[Techspot] Athlon x4 860K vs Pentium G3258 deathmatch

[crashtech]

When I saw this graph, I started thinking ANYTHING with more than 2C/2T is better than a Celeron or Pentium for gaming these days:

 

[dark zero]

Games killed the lowest tier of Intel and game AMD and Nvidia some air to survive.... What an irony... And HT is not helping on higher tiers... An i5 or an Hexcore i7 are better in that cases.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

If you have to go through the extra hassle of capping the framerate to 30fps, I'd rather just go with an AMD quad core at that price point. Consistently slow, potentially faster in multi-threaded games, no stuttering issue, and fully featured as far as extensions (AVX) go.

I disagree, the pentium plays everything perfectly if you tune settings and/or cap fps, while some games always run badly on amd.

 

[TheELF]

When I saw this graph, I started thinking ANYTHING with more than 2C/2T is better than a Celeron or Pentium for gaming these days:

GTA V is one of those games where, no matter the system,people get massive drops seemingly at random.
It happens on 8 core amd and it happens on i7 systems as well.
Do a google search of gta v massive drops and you will see that no one is safe.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gtaonline/comments/33um4a/huge_fps_dropsstuttering_on_a_fx_8350r9_290x/

However my GTA runs very bad. I get quite alot of frame drops (and stuttering) from 50-60fps to 20 and sometimes even below 10.

 

[crashtech]

GTA V is one of those games where, no matter the system,people get massive drops seemingly at random.
It happens on 8 core amd and it happens on i7 systems as well.
Do a google search of gta v massive drops and you will see that no one is safe.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gtaonline/comments/33um4a/huge_fps_dropsstuttering_on_a_fx_8350r9_290x/

So the three times 2T/2C CPUs were tested for the above graph, they were victims of random fps drops?

 

[AtenRa]

I disagree, the pentium plays everything perfectly if you tune settings and/or cap fps, while some games always run badly on amd.

I can tell you i can play every game, even latest AAA games with A8-7600 + HD7950 @ 1GHz at 1080p. If you can tune settings and cap fps with the Pentium you sure can do the same with any other CPU.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

I can tell you i can play every game, even latest AAA games with A8-7600 + HD7950 @ 1GHz at 1080p. If you can tune settings and cap fps with the Pentium you sure can do the same with any other CPU.

The aaa games aren't the problematic ones. Mechwarrior online used to run like a dog on amd cpu's. On a pentium it's fine. Flight simulator x also runs awfully on amd.

 

[TheELF]

So the three times 2T/2C CPUs were tested for the above graph, they were victims of random fps drops?

Probably,I don't even know what they benched, in-game benchmark or real gameplay.I already uploaded a video ,post #30 ,that shows a celeron running gta v @25fps,while recording,inside the city which is the part with the most objects/draw calls, with no major issues.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Probably,I don't even know what they benched, in-game benchmark or real gameplay.I already uploaded a video ,post #30 ,that shows a celeron running gta v @25fps,while recording,inside the city which is the part with the most objects/draw calls, with no major issues.

It's not random. Gta 5 has background threads that stream in assets, but the main threads will hog both cores if you let them, until the background stuff can't be delayed anymore and the game stutters or freezes for a second.
If you pair a pentium or celeron with a modest gpu you won't have this problem as you're not cpu but gpu limited and there's aways cpu time for the background threads, pair it with a very powerful gpu and you might need an fps limiter.

 

[Fox5]

I disagree, the pentium plays everything perfectly if you tune settings and/or cap fps, while some games always run badly on amd.

I disagree. The AMD cpu will give at least a mediocre experience in everything. The Pentium is UNPLAYABLE in some things, and some things it's great.

I would take playable consistency over high and lows and endless tweaking to work around the defects of a product.

More and more games are console ports, and expect lots of threads. The Pentium just isn't in mind for them as a use case, they expect at least 4 threads.
Any game optimized for consoles WILL use AVX, which the Pentiums don't have. In anything that uses AVX, the Pentium will never catch a Core i3 even at max overclock, and it might just barely match an Athlon with a heavy overclock.

If you're trying to build a gaming rig on the cheap, I'd go for the architecture that more closely matches the consoles and will be able to play games in the future without significant issue. Or spend the extra money and go for a core i3.

 

[cbn]

Probably,I don't even know what they benched, in-game benchmark or real gameplay.I already uploaded a video ,post #30 ,that shows a celeron running gta v @25fps,while recording,inside the city which is the part with the most objects/draw calls, with no major issues.

Here is the scene that was benchmarked (for CPU test 1):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AxCa1XQofg

 

[cbn]

Results from CPU test 2:

(This time they threw in the Athlon x 4 860K and compared to a R9 290 OC as well)

http://pclab.pl/art57777-23.html

http://pclab.pl/art57777-24.html

 

[cbn]

If you pair a pentium or celeron with a modest gpu you won't have this problem as you're not cpu but gpu limited and there's aways cpu time for the background threads, pair it with a very powerful gpu and you might need an fps limiter.

