Celeron G530 fast enough for my needs?

[tomsop]

I am thinking of building the budget gaming rig pretty much by the specs as outlined in the fall 2012 budget guide. I had a question about the CPU. My frame of reference is the iMac Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8ghz from my mid 2007 imac.

I cannot find a decent benchmark site that will allow me to compare the computing power of both chips. Additionally, I will be running Windows 7. I was wondering if this gaming rig would be good enough for the Photoshop CS6, starcraft II and Microsoft Flight Sim (latest version) - these are the extent of the games- mostly feel I need a gaming rig with a video card for the 3D rendering in Illustrator and Photoshop and for video editing - otherwise, just running Office and browsing apps.

I would like to get an idea as to how this would run compared to a system with an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8 ghz chip I had in my imac but I cannot find any comparison tables for such an old chip as compared to the G530. - I suppose if I knew more I would know better than to ask a dumb comparison question but if it is really an apples to oranges type answer can you tell me if the G530 is sufficient for my needs?

 

[Gigantopithecus]

Hmm, that's a more difficult benchmark to find. Sorry.

...However, from my pretty extensive personal experience with the G530 and those C2Ds, the G530 performs pretty similarly to a 2.8GHz C2D. I wrote about the G530 at some length in one of the earlier builders' guides: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5005/holiday-budget-system-buyers-guide/2 By extension, Bench's X2 255 vs E6850 will give you a rough approximation (though note the 255 is a bit faster than the G530 and the E6850 is a 3GHz C2D part): http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/121?vs=59

Really, you'll be making a sidegrade.

That said, all of the tasks you describe (CS6, SC2, MSFT Flight Sim) can be performed on a G530 - but I'm not sure I'd want to. The G630 will give you noticeably better performance for less than $20 more and would be a good buy if your budget allows.

You might want to post your hypothetical build in General Hardware - you'll likely get some excellent advice there (and some bad advice, haha).

 

[dma0991]

Fast enough is subjective. I might not find it fast enough but my parents would. That being said, a dual core is the least that you should go for but ideally a good dual core or a low end quad core is better in the long run. With the requirements that you've listed (Photoshop CS6, Starcraft II, Flight Simulator, etc) it is not advisable to go with a lower end dual core.

Preferably look at something like the G620 or higher, the Core i3's as well. It would've been sufficient if you didn't play games on it. If memory serves me right, Flight Simulator needs a good CPU unless you don't mind sub par gaming experience.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Preferably look at something like the G620 or higher, the Core i3's as well. It would've been sufficient if you didn't play games on it. If memory serves me right, Flight Simulator needs a good CPU unless you don't mind sub par gaming experience.

I would bump that to a Pentium G8xx. Unfortunately I have no idea about US pricing, but where I live they are about 10-15$ more expensive them the G6xx series...

As dma0991 wrote a low-end i3 (21xx) might also be worth a look, if you have the budget...

 

[Hubb1e]

I'd try to stretch a bit and get an i3. I think in the future you will regret only having 2 core and 2 threads. As an example, BF3 multi-player which is not on your game list is unplayable on a Pentium. New stuff you might want to play might be questionable on a slow dual core. At the very least get a Pentium G860. You may also be able to find a really good deal on an AMD FX 4100 and motherboard. If you get them cheap enough and overclock them a bit they can do better than the Pentium G620 especially in well threaded games.

AMD's Trinity will be out on Oct 2nd and the unlocked A10 could also be a good performer. It is competitive with i3s and you get workable graphics out of it especially if you overclock the GPU to over 1ghz. A10 plus a crossfired 6670 could be a great budget build.

 

[angevil]

Starcraft II and Microsoft Flight Simulator are heavily dependant on CPU, more than the GPU. I am using now a celeron g540, and while i never played those 2 games, i play cpu dependent games primarily, even if some are fairly old, where single core performance counts. My gpu is a 15% overclocked HD 6850 and i play with 2+ AA at least with transparency in all games at 1920x1080.

I play skyrim at high details and also with mods that enhance the graphics, which depend mainly on the gpu, but they increase the cpu load too compared to vanilla. The least amount of fps i get is 30, and i get 60 in dungeons and 45 on average outside.

Test drive unlimited 2 on high details alternates between being GPU bottlenecked to being cpu bottlenecked, and on average it has 40 fps, but it never gets below 30 fps.

Civilization IV while it is 6 years old, it uses 2 cores heavily endgame, when i zoom out i get below 30 fps, and you need to wait for a considerable amount for the enemy to finish their turns, since the CPU makes the AI calculations.

X3 Albion uses a 7 yrs old engine, which uses a single core primarily, but with mods, i easily get below 30 fps in it, so i had to hack the mods manually and remove some of the graphical enhancements because the CPU cannot keep up with so many polygon vertexes and scripts. Even in vanilla, it would still get down to 40 fps at points.

And there are games that i am not playing because they need too much cpu like GTA IV, Starcraft II, and Battlefield 3 multiplayer. Stracraft ii is ok in 1v1, but i like to play with more players, and it gets unplayable on a 5ghz i5 2500 with 8players maxed out in units on a map, or in some custom maps with fewer players.

It plays fine GPU dependant game Crysis 2, Metro 2033.

My point is that it's not future proof, but it would play most games released up to now well, i am satisfied with it.

 

[SPBHM]

I'm pretty sure the G530 is faster than a 2.8GHz C2D (even more if compared to 4,3MB l3 models), but it's really not a huge improvement, but as said by others, it can play most games at the moment,