So there we have it. An overall judgement of both power efficiency and price/performance from here: http://www.techreport.com/discussions.x/18502

So does this give you any new information? Does it reinforce old beliefs or does it break them? Discuss and tell us how you feel about the numbers presented.

I'm happy with my Phenom II.

Since I bought it in July though, it's come down in price by like 130$, though. >_> Luckily I got a 60$ off combo between it and my motherboard.

lol @ the three people who picked Core i7

Maybe they were referring to the Lynnfield ones? :D  At least that isn't quite so bad as the LGA1366 ones...

Either way though, due to Intel's jeaniousness with its naming, just saying Core i7 doesn't really say a lot, given that you have dual-core, quad-core and hexa-core ones, dual and triple-channel memory, two different socket types, plus the mobile ones, and so on for them. <_<

lol at people that don't understand the unmatched performance you get quite cheaply from overclocked i7.

For the past two decades or more, computer hardware has had huge diminishing returns at the extreme high and low ends, with the best price:performance values somewhere in the middle. At the moment, the extreme high end is the Core-i7 line and the extreme low end consists mostly of low-power netbook/nettop CPUs like the Intel Atom. Both extremes have their uses, but to say that either are the best price:performance value for your money would be ludicrous.

It seems that some people just saw the word "performance" and went, "hurr Core i7 has bigger numbers so it must be the best!"

Those diagrams are really useful. The i5 750 and the X4 965 are clear winners here (at the kink between the steep section and shallow). It also shows it's not really worth going for a slower CPU that that as the money saved is negligible compared to system price, and more than that is not worth the extra money.

Though Athlon IIs consistently come ahead of Clarkdale and Core 2 in that metric. Impressive when Athlon II is a 45nm quad fighting a 32nm dual. Shows how large the margin Intel really has on those things.

There's many problems with this article's methodology that render it less than scientific, and far from conclusive.

For one, I'd imagine that most people reading these boards don't care about their CPU's performance in regards to 3D modeling, video editing, file compression, or Folding@Home - all cases that favor quad-cores and/or CPUs with an L3 cache over their cheaper counterparts. General productivity and gaming have different (usually lesser) processing needs than those applications, meaning that a CPU that performs well at the price:performance standpoint for the latter will probably be overkill for the former. The i7-860, for example, is a good value for CPU-intensive tasks at $300, but performs identical to the $200 i5-750 in games.

Second, the game selection for the test is lacking. Give me a test that randomly samples at least 12-15 games and you may have me more convinced.

Finally, I'm not sure why the graphs showing "system price" are used instead of the graph showing a simple comparison based upon CPU price alone. The writer's component selection is somewhat arbitrary, and it seems to have been designed only to weight the result in favor of the Intel Core-iX line rather than AMD's Athlon II line. Given what we know about hardware reviewers and industry payola, that should be more than enough to raise suspicions.

Garcian, I'm convinced Tech Report are neutral having been reading it for 2-3 years now.

It's flawed, yes, and obviously if you were choosing a CPU you'd look at the relevant tests for you. But as an overall answer to the question "which CPU is the best value?" or even ""Where's the price/performance sweet spot?" it's a neat summary.

got a overclocked E8400 (@ 3.6 GHz)
It's not on that chart, but if it was it should be around the core i3s