[Tom's] Benching Intel's Unlocked Pentium G3258

[Essence_of_War]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pentium-g3258-overclocking-performance,3849.html

They were able to get to 4.5 GHz w/o too much trouble (~40% OC!) and it seems to compete really nicely with the Athlon 750k and the i3 brethren all around the benches.

 

[USER8000]

Already posted a few hours ago in the Haswell refresh thread:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36454440&postcount=282

 

[frozentundra123456]

Yea, problem is, you need an aftermarket cooler and a z87 motherboard, bringing the price close to the level of an i3 or FX 63xx system, which is more well rounded. Also with an i3, you know what performance to expect, while with the pentium you arent guaranteed what overclock you will be able to get.

Toms has full tests of both the Pentium AE and Devil's canyon. Come on Anand, lets see test of something besides tablets, smartphones and ssds.

 

[NTMBK]

As in the other thread, I would point out that Tom's got a surprisingly low overclock on their 750k (only 4.3GHz). Bear that in mind when looking at the comparisons.

But yeah, it's a pretty nice product. Now they just need to make an unlocked i3

 

[Essence_of_War]

Yeah, I noticed that. I feel like I've seen people with OC's up to like 4.5 GHz not terribly unusual. It's only another 5%, but 5% in say, MLL, makes them basically neck-and-neck.

 

[Homeles]

Come on Tom's. I know you suck, but seriously, how in the world can anyone think this graph displays anything meaningful?

But yeah, it's a pretty nice product. Now they just need to make an unlocked i3

Definitely. I don't even see an unlocked i3 being an issue these days, in terms of cutting into Intel's revenue.

 

[Alatar]

Yea, problem is, you need an aftermarket cooler and a z87 motherboard

Might not get to 4.5GHz without an aftermarket cooler but the pentium puts out much less heat than proper haswells. Just look at the 4790K for what the stock cooler is capable of. It's just fine for 4ghz+ OCs on the pentium.

Also at least asus supports pentium overclocking on all of their 9 and 8 series mobos. B85, H87, H81, H97 etc. http://www.hardware.fr/news/13776/asus-permet-oc-g3258-toutes-ses-lga-1150.html

 

[notty22]

I will post my experience after I get the parts It's a novelty, almost. You can buy Intel's 'tuning protection' plan for 10.00 for it. So max o/c shall be sought !
http://click.intel.com/tuningplan/purchase-a-plan

 

[crashtech]

Look at the pedestrian i3 beating the overclocked Pentium in every game and most synthetics. The frame time variances in particular make an H81 + i3 > Z8/97 + G3258.

 

[Denithor]

Come on Tom's. I know you suck, but seriously, how in the world can anyone think this graph displays anything meaningful?

If you just look, it actually does say something meaningful: the X4 750k completely sucks. The majority of those peaks (purple and orange-yellow) are tied to that chip, meaning that it just doesn't have the guts to push the GPU properly.

 

[sm625]

If you just look, it actually does say something meaningful: the X4 750k completely sucks. The majority of those peaks (purple and orange-yellow) are tied to that chip, meaning that it just doesn't have the guts to push the GPU properly.

Yeah but the biggest peak for the 750K is on the overclocked one, which proves the chart is meaningless. No way should a chip perform worse with an overclock. You can see the same thing with the overclocked pentium. A huge spike for the overclocked one but nothing for the stock clock.

 

[NTMBK]

Yeah but the biggest peak for the 750K is on the overclocked one, which proves the chart is meaningless. No way should a chip perform worse with an overclock. You can see the same thing with the overclocked pentium. A huge spike for the overclocked one but nothing for the stock clock.

Throttling?

 

[monstercameron]

even with intel's IPC advantage the 750k performs very well...the mantle/dx future does look bright!

 

[sm625]

It's either throttling or some sort of internal cpu error causing the whole pipeline to be flushed. If after more investigation, we find that this tiny little dual core actually is throttling, then is there even a point to overclocking it at all? Does ARMA 3 use any AVX instructions?

