Should I run my Skylake G4400 @ 4.4Ghz+ or my Thuban 1045T @ 3.5Ghz+ as daily driver?

[escrow4]

For the money you seem prepared to spend, buy a proper Core i5-6400 or better and use that as your daily driver.

Which runs at a sluggish 2.7GHz base. Oddly enough the top Skylake i5 doesn't even run at 3.5GHz. Meh.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Which runs at a sluggish 2.7GHz base. Oddly enough the top Skylake i5 doesn't even run at 3.5GHz. Meh.

Probably because the i5-6400 is where all of the poorly-binning, but functional, SKL quad-core CPUs end up. Which is an even better argument for avoiding that SKU, if you want to OC, I suppose.

Also, the G3900 Celeron SKL is 2.8Ghz. Yet, the lowest-binned i5 is clocked slower? Really???

Makes you wonder what Intel was thinking.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Which runs at a sluggish 2.7GHz base. Oddly enough the top Skylake i5 doesn't even run at 3.5GHz. Meh.

Yeah. For general computing Skylake i3 is more than enough, but if you need power, i7 is the way to go.

i5 is just meh. Especially in 2016.

@VirtualLarry

You know, you could undervolt/clock your Thuban quite a bit to save some power. I gave mine to a relative, heavily undervolted. Running pretty well for a couple of years now. 3.1 Ghz @ 1.1v if memory serves me right. 160W PicoPSU could handle it just fine (~35W idle, ~100W load w/ HD 4200).

 

[VirtualLarry]

@VirtualLarry

You know, you could undervolt your Thuban quite a bit to save some power. I gave mine to a relative, heavily undervolted. Running pretty well for a couple of years now. 3.1 Ghz @ 1.1v if memory serves me right. 160W PicoPSU could handle it just fine.

Interesting idea. I don't know if that would work for me though. I would want to overclock the 1045T for the single-threaded performance. I had it running at 3.51Ghz @ 1.325V, which I think was stock vcore. Maybe if I didn't OC it, I could undervolt. I tried going higher, with more voltage, but IIRC, at the time, I didn't have much success for some reason.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Which runs at a sluggish 2.7GHz base. Oddly enough the top Skylake i5 doesn't even run at 3.5GHz. Meh.

Umm...

6600K - 3.5 GHz, 3.9Ghz Turbo

http://ark.intel.com/products/88191/Intel-Core-i5-6600K-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_90-GHz

Although I guess for the other SKUs it depends whether or not you think Turbo speeds "count."

Yeah, I know some people get all excitable about aproaching 5GHz, but there's a lot more to the overall performance picture than raw GHz anyways.

 

[crashtech]

Note that neither of your current CPUs support AVX either, at any speed.

Didn't realize Intel was still doing that. Seems dumb to exclude it from the Pentiums.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Didn't realize Intel was still doing that. Seems dumb to exclude it from the Pentiums.

Fully agree. Its just dumb as hell

 

[Magic Carpet]

Interesting idea. I don't know if that would work for me though. I would want to overclock the 1045T for the single-threaded performance.

The ASUS you linked to earlier, is just an ok mobo (from a power delivery point of view) with modern features. You really want something proven like that, if you are serious to have a 3.7-4.2 stable 24/7 overclock. But then you are likely to go out of your budget again, huh?

I had it running at 3.51Ghz @ 1.325V, which I think was stock vcore. Maybe if I didn't OC it, I could undervolt. I tried going higher, with more voltage, but IIRC, at the time, I didn't have much success for some reason.

Thuban likes <60C Temp and mosfet area to be actively cooled. One of the reasons why I ended up undervolting/clocking was the massive amount of power I was able to save that way (I believe, about 50W under load). Even at 3.1 Ghz its ST performance was waaaaaaaaay better than say, Kabini (which I happen to use as my HTPC box). You just need to play around with your chip. Never, ever give up.

EDIT: So yeah, you might as well just purchase an i7 6700 instead. So much computing power in just a 65W TDP power envelope. Performance per watt can't be ignored unless electricity is free where you live (especially if you do 24/7 operation). Performance per dollar is only important at the time of puchase, once bought, you never look back, unless you buy junk of course. Junk is junk, no matter performance per $. Heh.

