Is the Pentium G4620 The First Decent Stopgap in Years?

[StrangerGuy]

The KBL decoder capabilities also has nothing to do with the chipset right? Because that G4560 + MSI H110i mobo looks mighty tempting.

I don't get the idea of "stopgap" CPUs/components. That's just double dipping, handing your money over twice to the CPU company when you could just hand it over once for a good CPU and not need to come back for 3-5 years+.

I can virtually guarantee that anybody who buys a 7700K for a gaming PC today will not "need" to upgrade for a long, long time. Even the i5 7600 isn't going to be a problem for a long time.

But a Celeron, Pentium, or i3? That'll need to be upgraded much sooner.

Now of course this argument works IF you have the money to spend upfront for the i7. If you don't, then you buy the best you can and ride it as long as possible. But people who CAN afford the 7700K but end up just throwing money away on stopgaps are just enriching Intel and its shareholders at the expense of their own pocketbooks.

If one is going to buy a gaming CPU right now to keep for 3 years+ it's really 7700K or bust. The i7-Ks have been massively outselling the i5-Ks since DC because more people are realizing betting against a certainly more heavily threaded computing future to save a mere $100 is foolish in an era of long lived CPUs, especially when considering the added costs of Z-boards and all that added trouble that OCing brings to the mix.

 

[VirtualLarry]

one question, can you use the IGP video decode for the web browser and other software (like MPC) while you run an older discrete VGA as your video out?

I doubt it, not without something akin to "Lucid Virtua MVP" or whatnot, which I don't believe is still developed or supported.

 

[stardude82]

The G4560 looks stellar.
https://www.computerbase.de/2017-01/intel-pentium-g4560-test-kaby-lake/

Fantastic performance if you can find it at MSRP, beats Haswell i3s and just a step behind the i5-2500K. If I hadn't moved yet from a Lynnfield + GTX 970 setup because of SATA/USB limits, I'd think about this as a stop-gap CPU to pair with the 970 and see what i7-6x00 CPUs did after Ryzen's release.

 

[LTC8K6]

Well, we can overclock the 2500K.

And if you want AVX/2 the Pentiums don't have it.

It does look like the bargain basement champ, though.

 

[superstition]

Remember those arguing for saving $100 for a 955BE instead of a 2500K because that $100 can be spent on a better GPU back in 2011?

Guess who look like fools now?

Let me know when every CPU becomes a 2500K. Sandy Bridge was an oddity. It was even soldered. AMD might deliver some pressure on Intel again with its Zen line.

Ask the people who bought the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition "Gallatin" how that turned out. : )

 

[lopri]

^ I am not sure what the quoted argument proves. Balancing the horsepower of CPU and GPU is a wise way to spend a limited budget, and a 955BE paired with something like GTX 570 should give a better gaming experience than a 2500K plus GTX 550, even today.

 

[deasd]

I would consider after Intel adding 'K' on 2C4T Pentium. Now, no......

 

[coercitiv]

I mentally lumped poofyhairguy

Ever since reading this sentence I'm experiencing micro stutter.

If one is going to buy a gaming CPU right now to keep for 3 years+ it's really 7700K or bust. The i7-Ks have been massively outselling the i5-Ks since DC because more people are realizing betting against a certainly more heavily threaded computing future to save a mere $100 is foolish in an era of long lived CPUs, especially when considering the added costs of Z-boards and all that added trouble that OCing brings to the mix.

You need to acknowledge the particular set of circumstances that made the i7 a best buy for the Sandy Bridge - Sky Lake period.

• prices remained steady as competition tanked
• ST performance increase was incremental
  
• number of cores/threads remained constant

If any of these factors significantly change within the next 12months, buying the 7700K as a long term investment will not be optimal. Zen is launching next month, Coffee Lake is likely to follow in Q1 2018. We have two potential new offerings capable of significantly altering the price/core ratio. In the long term, basing purchasing decision on hindsight provided by Sandy Bridge experience while ignoring future 6-18 month developments is prone to error.

However, that doesn't mean one shouldn't buy the 7700K if performance requirements are already high enough. Damn micro stutter.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I would consider after Intel adding 'K' on 2C4T Pentium. Now, no......

There's an i3-K now.

The more I think about it, the more I think the 2C/4T Pentium and unlocked i3 are Intels response to Ryzen.

 

[Lepton87]

There's an i3-K now.

The more I think about it, the more I think the 2C/4T Pentium and unlocked i3 are Intels response to Ryzen.

That makes sense, pitting a dual core CPU against a hexacore.

 

[Triloby]

As far as stopgaps go, yes the G4560 is a good solution for what it is. Compared to the i3, which has AVX 2.0 (the Pentium doesn't), performance is only slightly lower than the i3. The price is far more attractive in comparison to the i3. That's probably one reason why people will flock to the new Pentium compared to the i3.

