Advice and Deals on New and Used AMD and Intel CPU's

With some of the older CPU's like the Pentium or Celeron, you could compare performance based solely on their clock speeds. It made shopping for a CPU upgrade easy.

With the newer CPU's today, you can no longer base performance on clock speed. Higher performance in newer CPU's is based on adding more processor cores and L3 cache. These two features are more important than clock speed. In fact, a single core processor can be slower than a dual core processor even if the single core processor's clock speed is faster.

If you are building a new system, I recommend getting a retail packaged CPU. That way you will have the heat sink and fan included without having to buy it separately.

If you are upgrading your current CPU, then buying an OEM packaged CPU makes more sense. You can then use your old heat sink and fan. Also, check your motherboard manual to see if the CPU you want is supported. Better yet, check the manufacturer's web site because there may be faster CPU's supported that outdate your manual.

Another reason for going with OEM is if you plan on overclocking the CPU. The retail fan is usually not good enough to handle the extra heat.

Several of the deals offered here are used CPU's which have been pulled from systems and cleaned up. Buying a used CPU is a great way to save money over new. CPU's are designed to last a very long time so a used CPU would work out just fine.