Anyway, just use what you have unless you need more performance today, expansion (M2 disk), etc. And save money in the meantime. Use the force Larry, I know you can

 

[VirtualLarry]

Anyway, just use what you have unless you need more performance today, expansion (M2 disk), etc. And save money in the meantime. Use the force Larry, I know you can

Yeah, that's probably pretty wise. I guess I kind of wanted to test what the 1045T would be like, overclocked, with an M.2 PCI-E x4 SSD.

I could just transplant my current ASRock 990FX Extreme4 mobo into a different case, or maybe not even that, but I don't know if my current Blackhawk case will fit into my desk.

I've got some sort of 790GX AM2+ board with four PCI-E slots too, with my other 1045T. Just recently bought some 4x4GB DDR2 kits (from Hong Kong, for only $23.50 for 16GB of RAM!), going to try one of those kits in that rig.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Larry you are turning into my hero. I too love to build cheap desktops but I always have some non-desktop purpose for them. "This one is a server." "This one is a HTPC." "Uh,this is another server just for TV." "Uh, this is another HTPC made to run Dolphin." Meanwhile my main desktop till last year was an old q9550 that I never upgraded because 99% of my web browsing is done on a iPad.

But you...you build all these machines in search of a better desktop experience! It is so retro in a good way, reminds me of a time when all my priority was having the best desktop I could get because I spent so much of my life on there.

Props. Seriously.

As an actual helpful on topic comment I have noticed my g3258 rig SUCKS for modern games. Dual core is just dead unless you want to only play Indy or old stuff.

 

[Magic Carpet]

I guess I kind of wanted to test what the 1045T would be like, overclocked,

Thuban/Piledriver are quite capable, depending on workload. Check this out. Everything stock except the other 1045T (@ 4.0 Ghz) and my Haswell @ 4.2.

with an M.2 PCI-E x4 SSD.

That ASRock of yours got plenty of spare pci express slots. You can easily re-purpose them for storage

I've got some sort of 790GX AM2+ board with four PCI-E slots too, with my other 1045T. Just recently bought some 4x4GB DDR2 kits (from Hong Kong, for only $23.50 for 16GB of RAM!), going to try one of those kits in that rig.

Not bad. Maybe you could bench them later.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Larry you are turning into my hero. I too love to build cheap desktops but I always have some non-desktop purpose for them. "This one is a server." "This one is a HTPC." "Uh,this is another server just for TV." "Uh, this is another HTPC made to run Dolphin." Meanwhile my main desktop till last year was an old q9550 that I never upgraded because 99% of my web browsing is done on a iPad.

But you...you build all these machines in search of a better desktop experience! It is so retro in a good way, reminds me of a time when all my priority was having the best desktop I could get because I spent so much of my life on there.

Props. Seriously.

Thank you, those are kind words.

As an actual helpful on topic comment I have noticed my g3258 rig SUCKS for modern games. Dual core is just dead unless you want to only play Indy or old stuff.

Hmm, a frank observation. My G3258 rigs were fun to play with, but I agree, they kind of lack the "grunt" of MOAR CORES. At least for Distributed Computing. If they also had AVX, then it might have been a different story.

One aspect, that I am noticing on my "journey", is that I have largely been sticking to the same software environment, and not "optimizing" it.

What I mean by that is, I load Win7 64-bit, and Waterfox, which is a 64-bit third-party build of Firefox. Now, Mozilla has finally released an official 64-bit build of Firefox.

However, both the 64-bit Firefox, as well as Waterfox versions newer than 40.1.0, have issues playing my internet radio, using HTML 5 playback. It skips and breaks up badly. Obviously (to me), something happened in the playback code in Firefox.

Unfortunately, Waterfox 40.1.0 has a "quirk" in its JavaScript handling, and gets in a "mood" after a while. Once it gets into this "mood", switching tabs or opening tabs, pins one core of the CPU to 100%, and causes lag. Once the tab is switched, the CPU goes back down. The only way I know of to get out of this "mood", to to completely exit and re-start the browser.

Edited to add: So, basically, my quest to get ever more single-threaded speed, for Waterfox, is negated completely by a software bug. Once it gets in this "mood", switching or opening tabs, is basically the same speed, whether on my Atom Z3735F, my C2Q Q9300 with SATA2 SSD, or my G4400 @ 4.455?ghz with PCI-E 3.0 x4 M.2 SSD.