The i3-7350K, on the other hand, is too expensive for what it is and was released at the most inopportune time right now, when overclockable quad cores have a much better value proposition than overclockable dual cores.

 

[lehtv]

That makes sense, pitting a dual core CPU against a hexacore.

Who said anything about hexacores?

 

[Lepton87]

Who said anything about hexacores?

I meant octa.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Ask the people who bought the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition "Gallatin" how that turned out. : )

Yeah because top-end in the good old days were just only $100 more than the midrange and have more threads.

 

[lehtv]

I meant octa.

Sure you did.

He's talking about 4 core Ryzen, obviously.

 

[daxzy]

^ I am not sure what the quoted argument proves. Balancing the horsepower of CPU and GPU is a wise way to spend a limited budget, and a 955BE paired with something like GTX 570 should give a better gaming experience than a 2500K plus GTX 550, even today.

Because the person with the 2500K could just upgrade the GPU and not worry about CPU bottlenecks up until probably Maxwell launch (or Pascal if they overclocked high enough)? They could also pop in a i7-2600/2700/3770K (and depending how it OC's) and wouldn't be CPU bottleneck'ed for maybe another 2-3 years? Whereas the the 955BE owner would probably be bottlenecked around the Tahiti/Kepler timeframe and be forced to upgrade their core components.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Okaley Dokey, I've got my second 2x8GB DDR4-2400 GSkill RAM kit ready to throw into my DeskMini that I have already upgrade to a G4600 KBL dual-core w/HT.

What's a good way to measure the improvement from dual-channel RAM, once I throw that kit in? (Currently, has a single 8GB stick.)

Want to run some benchmarks.

Edit: Some benchmark results in my thead here:
https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...-channel-ddr4-g4600-kbl-h110-chipset.2497882/

 

[cbn]

As unlikely of a combination as G4600 and a Z board is......one thing that is cool would to be use the iGPU for 4K Netflix and UHD Blu-ray and then have a dGPU for gaming.

The reason I bring this up is because I remember back in the Haswell era Z boards were the only boards that allow use of the iGPU and dGPU at the same time. (I had 3 displays connected to my Z97 without the use of display port by having one display connected tp the iGPU and two displays connected to the dGPU).

Is that still true with LGA 1150? (That only the Z boards allow iGPU and dGPU connected to different displays at the same time)

 

[TheELF]

I have a haswell celeron on the cheapest mobo i could find and the igpu works fine alongside the dgpu,you will have to have a display connected to it for it to be detected by windows,you can circumvent that by using a virtual display in win10(win8 as well if I remember correctly) .

 

[cbn]

As unlikely of a combination as G4600 and a Z board is......one thing that is cool would to be use the iGPU for 4K Netflix and UHD Blu-ray and then have a dGPU for gaming.

The reason I bring this up is because I remember back in the Haswell era Z boards were the only boards that allow use of the iGPU and dGPU at the same time. (I had 3 displays connected to my Z97 without the use of display port by having one display connected tp the iGPU and two displays connected to the dGPU).

Is that still true with LGA 1150? (That only the Z boards allow iGPU and dGPU connected to different displays at the same time)

An alternative to what I am mentioning above would be to have the iGPU plugged into HDMI1 of the 4K TV and then have the dGPU plugged into HDMI2 of the 4K TV.....then when wanting to switch between the two GPUs (iGPU for 4K Netflix and UHD Blu-ray vs. dGPU for gaming) just select the appropriate port via the TV's remote (just as if you were switching between devices connected to the same TV)

P.S. For anyone that doesn't understand the purpose of switching GPUs, 4K Netflix and UHD Blu-ray both require DRM that only the Kabylake iGPU can provide.

 

[TheELF]

You don't need to switch between gpus on your tv,as long as the software is using the igpu you can display the image via your dgpu.

 

[Arachnotronic]

The KBL decoder capabilities also has nothing to do with the chipset right? Because that G4560 + MSI H110i mobo looks mighty tempting.

Nothing to do with the PCH. Media block is on the CPU itself.

 

[VirtualLarry]

You don't need to switch between gpus on your tv,as long as the software is using the igpu you can display the image via your dgpu.

Care to tell us how?

 

[TheELF]

You just run your qsv software normally and then win+shift and cursor keys left or right,it will send the window to the other display.

 

[IllogicalGlory]

That makes sense, pitting a dual core CPU against a hexacore.

If there are 4C/4T Ryzen SKUs at i3 prices, this might cannibalize those sales. People who want i3 performance (and not more) can now get for $70, where they might have bought the Ryzen SKU if it weren't for this chip. The unlocked i3 might be able to go to head to head a 4C/4T SKU at similar prices, maybe.