The Top Five Mid-Range Processors for Home Computers

In the previous article of this series, we looked at the top five budget CPUs. Continuing this series, now we will turn our attention to five mid-range processors that offer more power and features and, of course, come with a higher price.

The CPUs covered here approach the high-end mark but don’t cross it. These CPUs are poised to make a computer hum along nicely but not knock the user out with raw speed. These processors are fully capable of running games and other CPU-intensive application well but lack the power and price tag of newer, more powerful processors.

In the previous article in this series on budget and mid-range home computer processors, it was mentioned that the Intel E6500 just stopped short of being a mid-range processor. The Intel E7500 is similar but has enough power to push it fully into the mid-range for home computers.

Also sporting 2.93MHz and a 1066MHz front side bus (FSB), the Intel E7500 seems identical to the E6500. However, the E7500 has two important features that set it apart from its predecessor. The E7500 has 3MB of cache and is based on the Wolfdale-3M architecture. These features alone make this processor much more desirable from any CPU discussed so far in this series.

The extra cache and the improved architecture made this processor outperform the E6500 by a respectable margin. Of course, with power comes price. The Intel E7500 is priced above the US$100 mark at $119.00, over US$25 higher than the E6500.

AMD makes another appearance in this series with the AMD Phenom II X3 720 CPU. Its 2.80GHz speed is respectable for a mid-range CPU but its whopping 6MB cache puts it far ahead of previous processors.

Sporting an expected 2000MHz FSB, the AMD Phenom II X3 720 is a 3-core processor. Intel skipped over the triple core market going straight from dual core to quad core CPUs. This situated this AMD processor as a solid mid-range CPU for home users. The retail price for this processor is US$129.99, just $10 more than the Intel 2-core E7500 above. If you want a bit more punch in your home computer, the AMD Phenom II X3 720 is the better choice.

Here we have the first quad core processor from Intel to make its way into this series. This time we have the Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 as a great choice for mid-range processor. Although a bit slower that the AMD triple-core processor above, the Intel Q8200’s 2.33GHz speed is bolstered by that fourth core in applications that multi-thread well, such as video editing.

4MB of cache puts this processor on par but still behind the AMD Phenom II X3 720, but this CPU does offer more data throughput, a better real-world measure than raw numbers. This extra throughput justifies the higher price at US$149.99. Just under the US$150 mark, the Intel Q8200 is the beginning of the more expensive yet more powerful mid-range CPUs.