[Techspot] Athlon x4 860K vs Pentium G3258 deathmatch

[VirtualLarry]

Overclock the Pentium, and leaving the 860k at stock seems rather biased as well. It's a decent overclocker after all.

Huh? They had the 860K at 4.4, just like the G3258.

 

[Abwx]

Huh? They had the 860K at 4.4, just like the G3258.

Certainly but all 860K will do 4.4 while all pentium do not get to this frequency.

Besides througput wise a 3258 has to be clocked at 4.4 to just match the stock 860, wich dont appear in games that rely on ST, but in everything else that is Mthreaded the pentium is far behind...

 

[frozentundra123456]

Should have used mantle with Thief and DA:I also. Overall not a very good test to say the least. I do think it shows up that the pentium is not as terrible as some on these forums try to portray dual cores though. I mean, yea, if you are one of those who demand 60fps minimums, then of course it is awful, but some may not be so sensitive to frametimes. But on the other hand, if you are building a system that costs a few hundred dollars, buying games, paying for internet to play online, etc, none of these super budget cpus or trying to play on an APU, for that matter, makes much sense to me.

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

"Touching on that a little more, the Core i3 isn't really an ideal upgrade. Although it does support four threads thanks to Hyper-Threading, the highest clocked model runs at just 3.8GHz with no Turbo boost, so it won't be much of an upgrade from an overclocked G3258, if at all."

This quote alone proves the author at TechReport is clueless. Most new games are now requiring a quad core for minimum system requirements.... What kind of idiot builds a gaming PC that can't play most new games? Yeah, the G3258 is sweet -- never mind that GTA 5 or Far Cry 4 won't even install on it.

The G3258 is a waste -- people really need to invest in the i3 or i5 if the system is used for gaming.

 

[TheELF]

Yeah, the G3258 is sweet -- never mind that GTA 5 or Far Cry 4 won't even install on it.

They do install and run on just two cores, and you can even record gameplay,even with a celeron.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tKrlFABd4c FC4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK0_wOKv-rU GTA V

 

[kmmatney]

An OC'd G3258 has one of the fastest IPC's you can find, but it's dual core and only dual core so no HT like i3 and it'll have its limitations. A G3258 is totally a CPU I'd be using when building a PC for my mother or grandmother or for a guest PC in my house, or such otherwise an i3 would be my choice for lightweight gaming and office use. The Athlon X4... I just don't even consider.

The G3258 does fine for light (or even medium) gaming and office use - no need to spend more on an i3, especially with the $99 G3258 bundles. I have 3 G3258 systems at the house, all overclocked and heavily used for gaming (with mid-range video cards). It may have limitations, but light gaming and office work are not one of them. It's worked on every game I've tried - obviously if you want to play the "latest" games on high settings, you need to spend more money on the cpu and video card...

 

[MiddleOfTheRoad]

They do install and run on just two cores, and you can even record gameplay,even with a celeron.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tKrlFABd4c FC4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK0_wOKv-rU GTA V

Yeah, sure.... This must have been a hallucination:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2851...t-to-a-bleak-future-for-budget-pc-gamers.html

The workarounds aren't worth it. Why would anyone want to play with such low detail settings?

 

[lyssword]

Yeah, sure.... This must have been a hallucination:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2851...t-to-a-bleak-future-for-budget-pc-gamers.html

The workarounds aren't worth it. Why would anyone want to play with such low detail settings?

Old article.. I've been playing far cry 4 on my 4.6 g3258 for like 100+ hours. When I picked up gtx 970 to replace my r270, fps almost doubled. Everything plays silky smooth. Locked at 60 fps on max settings 1080p. Also after replacing card, crysis 3 went from jerky to decently playable.

 

[TheELF]

The workarounds aren't worth it. Why would anyone want to play with such low detail settings?

Details are dependent on your VGA ,put in something better than an r7-240 and you will get better resolution and detail.
The videos show you what kind of FPS the CPU can handle.

 

[Madpacket]

The G3258 @ 4.4Ghz works just fine, even combined with high end cards for most games. I agree with the article, no need to waste money on an Intel dual core, dual threaded CPU. There's not enough performance difference to warrant extra cost. It's better spent on the video card or a larger SSD.

