[Eurogamer] Budget dual core gaming in 2015 w/ G3258

[escrow4]

Technically this is all about gaming on a budget, emphasis on dual core gaming and its effect with a CPU ish focus so I stuck it here in CPUs and Overclocking:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-budget-gaming-pc-guide

TL;DR:

"However, the big takeaway from this project is the importance of the CPU and the reality that the Pentium G3258 - even with a massive 1GHz overclock in place - presents bottlenecks you may encounter sooner rather than later on more recent games. The obvious step to take when experiencing less than stellar performance is to lower resolution - on this set-up, that only goes so far.

It works fine on a GPU-intensive games like Metro Last Light Redux or Tomb Raider, which aren't overly taxing on the main processor. However, for Assassin's Creed Unity, Battlefield 4, Ryse and Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes, the performance hitches remain regardless of pixel count - the G3258 is a dual-core CPU processor substituting raw overclocked speed for multiple threads, and it doesn't quite work out."

So indeed, its 2015 and dual core for gaming isn't dead yet, but a G3258 now with expectations of 2016 isn't a good idea. GTA V will be a fascinating tell too . . . . .

 

[mohit9206]

I believe Pentiums should no longer be used or recommended even for ultra budget gaming PCs. Its 2015,the least one should opt for is an i3.From here on out games are just going to run worse and worse on dual core cpus because of ports from 6 core consoles not optimized to run on dual cores.
So even though one could go for Pentium+R9 270, I'd rather tell them to instead opt for an i3+R7 260X.This way atleast they wouldn't be bottlenecked in cpu intensive games.

 

[BSim500]

"However, the big takeaway from this project is the importance of the CPU and the reality that the Pentium G3258 - even with a massive 1GHz overclock in place - presents bottlenecks you may encounter sooner rather than later on more recent games. The obvious step to take when experiencing less than stellar performance is to lower resolution - on this set-up, that only goes so far.

Good read. Though I thought lowering quality settings (shadows, etc) reduced CPU load far more than lowering resolution alone?

 

[mohit9206]

Good read. Though I thought lowering quality settings (shadows, etc) reduced CPU load far more than lowering resolution alone?

Yes lowering the resolution actually increases the load on the CPU and decreases the load on the GPU. That will only make the CPU bottlenecking worse. That is why better to keep the resolution same and decrease the quality settings instead.

 

[inf64]

Thank you for this article! This should be stickied for all those who recommend pairing dual core pentiums with solid GPUs in 2015. That is just a bad idea.

 

[cbn]

THowever, for Assassin's Creed Unity, Battlefield 4, Ryse and Metal Gear Solid 5: Ground Zeroes, the performance hitches remain regardless of pixel count - the G3258 is a dual-core CPU processor substituting raw overclocked speed for multiple threads, and it doesn't quite work out."

For Battlefield 4 OC Pentium G3258 works great, but (in my experience) the GPU needs to be AMD and the API Mantle. This along with reasonable detail settings.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37279088&postcount=173

Regarding the informal BF4 64 player testing I mentioned back in post #164, Here is one of the areas I am using for comparisons:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGiHqR61O4I&t=278

Walking thru the leveled building in Seige of Shanghai the Xbox One (which runs the game at 1280 x 720) stays mostly in the 40's/low 50's for FPS, but does drop as low as 30 FPS at one point.

With my G3258 overclocked to 4.3 Ghz, MSI Z97 U3 Plus, 2 x 4GB DDR3 1600 (which is actually faster than a Non-Z board would run the RAM), R7 250X running 1280 x 720 High setting (using Mantle API) I am getting 45 to 65 FPS ~99% of the time in that very same area with 60 to 64 players on the map. This over the span of several games. FPS did drop to a low of 31 FPS, but this was during an explosion and heavy shooting among multiple players.

However when I replaced the AMD card with Nvidia, the G3258 experience (even with the same detail settings) on BF4 was no longer smooth:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37286172&postcount=40

It runs great on my Pentium G3258 and R7 250X using Mantle. ( I haven't used it much with DX11 to comment).

However, when I replace my R7 250X with a 660 GTX the game isn't smooth anymore at the same detail settings (despite 660 GTX being more powerful than R7 250X). I'm still wondering if it is a driver issue or something else? However, It seems that all the BF4 G3258 complaints seem to come from Nvidia users so I am thinking my experience might actually be normal.

 

[cbn]

Thank you for this article! This should be stickied for all those who recommend pairing dual core pentiums with solid GPUs in 2015. That is just a bad idea.

