Intel BX80646I34150

The i3-4150 sits at the 95th percentile for affordability at USD 35 used, and owners rate it 4.4 out of 5 across 282 reviews. Single-thread performance is solid at 1921 PassMark, but the 3398 multi-core score means heavy workloads will crawl. If you need a cheap, quiet, low-power chip for everyday tasks, this is one of the best deals out there.

The PassMark single-thread score of 1921 lands at the 49th percentile, which is honestly better than you'd expect from a chip this old. That's the number that matters most for everyday tasks, web browsing, office work, and older games. The 3.5GHz base clock with no turbo means it just sits there and churns through single-threaded workloads at a steady clip. The multi-core score of 3398 is where the 2-core, 4-thread design shows its age. It's at the 30th percentile, so anything that scales across many cores, video encoding, heavy multitasking, modern AAA games, will feel sluggish.

The integrated HD Graphics 4400 runs at 350MHz base and boosts to 1150MHz. It supports resolutions up to 4096x2304, so you can drive a 4K display for desktop use, just don't expect to game at that resolution. For casual titles, older games, and media playback, it's perfectly serviceable. Memory support tops out at DDR3-1600 with 25.6 GB/s of bandwidth, which is fine for the era but a far cry from modern DDR4 or DDR5 speeds.

Against the AMD Ryzen 5 5500, this thing gets absolutely demolished. The Ryzen 5 has 6 cores, 12 threads, and modern architecture that runs circles around Haswell in every metric. But it also costs several times more, so it's not really a fair fight. The more interesting comparison is against older AMD alternatives like the Phenom II X6. That chip has 6 physical cores, which sounds better on paper, but the i3-4150's single-thread performance and lower power draw make it the better daily driver for most people. The Dell Xeon E5-2637 V2 is another interesting option, it's a server chip with different priorities entirely, and the i3-4150's server score of 33 out of 100 tells you this isn't the chip for that workload. For a budget desktop build, the i3-4150 holds its own against anything in its price bracket.

At USD 35 for a used unit, the value proposition is almost impossible to argue with. The affordability score of 66.2 out of 100 for budget builds reflects exactly what this chip is: a cheap, capable foundation. European buyers should shop around though. The EUR spread runs from EUR 57 to EUR 100 across four listings, and that's a meaningful gap for a chip this old. Canadian buyers face a similar situation with prices ranging from CAD 50 to CAD 85. If you're in Europe or Canada, don't just grab the first listing you see. The cheapest EUR option at EUR 57 is the one to chase, and the CAD 50 listing is the clear winner up north. Paying the top end of those ranges starts to eat into the value argument pretty quickly.

The Core i3-4150 sits at the 95th percentile for affordability, and that's really the whole story here. At USD 35 on the used market, you're getting a 3.5GHz dual-core Haswell chip with Hyper-Threading, 3MB of L3 cache, and Intel HD Graphics 4400 baked in. The PassMark multi-core score of 3398 puts it at the 30th percentile overall, which sounds rough until you remember this thing costs less than a decent pizza night for two. For basic builds, office machines, and light gaming rigs, that's a trade-off a lot of people will happily make.

User sentiment backs this up. Owners give it a 4.4 out of 5 across 282 reviews, and the recurring themes are value, low power draw, and quiet operation. The 54W TDP means it barely warms up a room, and the stock cooler keeps things whisper-quiet. It's not going to win any awards, but it's not trying to. It's trying to be cheap and competent, and it nails both.

If you're planning to do video encoding, stream while gaming, or run modern AAA titles, look elsewhere. The multi-core PassMark of 3398 at the 30th percentile means anything that scales across cores will feel painfully slow. The 2 physical cores are the bottleneck, and Hyper-Threading can't fully compensate. Content creators, heavy multitaskers, and anyone who wants to run a server should also steer clear. The server score of 33 out of 100 is a clear signal this chip isn't built for that life. And if you're buying in Europe or Canada, be careful about overpaying. The EUR 100 and CAD 85 listings are bad deals for a chip this old.

The Core i3-4150 is a budget champion that knows exactly what it is. The 95th percentile affordability ranking combined with a 4.4/5 owner rating tells the real story: people who buy this chip know what they're getting, and they're happy with it. The single-thread performance keeps everyday computing snappy, the 54W TDP keeps things cool and quiet, and the integrated graphics mean you don't even need a dedicated GPU for a basic build. It's not for heavy gaming or content creation, and the 30th percentile multi-core score makes that clear. But at USD 35, it's one of the best value plays in the used CPU market right now.