Is a Pentium G3258 likely to be a bottleneck in most games

[SteveGrabowski]

I've never supported the idea of getting a CPU and then upgrading it. If you ever want to play modern titles you will need an i5. It isn't optional. And you won't save money by upgrading later as Intel doesn't drop prices. I'd compromise and get an i5 4690 non K and an H97 board with the best GPU you can afford with whatever is left.

I have an H81 board, and no reason to get an H87 board right now, as PCIE-2.0 and PCIE-3.0 offer no difference in performance with even high end cards. I think it would be a while before I'd ever consider having three SSDs also, so the two SATA6 ports and two SATA3 ports are fine for me since a 7200 RPM mechanical drive uses about a third of the SATA3 bandwidth. I'm not even looking at one SSD anytime soon, as the cost still is way over mechanical drives, you have to reserve maybe 20-25% of the space on them for empty space or performance degrades, and I don't care much about booting into Windows in 8 seconds vs 15 seconds. I do think i5-4590 is the CPU I'm most likely to get though.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

If OP lives near a Microcentre, the i5-4590 is $160 right now.

Closest Microcenter to me is 200 miles, but that's a crazy deal even after tax.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I've been fooling with MW1/2/Black Ops on my DESK3 (in sig below) with a G3220 and my old GTX560Ti 448... it gives pretty reasonable play, as well as lesser games like FSX & X-Plane. I haven't tried BF3 or 4 (SP only, I don't do MP) yet, but I expect it to be worse than MW, so I haven't really gone there. The OC'ability of the G3258 is nice, but I still wouldn't expect it to perform like an i5.

I replaced the GTX560Ti in my main i5 rig with a GTX760... expecting a significant bump in performance. I won't say I was disappointed... but it wasn't what I had hoped. Spend the money on the GPU (assuming you have your CPU already) and upgrade the CPU later. I would not waste my time on an intermediate step like a GTX750. If you don't have your CPU yet, go with the i5 and wait out the upgrade on the GPU.

The GPU upgrade is an absolute must to do any kind of gaming, as all I have now is a $30 GeForce 8400GS that can play Half Life 1 and Minecraft pretty well, but not much else haha!

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Oh if you only play BF4 in single player, you might be fine- it's the multiplayer where you really need high thread counts. I say go for it and get the 970. It might not be completely optimal right now, but it'll still be damn fast, and you can upgrade to the i5 next year anyway.

Enjoy your 970 :thumbsup:

Do you think a 970 offers anything over an R9 280 in some older games better optimized to run on dual cores, assuming I'm putting a 60 FPS cap on since my monitor has a 60 Hz refresh rate? Or is it pretty much only Bioshock Infinite and Tomb Raider that would make it feel like I'm running a $400 card paired with a powerful but still dual core CPU? (the 970 seems way under priced at $330).

 

[Charlie98]

I've never supported the idea of getting a CPU and then upgrading it.

True... but if the OP already has the Pentium, it's too late.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

I have the pentium, running 4.6 on a cheap H81 board, secondhand gtx 670, everything runs well. Battlefield 4 runs fine too.

Anyway, if you're getting a 970 I'd spend the extra $120 and get an i5 (get a K, even with a cheap board, lots and lots do non z overclocking). Gpu's depreciate much faster than cpu's, really wouldn't spend 330 on a gpu and pair it with a $60 cpu.

 

[jacktesterson]

I'm pushing a GTX 760 with a 3258 @ 4.5 GHz on a $50 H81 Board and I very very rarely see any CPU bottlenecks at 1080p

 

[nurturedhate]

Do you think a 970 offers anything over an R9 280 in some older games better optimized to run on dual cores, assuming I'm putting a 60 FPS cap on since my monitor has a 60 Hz refresh rate? Or is it pretty much only Bioshock Infinite and Tomb Raider that would make it feel like I'm running a $400 card paired with a powerful but still dual core CPU? (the 970 seems way under priced at $330).

You'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between an r9 280 and a 970 in those two games. Especially at 1080p and 60hz. With 280's under $200 I'd go the i5/280 route as the cpu upgrade will last far longer than any video card upgrade. Remember that for the most part we can turn down settings to help lessen the load on a gpu but not for a cpu. In a year from now you'll still have a dual core cpu.