In my testing of the following leveled building scene in BF4:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGiHqR61O4I&t=278

My overclocked G3258 @ 4.3 Ghz actually beat my stock clocked Athlon x4 860K with 60 to 64 players on the map using the same R7 250X card and detail settings.

I made numerous runs over and over again during the span of several games using both processors. I would say the OC G3258 was probably 10 FPS faster on average in that scene.

 

[Lonyo]

The difference? Hyper-threading. There was a time when Intel's threading technology was written off by gamers

Yeah, a decade ago...

Also, using Windows 10 as the OS is a "slight" cheat...

 

[know of fence]

So indeed, its 2015 and dual core for gaming isn't dead yet, but a G3258 now with expectations of 2016 isn't a good idea. GTA V will be a fascinating tell too . . . . .

GTA V has been made for the single-threaded 360, and it's not that great of a re-master on the PS4. Just as a the Pentium stuggles to run games written for 6 threads, getting old single-thread games to run on a slow multi threaded 8-core console appears to be difficult. The new generation of consoles does not only not get many new big games, even the old re-masters are rather hitchy and terrible according to reviews.

Other than from Ubisoft, who always try to be first on a platform with their often half-baked assembly-line games. There aren't all that many demanding titles out there, not to mention free-to-play gradually sullying and destroying the market. My guess/hope is that developers allocated their efforts toward VR games.

 

[Yuriman]

Yes lowering the resolution actually increases the load on the CPU and decreases the load on the GPU. That will only make the CPU bottlenecking worse. That is why better to keep the resolution same and decrease the quality settings instead.

In a manner of speaking. I prefer to look at it as "the CPU bottleneck remains the same", because if you're CPU bottlenecked and you lower the resolution, your FPS neither go down nor up.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Not really that impressed with the test. A someone else said, it seems like a fundamental flaw to lower the resolution instead of image quality in cpu demanding games. Such a test also begs for comparison with the athlon X4. It would have been nice to have a graph or chart showing ave fps and either minimums or frametimes as well. Overall, I think it shows the pentium is more viable than the "dual core is dead" crowd claims, but it does seem like a no brainer to pay the extra for an i3.

 

[frozentundra123456]

In a manner of speaking. I prefer to look at it as "the CPU bottleneck remains the same", because if you're CPU bottlenecked and you lower the resolution, your FPS neither go down nor up.

That is the conventional wisdom, but i think with some of the newer games, lowering image quality supposedly leads to smoother gameplay (less hitching and stuttering) although not necessarily higher ave fps.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

In a manner of speaking. I prefer to look at it as "the CPU bottleneck remains the same", because if you're CPU bottlenecked and you lower the resolution, your FPS neither go down nor up.

Average fps stays the same. But I suspect some games assume a quadcore and imperfect scaling, the game assumes there's always some cpu time left for something that doesn't need to happen right away. On a pentium the 2 cores are always maxed, so when the "not right away" task does need to happen there's a noticable stutter.

That's why I run all games with an fps limiter on the pentium, so there's always some cpu time left. Battlefield 4 with a 63 fps limiter is 100% smooth, perfectly flat cpu line in the perfgraph thingy.

 

[Magic Carpet]

In my testing of the following leveled building scene in BF4:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGiHqR61O4I&t=278

My overclocked G3258 @ 4.3 Ghz actually beat my stock clocked Athlon x4 860K with 60 to 64 players on the map using the same R7 250X card and detail settings.

I made numerous runs over and over again during the span of several games using both processors. I would say the OC G3258 was probably 10 FPS faster on average in that scene.

Personally, I would take G3258 @ 4.3 over any i3's purely for ST performance. I absolutely hate locked down CPUs. Those i3's are a compromise product... I hate compromises.

This K Pentium is a one-off deal to please some fans. Two threads at 4.3 Ghz would kill any i3 in regular web-browsing. At least it can excel in something. Those i3's are bad everywhere and locked down. I'd rather pay twice as much and get a new/used i5 or i7 K model depending on budget.

G3258 compared to my G2020 is a monster CPU though. I could barely overclock that Ivy Bridge dual-core to 3.0 Ghz (from 2.9). And with this you can easily have 4.0+ Ghz. Amazing. Now I feel like getting that Pentium for amusement purposes. Just don't have any spare 1150 boards at the moment.

By the way, what is the best overclock you can do on "Auto" voltage?