 

[cbn]

Passmark score comparison of 1100T (3.3 Ghz base, 3.7 ghz turbo) and Skylake G4400 (3.3 Ghz):

1100T: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+Phenom+II+X6+1100T (5856 MT, 1260 ST)

G4400: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+G4400+@+3.30GHz&id=2634 (3790 MT, 1875 ST)

Granted there will be some overclocked processors mixed in the above scores , but if we extrapolate to overclocked settings of 3.5 Ghz for Thuban and 4.455 Ghz for G4400 the OC Thuban would only be ~21% faster than OC Skylake Pentium in MT and much slower in single thread.

 

[escrow4]

You could also sell/scrap all your rigs and upgrade to a 5820K and a cheap Asrock X99 Extreme 4 (singling out that board as I have one and its decent). That would do everything you need for a very long time if an Atom is more or less acceptable. More cores, multithreaded, single threaded (with MCE all cores run at 3.6GHz), all checked.

 

[crashtech]

How about a 3930K system? I saw one of those CPUs for $200 on fleabay the other day.

 

[VirtualLarry]

How about a 3930K system? I saw one of those CPUs for $200 on fleabay the other day.

From a thread in Motherboards sub-forum:

My request: A new board or two using X79. One reason is that the E5-2670 Xeon (Sandy Bridge 8C/16T with 2.6 Ghz base clock and 3.3 Ghz turbo) has been in dropping in price and now looks quite attractive in performance/price compared to some modern new chips.

E5 2670 Price history on ebay "buy it now listings" (according to my records) has been:

November 11, 2015: $179.00 shipped
Novemeber 18, 2015 : $153.99 shipped
December 15, 2015: $139.00 shipped
December 29, 2105: $104.99 shipped
January 19, 2016: $99.99 (or best offer) shipped
January 20, 2016: $95 shipped

8C/16T Sandy Bridge CPU, for under $100? Seriously, forget Zen, if we can get those CPUs for that price, and we can get new motherboards for them.

 

[Charlie98]

As an actual helpful on topic comment I have noticed my g3258 rig SUCKS for modern games. Dual core is just dead unless you want to only play Indy or old stuff.

I, myself, found this out. Following all the hype, I guess I just expected too much from the little Pentium. I was able to sell the CPU and mobo off for almost what I had in it and get a suitable combo (in my case, a used 2500K and Asus Z68 mobo) and live my gaming life happily ever after...



Larry, you are the quintessential Renaissance Man of PC... :thumbsup:

 

[cbn]

As an actual helpful on topic comment I have noticed my g3258 rig SUCKS for modern games. Dual core is just dead unless you want to only play Indy or old stuff.

I, myself, found this out. Following all the hype, I guess I just expected too much from the little Pentium. I was able to sell the CPU and mobo off for almost what I had in it and get a suitable combo (in my case, a used 2500K and Asus Z68 mobo) and live my gaming life happily ever after...

What Video cards were both of you using?

And how were the frame rates?

 

[poofyhairguy]

Thank you, those are kind words.

No need to thank me just keep letting us in on your exploits!

Edited to add: So, basically, my quest to get ever more single-threaded speed, for Waterfox, is negated completely by a software bug. Once it gets in this "mood", switching or opening tabs, is basically the same speed, whether on my Atom Z3735F, my C2Q Q9300 with SATA2 SSD, or my G4400 @ 4.455?ghz with PCI-E 3.0 x4 M.2 SSD.

That is why I returned a GTX 950 last week, I found out Kodi might not support its HEVC decoder for a while. Hardware is useless without software.

 

[poofyhairguy]

What Video cards were both of you using?

And how were the frame rates?

I use a 7850 with mine. The issue wasn't average fps but random stutter. My overclocked 771 rig with a $15 CPU does better with many modern games and that card.

I am getting a 750 ti next week so maybe Nvidia drivers will do better.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I, myself, found this out. Following all the hype, I guess I just expected too much from the little Pentium. I was able to sell the CPU and mobo off for almost what I had in it and get a suitable combo (in my case, a used 2500K and Asus Z68 mobo) and live my gaming life happily ever after..

It is still a fun little chip, the most fan positive thing Intel has done in years. And it is great in some instances- for Dolphin it is almost 30% faster than my 2500k rig was at the exact same clockspeed.