 

[raghu78]

Since you are running a Pentium G3258 at 4.4 ghz you should do quite well. especially if you are not a multiplayer fan. check out benchmarks. In fact 4.4 Ghz Haswell Pentium does quite well in most games

4.4 Ghz @Techspot
http://www.techspot.com/review/849-intel-pentium-anniversary-edition-overclock/page13.html

4.7 Ghz @anandtech
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8232/...ary-edition-review-the-intel-pentium-g3258-ae

4.8 Ghz at bit-tech.net
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2014/06/24/intel-pentium-g3258-review/5

4.8 Ghz at TR
http://techreport.com/review/26735/overclocking-intel-pentium-g3258-anniversary-edition-processor/3

4.8 Ghz at guru3d
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/pentium_20th_anniversary_series_g3258_processor_review,14.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pentium-g3258-b81-cheap-overclocking,3888-3.html

also check out overclock.net and get user feedback

http://www.overclock.net/t/1500524/intel-pentium-g3258-performance-and-owners-club

 

[SteveGrabowski]

You guys think there is any reason to steer clear of used R9 280xs that have been used my miners as long as they're still under warranty another couple of years?

 

[Yuriman]

You guys think there is any reason to steer clear of used R9 280xs that have been used my miners as long as they're still under warranty another couple of years?

I've heard reports of fans failing prematurely and the cards needing RMA, but since they're still warrantied that would be at most, an annoyance. Personally, I'd risk it for the cash savings.

I'm also going to recommend an i5, though I put an i3 in my wife's computer and have no regrets about it. We game together, have the same video card, and most of the games we play run the same (or close enough) on both machines. Civ5 shows lower framerates and longer turn times, and Guild Wars 2 runs better in cities on my machine probably due to the higher clocks, but basically an i3 is capable of playing anything an i5 is if you're not looking for more than 60fps.

 

[sm625]

I would love to see an actual article where they compare a

1) 4.5GHz G3258 + GTX970
2) i5-4670K and <insert the best gpu you can buy for the same total cost>
3) i7-4790K and <insert the best gpu you can buy for the same total cost>

They never actually give you a proper comparison though. They always stick all these different cpus with the same exact gpu. It's kind of retarded. Actually its very retarded. I want to know: what is the best performance I can get for around a $500 dollar budget (cpu/RAM/mobo). I'm thinking microcenter G3258 + GTX970 + 4GB of RAM would be the best but sadly cant find the data to prove it.

 

[Yuriman]

Only criticism I can think of is that dollar value is a constantly moving target.

I tend to place more emphasis on CPU in my rigs because I do things other than gaming.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I would love to see an actual article where they compare a

1) 4.5GHz G3258 + GTX970
2) i5-4670K and <insert the best gpu you can buy for the same total cost>
3) i7-4790K and <insert the best gpu you can buy for the same total cost>

They never actually give you a proper comparison though. They always stick all these different cpus with the same exact gpu. It's kind of retarded. Actually its very retarded. I want to know: what is the best performance I can get for around a $500 dollar budget (cpu/RAM/mobo). I'm thinking microcenter G3258 + GTX970 + 4GB of RAM would be the best but sadly cant find the data to prove it.

Two things I find really frustrating: (1) reviews that only give average and minimum framerates instead of giving frametime graphs so you can see how smooth the gameplay is and (2) reviews that cherry pick games to make the hardware look good. Like for instance Tom's Hardware's review of the G3258 where they completely omit Crysis 3 benchmarks. Since 90% of reviews conform to (1) it could be really easy to mistake an overcloked G3258 as a top gaming CPU, since average framerates are often very close in line to i7-4790k's. If it wasn't for a Eurogamer.net review that rips the G3258 to shreds on Crysis 3 with supporting frametime data, I would have most likely bought the GTX 970 and likely attributed the stutter complaints to i5 fanboyism like when you hear people comparing Playstation to XBox (pick any generation). But here's a video from Eurogamer showing a 4.5 GHz G3258 badly bottlenecking a GTX 760 in Crysis 3:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRosY16FSnc

The constant oscillation between 10 ms, 35 ms, and 60+ ms frametimes for the G3258 playing Crysis 3 high sounds awful.

 

[jacktesterson]

That last 10% of eye candy worth $200 more in Processor cost?

Up to you.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

That last 10% of eye candy worth $200 more in Processor cost?

Up to you.

It's not the eye candy. It's the stutter due to the CPU bottleneck that's not really correctable by anything other than dropping to 30 FPS in some games. I really don't like stutter in games, and if I'm having to play games at 30 FPS to get rid of it then the GTX 970 seems like a huge waste of money. An R9 280/280x or a GTX 760/770 would probably be also. I guess I'd like to have a capable gaming system which would keep my GPU the bottleneck even if I end up buying a 970 or 980 next year, or perhaps a successor. Seems like buying an i5 is a good way to go about it, and getting an R9 270x/280/280x or GTX 760/770 should be enough that I won't feel compelled to upgrade it next year. If I'm going to have to use my GTX 970 like a GTX 750 Ti by putting a 30 FPS cap I think I'd rather get an i5 and a midrange graphics card and not have to slap a 30 FPS lock in new games optimized for quad core. If a 970 isn't likely to be any more impressive than an R9 280 in the games that do work well with the G3258 it seems kind of pointless to go that route.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I have to say I never meant to build a gaming PC when I got the G3258/H81 board combo a few months ago. It was just a low end system to watch media on and to program on. The board seems fine and I doubt I'll replace it anytime soon, but I'm thinking making my computer into a gaming PC with a CPU/GPU upgrade for the money I would have spent on a PS4 probably seems like a good idea. I know it'll be a little more expensive since I'll have to spend $60-$80 to replace my Antec Earthwatts 380W PSU (it has been amazing since I bought it in 2008, which isn't a surprise since Seasonic is the OEM).

