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

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Madpacket

Platinum Member
Nov 15, 2005
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Pentium G3258 is fast enough for most games. If the exception is only (Crysis 3) I wouldn't sweat it too much. It's not even a very good game.
 

SickBeast

Lifer
Jul 21, 2000
14,377
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Pentium G3258 is fast enough for most games. If the exception is only (Crysis 3) I wouldn't sweat it too much. It's not even a very good game.
Crysis 3 is a very good game and I posted a fix earlier in the thread. I'm sure a quad core would still be better but I can live with minimum FPS in the 40s, personally.
 

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
12,957
1
0
Crysis 3 is a very good game and I posted a fix earlier in the thread. I'm sure a quad core would still be better but I can live with minimum FPS in the 40s, personally.
Crysis 3 eats quads for breakfast in spots so I see no way you stay in the 40s with just 2 cores. plus there is no way you are not stuttering with that dual core cpu. I tried running just 2 cores in that game and it was not smooth. heck that game is one of the reasons I upgraded from the 2500k I had. I see over 80% usage at times even on my 8 thread 4770k.
 

cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
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Crysis 3 eats quads for breakfast in spots so I see no way you stay in the 40s with just 2 cores. plus there is no way you are not stuttering with that dual core cpu. I tried running just 2 cores in that game and it was not smooth. heck that game is one of the reasons I upgraded from the 2500k I had. I see over 80% usage at times even on my 8 thread 4770k.

I don't have Crysis 3 yet, but one thing I notice is that every G3258 user that complains of stuttering happens to be an Nvidia owner.

I wonder if a graphics driver issue going on that affects dual cores more?
 

crashtech

Lifer
Jan 4, 2013
10,695
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What I can say about the G3258 now is that it isn't as great as some make it out to be, nor is it as bad as some say either. It's definitely worth the price, the combo deals have been pretty irresistible. But of course it will be the bottleneck in a quite a few games. It's a $70 CPU for Pete's sake. It's appropriate for low-end gaming systems coupled with a 750ti or equivalent. By the rough rule of thumb I use to balance CPU with GPU, a GTX 970 should be paired with a fast i3 at bare minimum, with any i5 being better, though I don't select lower than a 4570 because most of the 44xx series have low closk speeds and Turbo multipliers.
 

SickBeast

Lifer
Jul 21, 2000
14,377
19
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Crysis 3 eats quads for breakfast in spots so I see no way you stay in the 40s with just 2 cores. plus there is no way you are not stuttering with that dual core cpu. I tried running just 2 cores in that game and it was not smooth. heck that game is one of the reasons I upgraded from the 2500k I had. I see over 80% usage at times even on my 8 thread 4770k.
You're right actually. I had only played through the first two levels. Once I got to the large outdoor map with all the moving grass it brought me down to 25-30fps. It's still playable but it would be much better with a quad core CPU.

That being said, this is the *only* game where I have had a problem. The only other one that might have issues is Metro Last Light.
 

SickBeast

Lifer
Jul 21, 2000
14,377
19
81
What I can say about the G3258 now is that it isn't as great as some make it out to be, nor is it as bad as some say either. It's definitely worth the price, the combo deals have been pretty irresistible. But of course it will be the bottleneck in a quite a few games. It's a $70 CPU for Pete's sake. It's appropriate for low-end gaming systems coupled with a 750ti or equivalent. By the rough rule of thumb I use to balance CPU with GPU, a GTX 970 should be paired with a fast i3 at bare minimum, with any i5 being better, though I don't select lower than a 4570 because most of the 44xx series have low closk speeds and Turbo multipliers.

You do realize that at 4.5ghz+ the G3258 is as fast as the fastest available i3, right? In fact it's even faster in some games.

Also, please list the "many games" where this CPU is too slow. I am a gamer and I have a lot of new release games on my system and they all run great. Shadow of Mordor, BF4, Titanfall, etc. They all run great.
 

crashtech

Lifer
Jan 4, 2013
10,695
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You do realize that at 4.5ghz+ the G3258 is as fast as the fastest available i3, right? In fact it's even faster in some games.
If you can push it that far, it comes close in terms of fully loaded scenarios, but it's only faster in situations where ST performance is the only criterion. Go ahead and be the tireless advocate for the little CPU that could. I was, now it's your turn.

Not gaming, but the Cinebench 11.5 results give a decent idea of the total compute resources available, and even at 4.9 GHz, the G3258 can barely keep up. Note that 4.9 requires a Z97 board, the cheapies don't allow the ridiculous voltage required.
 

SickBeast

Lifer
Jul 21, 2000
14,377
19
81
If you can push it that far, it comes close in terms of fully loaded scenarios, but it's only faster in situations where ST performance is the only criterion. Go ahead and be the tireless advocate for the little CPU that could. I was, now it's your turn.

Not gaming, but the Cinebench 11.5 results give a decent idea of the total compute resources available, and even at 4.9 GHz, the G3258 can barely keep up. Note that 4.9 requires a Z97 board, the cheapies don't allow the ridiculous voltage required.

I'm not saying that it's a good processor for video encoding or anything that is highly threaded. I am saying that it's an excellent gaming CPU and I would take it over anything AMD makes.