With the OC Pentium G3258 having higher avg. FPS than the AMD quad cores (including OC Athlon x4 860K) in GTA V when using GTX 970 OC or R9 290 OC, I wonder what happens to minimums when we lower detail settings and use smaller GPUs?

 

[crashtech]

With the OC Pentium G3258 having higher avg. FPS than the AMD quad cores (including OC Athlon x4 860K) in GTA V when using GTX 970 OC or R9 290 OC, I wonder what happens to minimums when we lower detail settings and use smaller GPUs?

You think smaller GPUs result in higher minimums with a given CPU? Is this a theory, or is there any evidence we can look at? Not arguing, just curious.

 

[VirtualLarry]

You think smaller GPUs result in higher minimums with a given CPU? Is this a theory, or is there any evidence we can look at? Not arguing, just curious.

It would follow, logically, if using a lower-end video card causes one to be GPU-limited, and thus limited frame-rates, thus allowing the CPU to "breathe" more, thus allowing time for background processes to run, thus avoiding the occasional CPU "logjam", that ends up tanking frame rate minimums for a split-second, and causes hitching.

It would certainly be an interesting thing to test.

 

[cbn]

You think smaller GPUs result in higher minimums with a given CPU? Is this a theory, or is there any evidence we can look at? Not arguing, just curious.

Take a look at the video linked in the following post:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37513254&postcount=44

25 FPS stable with G1820 and R7 240 1024 x 768.

And info in this post too:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37518505&postcount=71

P.S. If GTA V goes on sale, I will buy it and try with G3258 and Athlon x4 860K using both my R7 250X and GTX 660.

 

[crashtech]

Hmm, I have a G3240, a 750ti, and an R9 290. I've been thinking about getting GTA V. I don't know if the 750ti is considered low end enough for a valid comparison though.

 

[tential]

Hmm, I have a G3240, a 750ti, and an R9 290. I've been thinking about getting GTA V. I don't know if the 750ti is considered low end enough for a valid comparison though.

Can't someone just share the game to you for a review?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Any game optimized for consoles WILL use AVX, which the Pentiums don't have. In anything that uses AVX, the Pentium will never catch a Core i3 even at max overclock, and it might just barely match an Athlon with a heavy overclock.

If you're trying to build a gaming rig on the cheap, I'd go for the architecture that more closely matches the consoles and will be able to play games in the future without significant issue. Or spend the extra money and go for a core i3.

Do AMD's APUs in the consoles even have a competent implementation of AVX?

I wasn't aware that AVX was used much, or even at all, in console or PC games.

I was under the impression that the performance advantage of the i3 over the Pentium in PC ports, was due to thread usage, and nothing more.

I don't think that I've ever seen "AVX" listed on a PC game's specs, either as required or recommended. I'd love to be proven wrong, though.

 

[frozentundra123456]

That was my impression as well. Or maybe it is avx2 that is still not widely used.

 

[TheELF]

Take a look at the video linked in the following post:
25 FPS stable with G1820 and R7 240 1024 x 768.
And info in this post too:
P.S. If GTA V goes on sale, I will buy it and try with G3258 and Athlon x4 860K using both my R7 250X and GTX 660.

The 240 is already only running at ~50% at the settings used,you can check gpu-z running in the upper right corner,it's considered a totally overpowered card already(for the settings used) .
It's all about limiting the framerate to something the system as a whole can handle.

 

[AtenRa]

At 1024x768 you can play every game even with the Intel Haswell HD graphics. At those low resolutions every 2-3 year old(or older) CPU can play any game at 30fps or higher.
The problem with dual core Pentium is that it can not play latest AAA titles at 1080p with high-end GPUs without stuttering when Quad Core Athlon can.

 

[cbn]

The problem with dual core Pentium is that it can not play latest AAA titles at 1080p with high-end GPUs without stuttering when Quad Core Athlon can.

If someone is buying Pentium G3258 or Athlon x 4 860K how many of them are going to use high end GPUs though?

Also, looking at the result of GTA V CPU test #2 (using R9 290X OC), the OC Athlon x4 860K minimum FPS is only 3 FPS better than the OC G3258:

(Athlon x 4 860K @ 4.6 GHz = 18 min FPS, 21.6 avg FPS)
(Pentium G3258 @ 4.5 Ghz = 15 min FPS, 26.1 avg FPS)

.....And both CPUs aren't producing good frame rates.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Do AMD's APUs in the consoles even have a competent implementation of AVX?

Depends on whether or not they are Jaguar-style cat cores or Puma/Puma+ -style cat cores. I'm fairly certain that Puma/Puma+ fixed the "two cycles per AVX instruction" problem in Jaguar.

Regardless, both Jaguar and Puma do support AVX, and you can actually see a performance increase on Jaguar using AVX, even if it is only half as fast as you'd think would be normal.

 

[cbn]

Looking at those GTA V results in post #98, notice how well the stock clocked Lynnfields did.

Core i5 750 = 19 min FPS, 23.2 avg. FPS
Core i5 860 = 20 min FPS , 24.4 avg FPS