 

[SickBeast]

I just thought I would chime in here and share my thoughts on this CPU. I have been running it for over a month now and I have run some of the most demanding games out there on it. I have not found the CPU to be much of a bottleneck at all. The only game that gave me a hard time was Crysis 3, and I was able to solve it by installing a special "timer" application and by turning shadows down to "low". Here is a link to the guide:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1364200/...-and-performance-boost-cpu-limited-users-only

Battlefield 4 runs extremely well. I never dip below 40fps which I find quite good.

My GPU is an overclocked 280x. I have the G3258 running at 4.5ghz.

I don't feel much of a need for a quad core. I will wait and see what Broadwell is like. For those of you out there wondering, the G3258 is a wonderful gaming processor. It's not as fast as an i5 but you'll get 75%+ of the performance in most cases for 25% of the cost.

 

[davie jambo]

I just thought I would chime in here and share my thoughts on this CPU. I have been running it for over a month now and I have run some of the most demanding games out there on it. I have not found the CPU to be much of a bottleneck at all. The only game that gave me a hard time was Crysis 3, and I was able to solve it by installing a special "timer" application and by turning shadows down to "low". Here is a link to the guide:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1364200/...-and-performance-boost-cpu-limited-users-only

Battlefield 4 runs extremely well. I never dip below 40fps which I find quite good.

My GPU is an overclocked 280x. I have the G3258 running at 4.5ghz.

I don't feel much of a need for a quad core. I will wait and see what Broadwell is like. For those of you out there wondering, the G3258 is a wonderful gaming processor. It's not as fast as an i5 but you'll get 75%+ of the performance in most cases for 25% of the cost.

What about new games ? Watchdogs , Evil Within ? Shadow of Mordor ?
I don't think they do well at all with the newer games

 

[cbn]

Battlefield 4 runs extremely well. I never dip below 40fps which I find quite good.

My GPU is an overclocked 280x. I have the G3258 running at 4.5ghz.

I don't feel much of a need for a quad core. I will wait and see what Broadwell is like. For those of you out there wondering, the G3258 is a wonderful gaming processor. It's not as fast as an i5 but you'll get 75%+ of the performance in most cases for 25% of the cost.

+1.

For BF4 64 player multiplayer, I thought my 4.5 GHz Pentium G3258 and R7 250X on 1080p low was more than enough for the game.

People say BF3 and BF4 64 player requires more than a two thread processor, but keep in mind an OC'd G3258 is not just any 2C/2T processor. It is the fastest 2C/2T out there at the moment.

 

[SickBeast]

What about new games ? Watchdogs , Evil Within ? Shadow of Mordor ?
I don't think they do well at all with the newer games

Shadow of Mordor runs extremely well. I actually scored higher in that game than apoppin did at alienbabeltech and he used a powerful overclocked quad core.

 

[davie jambo]

Shadow of Mordor runs extremely well. I actually scored higher in that game than apoppin did at alienbabeltech and he used a powerful overclocked quad core.

hmmm watch dogs ? Ryse ?

I reckon it will struggle with games ported from new consoles

 

[SickBeast]

hmmm watch dogs ? Ryse ?

I reckon it will struggle with games ported from new consoles

I disagree. The cpu in the new consoles is really weak. Even with 8 cores it has half of the processing power of an i3.

I will try watch dogs later. I don't have Ryse.

 

[know of fence]

I've never supported the idea of getting a CPU and then upgrading it. If you ever want to play modern titles you will need an i5. It isn't optional. And you won't save money by upgrading later as Intel doesn't drop prices. I'd compromise and get an i5 4690 non K and an H97 board with the best GPU you can afford with whatever is left.

The G3258 is a good way to avoid the issues, the disappointment and lingering of the current Haswell (refresh) generation, hoping that Broadwell-K will fix thermals and provide a longer lasting value, more efficient way along with higher resell value.

 

[NTMBK]

If you ever want to play modern titles you will need an i5. It isn't optional.

Haha, absolute nonsense. You can play games on less powerful CPUs if you want, but you may get slightly less consistent performance. I'm still running on a Phenom II, and I don't really feel the urge to upgrade any time soon.