrade potential for the future within budget. The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X, with six high-performance Zen 4 cores, is arguably the best budget CPU for just about anyone. The Intel Core i5-13400 has six performance cores and four efficiency cores, making it punch well above its weight in productivity tasks, and it has onboard graphics, so it's great for casual gaming. The Intel Core i3-12100F has four high-powered Alder Lake cores and support for hyperthreading giving it eight threads to work with and is priced under $100. The Ryzen 5 5600G has six Zen 3 cores and Vega 7 graphics, making it more than capable of playing lightweight, casual, and indie games without a graphics card. Intel's Core i5-12600KF, with six performance cores and four efficiency cores, is excellent for multitasking and productivity and, when overclocked, is capable in gaming.
The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X offers excellent upgrade potential, and it's perfect for compact systems with a modest TDP of just 105W. Intel's Core i5-13400 has a low 65W TDP, and it supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory. With low TDP, the Intel Core i3-12100F is great for more compact systems. The Ryzen 5 5600G has a strong onboard graphics for casual gaming with no graphics card required. The Intel Core i5-12600KF is arguably the best budget processor out there and provides impressive performance when overclocked. Upgrading the CPU is simpler with Intel processors, while upgrading the GPU is simpler with AMD processors.