 

[PG]

The minimums are what will kill you with the G3258.

http://wccftech.com/witcher-3-cpu-benchmarks-fx-63008350-i7-4790ki5-4690ki3-4130g3258-oc/

Core i7 4790K – 65.0/84.4
Core i5 4690K – 52.0/79.2
Core i3 4130 – 38.0/68.9
G3258 at 4.5GHz OC – 27.0/63.8
FX 8350 – 56.0/75.2
FX 6300 – 45.0/69.6

"The first section of the video demonstrates how the same CPU can still drive the Titan X to almost the same degree.

But once we hit 01:12 – a tour of Novigrad City on horseback… well, then we see some big changes. This area can hit 80% utilisation across all eight threads on a Core i7 4790K! The less powerful the CPU here, the more CPU stutter you encounter. The G3258 – overclocked to 4.5GHz – doesn’t work out too well."

 

[TheELF]

The minimums are what will kill you with the G3258.

http://wccftech.com/witcher-3-cpu-benchmarks-fx-63008350-i7-4790ki5-4690ki3-4130g3258-oc/

Core i7 4790K – 65.0/84.4
Core i5 4690K – 52.0/79.2
Core i3 4130 – 38.0/68.9
G3258 at 4.5GHz OC – 27.0/63.8
FX 8350 – 56.0/75.2
FX 6300 – 45.0/69.6

"The first section of the video demonstrates how the same CPU can still drive the Titan X to almost the same degree.

But once we hit 01:12 – a tour of Novigrad City on horseback… well, then we see some big changes. This area can hit 80% utilisation across all eight threads on a Core i7 4790K! The less powerful the CPU here, the more CPU stutter you encounter. The G3258 – overclocked to 4.5GHz – doesn’t work out too well."

Sure someone is gonna buy a $1000 titan and then he's gonna go"hmm what CPU might I combine with that now" and is gonna choose a pentium....
Or as the review you posted said

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).

 

[Madpacket]

Sure some games may stutter in areas, the games like Witcher 3 that are able to handle multiple threads very well but the brute IPC and speed makes up for the lack of cores in most games as the article demonstrates.

Although the G3258 can handle much faster cards in select games, for budget machines (where this CPU belongs) I think the best cards to match up with the G3258 is a 750 Ti or a 260X.

This combination should give a great 1080P experience for most.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Sure some games may stutter in areas, the games like Witcher 3 that are able to handle multiple threads very well but the brute IPC and speed makes up for the lack of cores in most games as the article demonstrates.

Although the G3258 can handle much faster cards in select games, for budget machines (where this CPU belongs) I think the best cards to match up with the G3258 is a 750 Ti or a 260X.

This combination should give a great 1080P experience for most.

Depends on how high it's OCed. I have a 7950 paired with mine. Then again, I got them for $130 ea on a firesale from Newegg. You'll pay that much for a 750ti, even today.

 

[crashtech]

Minimums are the real story of playable setups, and the G3258 which I have championed in the past has really struggled in this regard in certain games, GTA V in particular. I don't believe the article featured minimums, I'd revisit it if they update it with such.

 

[dark zero]

Seems that the Athlon 860K in the newer games aged better than the Pentium K....
Even an i3 is not a good option on this. Games don't like HT much. Is better to have a Quad Core FX (8K series) or an i5 to above.

 

[crashtech]

Games like HT just fine. It has to do more with total execution throughput at this level, and HT provides about 30% or so of one core, making an i3 the functional equivalent of a 2.6 core (gross oversimplification).

 

[dark zero]

Games like HT just fine. It has to do more with total execution throughput at this level, and HT provides about 30% or so of one core, making an i3 the functional equivalent of a 2.6 core (gross oversimplification).

That is not good since games are going to 3 real cores and beyond... even an FX 6300 should perform well. But the reality is not that.

 

[TheELF]

Minimums are the real story of playable setups, and the G3258 which I have championed in the past has really struggled in this regard in certain games, GTA V in particular. I don't believe the article featured minimums, I'd revisit it if they update it with such.