 

[Spjut]

Not really that impressed with the test. A someone else said, it seems like a fundamental flaw to lower the resolution instead of image quality in cpu demanding games. Such a test also begs for comparison with the athlon X4. It would have been nice to have a graph or chart showing ave fps and either minimums or frametimes as well. Overall, I think it shows the pentium is more viable than the "dual core is dead" crowd claims, but it does seem like a no brainer to pay the extra for an i3.

This isn't strictly a CPU test though. Digitalfoundry wanted to see if a PC for 300 pounds can match the PS4.
Lowering the resolution and such was because DF wanted console-equivalent settings for the test.



I've personally been against the whole "sacrifice the CPU in favor of the GPU"-mentality for a long time. A GPU can (almost) always be upgraded to the latest and greatest whenever you want, whereas upgrading the CPU is much more of a chore.

 

[Yuriman]

Spjut, I'd like to throw this out there:

And, perhaps most importantly,

 

[Yuriman]

Even with a ~40% clockspeed advantage, the Pentium almost always loses to an i3 in modern games.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Even with a ~40% clockspeed advantage, the Pentium almost always loses to an i3 in modern games.

Obviously, it's not without its shortcomings. It must be struggling in CPU heavy, well threaded titles. Can't have everything.

But speaking from value & fun factor, I'd take this Anniversary edition Pentium over any i3. And if I needed extra CPU performance, i5 or i7 would be on my cards instead.

 

[frozentundra123456]

This isn't strictly a CPU test though. Digitalfoundry wanted to see if a PC for 300 pounds can match the PS4.
Lowering the resolution and such was because DF wanted console-equivalent settings for the test.



I've personally been against the whole "sacrifice the CPU in favor of the GPU"-mentality for a long time. A GPU can (almost) always be upgraded to the latest and greatest whenever you want, whereas upgrading the CPU is much more of a chore.

I also dont agree with the sacrifice cpu for gpu theory. Not only are gpus easier to upgrade, gpus are advancing faster than cpus, so you stand to gain more from a gpu upgrade in a year or two, while a good quad intel cpu should last for several years. Also, it is easier to compensate for lack of gpu power by turning down settings than it is to compensate for lack of cpu power.

 

[Magic Carpet]

I also dont agree with the sacrifice cpu for gpu theory. Not only are gpus easier to upgrade, gpus are advancing faster than cpus, so you stand to gain more from a gpu upgrade in a year or two, while a good quad intel cpu should last for several years. Also, it is easier to compensate for lack of gpu power by turning down settings than it is to compensate for lack of cpu power.

This.

 

[Arachnotronic]

I also dont agree with the sacrifice cpu for gpu theory. Not only are gpus easier to upgrade, gpus are advancing faster than cpus, so you stand to gain more from a gpu upgrade in a year or two, while a good quad intel cpu should last for several years. Also, it is easier to compensate for lack of gpu power by turning down settings than it is to compensate for lack of cpu power.

I agree; balance is the key to a good system!

 

[know of fence]

Even with a ~40% clockspeed advantage, the Pentium almost always loses to an i3 in modern games.

Because SLI bogs the system down with unnecessary CPU draw calls, or whatever. In fact (quad/tri) SLI is the only case where 6 and 8 core CPUs can be faster than faster clocked 4 core i7s. So it isn't surprising that a i3 performs better than a Pentium in SLI.

Until we get honest split frame rendering with SLI in more than a few games, it will remain wasteful nonsense anyway.

 

[shady28]

I tend to agree with the OP, however it's important to note that the i3-4360 in the benchmarks is currently selling from mainstream vendors for $153 (Newegg) vs the G3258 at $72 (Frys) and $65 (Tiger Direct).

That's an $81-$88 difference. That's huge when you're talking about a $400ish gaming PC build.

You can get an H81 motherboard ($39), G3258 ($65) and 8GB of DDR3-1600 ($53) for about the same price as just the i3-4360 chip alone.

What would be more interesting would be to see what you can build for $400 using each chip. My guess is the G3258 system as a whole would be a far better overall rig, including for gaming.

 

[Madpacket]

I paired up my G3258 with a GeForce 750 Ti in a tiny ITX enclosure and use it play older single threaded games which it does amazing with. Basically 90 percent of my steam library works just fine with with this combo.

Newer engines do require more threads or cores to smooth out the microstutters. For a starter gaming rig it's not a terrible choice by any means.

 

[jihe]

i3's are the worst deals in the intel line-up. Budget gamers should just get a used i5-2500k.