Discrete GPU Gaming

When comparing CPUs to APUs, one strength shown by team Blue in the past is the discrete GPU performance. When using dual graphics cards at a 1920x1080p resolution, at a lower amount of CPU power overall, there tends to be a significant amount of variance when extra CPU performance is applied. While it seems the overclock numbers are nice for a Pentium, a little extra money for an i3 at stock seems to be the choice here.

F1 2013

Discrete SLI, Average FPS, F1 2013

Discrete SLI, Minimum FPS, F1 2013

Bioshock Infinite

Discrete SLI, Average FPS, Bioshock Infinite

Discrete SLI, Minimum FPS, Bioshock Infinite

Tomb Raider

Discrete SLI, Average FPS, Tomb Raider

Discrete SLI, Minimum FPS, Tomb Raider

Sleeping Dogs

Discrete SLI, Average FPS, Sleeping Dogs

Discrete SLI, Minimum FPS, Sleeping Dogs

Company of Heroes 2

Discrete SLI, Average FPS, Company of Heroes 2

Discrete SLI, Minimum FPS, Company of Heroes 2

Battlefield 4

Discrete SLI, Average FPS, Battlefield 4

Discrete SLI, Minimum FPS, Battlefield 4

All of our titles, except Tomb Raider, get a significant increase from overclocking the CPU.  However, it is worth noting (especially in titles such as Battlefield) that using and i3 from the start gets an even better result. This is because the gaming industry has moved on from the last overclockable dual core Intel CPU - games can now take advantage of more cores, and that jump from 2 cores to hyperthreading lets a high end title stretch its legs a little more than a simple overclock.

Gaming and Synthetics on Processor Graphics Pentium-AE Is A Processor We Want, But Not The Processor We Need
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  • jqwest303 - Wednesday, August 13, 2014 - link

    I got G3258 and MSI B85M gaming motherboard at Newegg for $99 free shipping, Then got coolermaster t4 for $15 after rebate, updated bios,got chip oc'd to 4.9 at 1.4 but temps got to 80-82 under full load with prime95 so I lowered to 1.23 volts and 4.6 ghz temps under load stable at 65 and 30 at idle...not bad for a $99 motherboard cpu combo
  • tandlion13 - Wednesday, August 20, 2014 - link

    Good to know that an overclocked Pentium can match an i3 in most tasks. I'm going to build this one and that will be a nice new PC for my mom :) Thanks for a good review.
  • LatexJimmy - Wednesday, August 27, 2014 - link

    I got this in a combo cpu+mobo for $80 and an evo 212 cooler for $25 which puts me below the cost of the i3 (currently around $130) and it runs very well. Alot of the comments seem to be "Well if you just spent 40,80,100 dollars more you'd be better off. But why stop there? Don't be cheap! Spend a couple grand that you have lying around and laugh at the poor budget gamers with families and bills.
  • deV14nt - Saturday, October 25, 2014 - link

    I'm late to the party but I don't care. I got this as a combo with an ECS Z97 PK for $100. Makes sense to me, because I was upgrading a Core 2 Duo E6600 build and I didn't want to spend double on DDR2 when I could just get a new board with just a small investment that could later get anything up to a current i7 later on. $100 + $70 for a single 8GB stick of RAM so I can add another one of those later, with 32GB total possible. That's a good investment in a modern platform. Paired it with a 750 Ti for another hundred. Probably could have gone higher on that, but the deals just weren't there.
  • gruffi - Friday, November 28, 2014 - link

    The comparison table is completely flawed. If you compare A vs B and get +X% it doesn't mean you get -X% if you compare B vs A. You actually get 100/(1+X/100)-100 percent for B vs A.

    For example, with 3DPM-ST (-25%) and 3DPM-MT (+33%) you get an average of +4% in favor of the i3. Which is not correct. -25% for the i3 means +33% for the Pentium in 3DPM-ST. Which basically nullifies the advantage of the i3 in 3DPM-MT. So, an average of 0% would be correct in these two tests, not 4%.

    I don't know why the author can make such simple mistakes. This is not professional.
  • Abdou - Friday, June 2, 2017 - link

    Please help, I have h97-d3h and Intel G3258, but motherboard can't overclocked it above 3.8 GHz,
    So, i needs to know how overclocked it above 3.8, volt and power required "watt"
    Thanks

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