PC Gamer Hardware Awards: The greatest gaming CPU of 2025

It’s been a comparatively quiet 12 months for brand new gaming CPUs, as AMD and Intel launched the majority of their newest processors again in 2024. Ryzen 9000-series chips first appeared in the summertime, with the Core Ultra 200S vary making an look a couple of months later in October.

Since then, retailers’ listings have largely been stuffed with non-overclockable or low-power variations, however AMD did drop a couple of niceties for us in 2025. Admittedly, most of them weren’t a lot of a shock, because the Ryzen 9 9950X3D was anticipated proper from the launch of Zen 5.

And the identical is considerably true of the Ryzen AI Max and Max+ processors, better known as Strix Halo. AMD announced them at CES, and we didn’t have to wait too long before we saw mighty APUs in use in the Framework Desktop and even in some handhelds.

The real surprise was the Ryzen 5 7500X3D. Basically just a cut-down Ryzen 7 7800X3D, it pretty much popped out of nowhere in November, and given that AMD had already launched the Ryzen 5 7600X3D in August, few folks expected another version of it (we’re still waiting for a Zen 4 version of the Ryzen 7 5700X3D).

Intel did launch its Panther Lake mobile processor architecture in October, but the chips themselves won’t be available until after the official launch at CES 2026. Team Blue chipped away at improving Arrow Lake, but fresh desktop processors are for next year only.

So while 2025 hasn’t been an outstanding year for new gaming CPUs, there are three that are more than good enough to warrant special attention for a PC Gamer Hardware award.

Best gaming CPU 2025: the nominees

The winner of the PC Gamer Hardware Award for the best gaming CPU will be announced on New Year’s Eve. It’s obvious that AMD will win again this year, but as to which one gets all the glory, you’ll just have to wait and see.