I recently upgraded to this cpu from a core i5 3570 and boy does it perform better. With 8 cores and 16 threads, games usually don't even utilize half the performance. Later on, we should see better performance optimizations in game, however, this cpu blows away the competition in virtualization, video editing, and rendering due to it's many cores and threads. It is also easy to overclock to 3.8ghz+ out of the box thanks to the included wraith spire cooler. I keep mine at 3.7 just to be safe, but higher speeds are easily attainable. All in all, great cpu for price-performance. Would defiantpy recommend!