Overclockable Pentium Anniversary Edition Review: The Intel Pentium G3258
by Ian Cutress on July 14, 2014 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Pentium
- Overclocking
- Pentium-AE
- G3258
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
Bioshock Infinite
Tomb Raider
Sleeping Dogs
Company of Heroes 2
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.
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jabber - Monday, July 14, 2014 - link
Indeed but as we are told so often on these comments -"Huh I thought this was an enthusiasts site! No one here buys or is interested in this crap!"
So to keep the kids happy you have to throw stupid levels of kit into the mix to keep them happy. Whereas those of us that have grown older, got kids and more cost concious just think "so what would this do in a real world setup with a $150 GPU for a bit of gaming on the side?"
HanzNFranzen - Monday, July 14, 2014 - link
While reading that part of the article I was under the impression that a 770 was used to ensure that the CPU would be the bottleneck to show the maximum you could get out of it, though I could be wrong. Sorry, but I think the realistic use case was summed up pretty well in the conclusion. There really is no point in buying this processor to pair with a 750ti and try to make a budget gaming system. I say this because you are for sure going to have to buy an after market cooler to run at that high of an over clock, and the fact that I see the Haswell i3 on sale for around $110 on a pretty regular basis, you are talking about a $15 or so difference in price. So realistically, for that little bit of money, why buy a processor that you are running on at the edge of it's life at all times (high heat and voltage) instead of an i3 that can run at stock and be as good and sometimes way better in games?smunter6 - Monday, July 14, 2014 - link
Due to the low starting TDP of haswell, almost any aftermarket cooler will suffice. Combine that with the CPU+MB combos offered lately for the G3258, and a complete system can be built for much less than an i3 build.For example, I just built a system with a G3258 + Gigabyte B85 (yes it does support overclocking) aftermarket cooler, PSU, AMD 7850, 8 GB memory, for ~$240.
HanzNFranzen - Tuesday, July 15, 2014 - link
okay, soo... minus out $75 for the processor, minus out $25 for the cpu cooler (you aren't going to run 4.7ghz everyday on something less than like a Hyper 212) =$100... now add in $110 for the i3 that's on Newegg as we speak and buy your same exact parts... $10 difference (ok plus what, like $15 for you combo discount?) so for $25 you have you same build with an i3 instead and its a much better overall performer, not overclocked to it's teeth, not running high voltage all day long. Man, you seem to really want this Pentium to be amazing and a great value... but... it's not.HanzNFranzen - Tuesday, July 15, 2014 - link
ok sorry, $112.00 for the i3...not $110.00.Computer Bottleneck - Tuesday, July 15, 2014 - link
1.) Realize $112.50 for the 3MB cache Core i3-4130 on Newegg is due to the coupon code (which expires today, 7/14). Regular Newegg price for i3-4130 is $1252.) Realize Ian tested G3258 against a $140 4MB cache Core i3-4330.
For some results of G3258 against a 3MB cache Haswell Core i3, see this Anandtech forum post--> http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=3652889...
Computer Bottleneck - Tuesday, July 15, 2014 - link
Based on those results I linked of 4.7 GHz Pentium G3258 vs. Core i3-4150, I think a good future comparison would be 4.5 Ghz Pentium G3258 vs. Core i3-4130.(4.5 GHz Pentium G3258 should be easily achievable as a budget package using a H81 non-Z overclock board and the stock HSF)
Computer Bottleneck - Tuesday, July 15, 2014 - link
It would be nice to see a review with Pentium G3258 and a smaller GPU (say the R7 260X which is currently starting at $85 AR at Newegg). This tested at lower detail setting and resolution.Basically a budget build geared towards the budget gamer.
Then maybe compare to i3-4130 and R7 260X, Athlon x4 750K/760K and R7 260X,etc
Computer Bottleneck - Wednesday, July 16, 2014 - link
Here are some reasons I posted in the Anandtech forum on why I would like to see some additional testing of Pentium G3258 with a smaller GPU:http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=3653251...
MrSpadge - Sunday, July 27, 2014 - link
They're not saying you would or should pair this CPU with dual GTX770's. But: if the CPU performance doesn't matter (or can't beat the i3) even for such strong GPUs, it won't matter with slower ones either.