 

[cbn]

I use a 7850 with mine. The issue wasn't average fps but random stutter. My overclocked 771 rig with a $15 CPU does better with many modern games and that card.

I am getting a 750 ti next week so maybe Nvidia drivers will do better.

I'm surprised you got stutter, HD7850 isn't that big of a GPU really (1024sp @ 870 Mhz). (Although recently I saw my G3258 stutter when at stock CPU speeds using my R7 250X, so maybe the max GPU for a OC G3258 isn't that much higher than 640sp @ 1000 Mhz?).

P.S. Not sure if you have seen the following, but here are some references to reducing stutter by reducing video card size:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37882771&postcount=15

So, if I were to switch to a worse-performing GPU, there would also be less stress on my CPU, which would alleviate spikes/stutters but give worse performance?

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-pentium-g3258-review

In the highlighted video, you can see that running the game at the high preset (that's one 'notch' down from the ultra-equivalent, very high) in combination with a GTX 760 results in a night-and-day performance differential between the i7 4790K and the Pentium. The additional fidelity in the game simulation, coupled with the immense increase in GPU set-up costs, sees the Anniversary Edition Pentium struggle horrendously to keep pace. What we're seeing here is a classic case of a lack of hardware balance: the G3258 simply can't feed the GTX 760 quickly enough to sustain a consistent frame-rate.

Now, compare and contrast with the secondary analysis, where we drop the GPU down to a far more modest GTX 750 Ti, and lower the overall quality preset to the medium level. In this case, for the most part it is the graphics card that is the bottleneck, and the overall performance level lowers the i7 advantage significantly.

Also, I liked Flapdrol's post here:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37502538&postcount=22

Pentium has run every game I tried very well.

If you're not gpu limited you have to sometimes use an fps cap though. Otherwise the high priority game threads hog both cores until the background/low priority threads can't be delayed anymore, and you get noticable stutters, or even have the game stall for a second.

Anyway, I have a gtx 670 so I don't often have to do that.

In a nutshell, get a smaller card and lower detail settings in order to smooth out gameplay.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37928496&postcount=258

More info from Digital Foundry on the causes of stutter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rutk9ErhKG4

So, is this CPU stutter found in the Novigrad stress test a cause for concern? Well, not really. Most in-game stutter is caused when the CPU - not the GPU - is the bottleneck (and that's what we are testing here). As long as you pair your more budget-orientated CPU with an appropriate GPU, you'll hit the GPU limit first - and typically that doesn't cause stutter. And in the case of The Witcher 3, most of the game is GPU-limited (as seen in the first couple of cut-scenes tested here). With that final stress test scene, you'll note that the 4790K is well-matched with the Titan X, the CPU isn't really the bottleneck and thus the latencies are much more consistent.

 

[cbn]

8C/16T Sandy Bridge CPU, for under $100? Seriously, forget Zen, if we can get those CPUs for that price, and we can get new motherboards for them.

An alternative to a new motherboard would be to buy a used/refurbished LGA 2011 workstation (1P versions = Dell T3600/T3610, HP Z420, Lenovo S30. 2P versions= Dell T56xx and T76xx, HP Z620 and Z820, Lenovo D30). The prices on these are getting pretty good now. (Not exactly cheap like LGA 1366 workstations, but reasonable).

However, I think it would be better to have new LGA 2011 motherboards as well for a multitude of reasons (including being able to use a different case with more drive bays, etc).

 

[Magic Carpet]

8C/16T Sandy Bridge CPU

But can these be overclocked? If not, we are not very much interested. The stock performance is so-so for a true octa-core, especially in ST. Good luck finding a good/cheap X79 board as well

Unless you get a dual-socket board and really need that MT performance.

Piledriver @ 4.6 Ghz (seems to be the sweet spot for the FX; powered by ASUS ROG Crosshair V) is doing quite well versus X5 @ 2.77 Ghz 106.6 Mhz Bus. Pay attention to the Integer workload. We just need the power numbers to compare the duo (without a doubt FX taking the lead here).

 

[Ranulf]

From a thread in Motherboards sub-forum:


8C/16T Sandy Bridge CPU, for under $100? Seriously, forget Zen, if we can get those CPUs for that price, and we can get new motherboards for them.

Yeah, I'm not seeing any major options for a mobo that works. Maybe I'm missing them.