Minimums in GTA V are all about how fast your system can shuffle around the huge amounts of data this game needs,it has nothing to do with the CPU per se.At low where the textures are smaller you get a smooth experience even with the cheapest system,look at the video after the 4min mark.
Back in the day games used timers to run at appropriate speeds now the user has to make sure of this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK0_wOKv-rU

 

[TheELF]

Games like HT just fine. It has to do more with total execution throughput at this level, and HT provides about 30% or so of one core, making an i3 the functional equivalent of a 2.6 core (gross oversimplification).

No,it provides about 30% more in benches like cinebench,
hyperthreading works by utilizing the "leftovers" of a running thread
https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/performance-insights-to-intel-hyper-threading-technology

Now look at a 13% thread of cinebench
compared to a 13% thread of a game like gtav
1.46 compared to 0.71
An i3 can actually run two gtav threads at the same time without slowdown,apart from maybe the task schedulers delays.

 

[BSim500]

Sure someone is gonna buy a $1000 titan and then he's gonna go"hmm what CPU might I combine with that now" and is gonna choose a pentium....
Or as the review you posted said

You always get that on these kind of reviews. Every time a low end dual-core Intel gets reviewed, "it's cr*p for not meeting 60fps in Crysis 3 on Ultra". Meanwhile, low end AMD's at the same price are reviewed on the grounds of "well if you actually look at the most played Steam game statistics, it's like DOTA2, Age of Empires 2 HD, Borderlands 2, Portal 2 and Skyrim, so we'll use those on "low" instead"... Same with modern low-end GPU 'reviews' : "This 750Ti / R7 260X will give you 12fps on Ultra at 1440p with 8xMSAA". Some "tech sites" are literally getting dumber by the day...

 

[soccerballtux]

This is true in general for AMD vs Intel, cache flushes are more penalizing on AMD.
Just look at any JIT languages, like Javascript and Java. AMD can massively (even more so than usual) lose to Intel in those situations.

I was just considering how to take my overclock to the next level. Isn't this why overclocking via bus first, then multiplier is going to provide better results? mispredicted branches get filled faster

 

[B-Riz]

You always get that on these kind of reviews. Every time a low end dual-core Intel gets reviewed, "it's cr*p for not meeting 60fps in Crysis 3 on Ultra". Meanwhile, low end AMD's at the same price are reviewed on the grounds of "well if you actually look at the most played Steam game statistics, it's like DOTA2, Age of Empires 2 HD, Borderlands 2, Portal 2 and Skyrim, so we'll use those on "low" instead"... Same with modern low-end GPU 'reviews' : "This 750Ti / R7 260X will give you 12fps on Ultra at 1440p with 8xMSAA". Some "tech sites" are literally getting dumber by the day...

Truth.

I remember back in the day, it was buy a budget CPU, OC the crap out of it and buy a mid-range GPU and OC a little bit, THEN PLAY YOUR GAMES!!!!

 

[crashtech]

No,it provides about 30% more in benches like cinebench,
hyperthreading works by utilizing the "leftovers" of a running thread
https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/performance-insights-to-intel-hyper-threading-technology

Now look at a 13% thread of cinebench
compared to a 13% thread of a game like gtav
1.46 compared to 0.71
An i3 can actually run two gtav threads at the same time without slowdown,apart from maybe the task schedulers delays.

Well, I did make sure to mention that it was a gross oversimplification, what perhaps should have been mentioned has that HT's effectiveness is highly application dependent. Also, your screenshots are both of a G1820, so it's not clear how they illustrate anything about HT.

 

[TheELF]

Also, your screenshots are both of a G1820, so it's not clear how they illustrate anything about HT.

They just show how many commands, of a core, a benchmark uses and how many a "typical" game might use.
In benches,and benches use every available command, HT gives + 30% ,in games,because games use a lot less commands,HT gives a lot more up to +100%.
Here is a video of someone disabling cores on a I3 in the latest dragon age,you can clearly see the FPS doubling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIcVetS92ic