 

[Madpacket]

This new CPU should be fun to play around with. If I can find a cheap ITX motherboard that supports it and allows for undervolting I may pick one of these up. I want to test out undervolting and overclocking to 4Ghz and throw in a Geforce 750 TI to see if I can build a light gaming system that pulls less than 120W from the wall while gaming. The default heatsink should be fine for these speeds / voltages. Cheap ITX steam box project perhaps.

Although I'm a little concerned with the frame time variance, hopefully Anand / TR will do a proper review and tell us if this is a real problem while gaming.

The Athlon 750K just became a very unattractive CPU.

 

[24601]

This new CPU should be fun to play around with. If I can find a cheap ITX motherboard that supports it and allows for undervolting I may pick one of these up. I want to test out undervolting and overclocking to 4Ghz and throw in a Geforce 750 TI to see if I can build a light gaming system that pulls less than 120W from the wall while gaming. The default heatsink should be fine for these speeds / voltages. Cheap ITX steam box project perhaps.

Although I'm a little concerned with the frame time variance, hopefully Anand / TR will do a proper review and tell us if this is a real problem while gaming.

The Athlon 750K just became a very unattractive CPU.

Anandtech doesn't do frame rating or any real tests on frame time variance.

They also never do properly CPU limited testing. Don't rely on their articles for any of these spheres of knowledge.

 

[toyota]

Look at the pedestrian i3 beating the overclocked Pentium in every game and most synthetics. The frame time variances in particular make an H81 + i3 > Z8/97 + G3258.

you cant stop stupid so just let the people that want these for gaming knock themselves out. they will simply look at framerates only and assume its fine for nearly all modern games. another thing that most people dont seem to get is that they will have to shut down everything else when trying to play a game as their cpu will already be tapped out.

 

[VirtualLarry]

you cant stop stupid so just let the people that want these for gaming knock themselves out. they will simply look at framerates only and assume its fine for nearly all modern games. another thing that most people dont seem to get is that they will have to shut down everything else when trying to play a game as their cpu will already be tapped out.

I'm starting to re-think my idea about upgrading my Q9300 @ 3.0 rigs to Z97 + 20AP. I already bought a pair of i3 rigs (one IB, one SB, both 3.4Ghz), that are pre-builts. Pain to upgrade (due to "Secure Boot"), but they would probably work with 750ti cards, since they would have a new enough UEFI GOP-compliant BIOS.

So 20AP would be better for straight-up productivity over an i3, but for gaming, i3 would be better? Even IB or SB i3?

 

[crashtech]

So 20AP would be better for straight-up productivity over an i3, but for gaming, i3 would be better? Even IB or SB i3?

The benchmarks show that even the much-maligned i3 will work better than the OCed G3258. The frame variance data in particular tells the story, but even the averages look better for the four-threaded CPUs across the board, even at far lower clock speeds. The only real justifications to get the Pentium are to get a cheap toy for fun, or to get into an overclockable platform on the cheap and learn the ropes before jumping to a quad.

 

[USER8000]

This new CPU should be fun to play around with. If I can find a cheap ITX motherboard that supports it and allows for undervolting I may pick one of these up. I want to test out undervolting and overclocking to 4Ghz and throw in a Geforce 750 TI to see if I can build a light gaming system that pulls less than 120W from the wall while gaming. The default heatsink should be fine for these speeds / voltages. Cheap ITX steam box project perhaps.

Although I'm a little concerned with the frame time variance, hopefully Anand / TR will do a proper review and tell us if this is a real problem while gaming.

The Athlon 750K just became a very unattractive CPU.

The Pentium dual core even when overclocked is having noticeably worse frame times than the Core i3 or even the ancient Athlon II X4 750K in a number of games. The Athlon II X4 750K is getting onto 2 years old now,and IIRC an even older old Phenom II X4 965 is probably faster.

Thief does appear to have stuttering issues,and in fact one of our forum members saw this when they tested the G3420.

The G3258 will have its uses no doubt,but its not a slam dunk for all types of games IMHO.

 

[Cerb]

If you want something cheap, slow, and OCable, an RPi or BBB would offer way more fun potential.

I just see this as an answer to a silly question (sadly, not one nobody asked, but the results were about as expected).

 

[Vesku]

Perhaps silly if one obsesses over gaming potential but for single threaded productivity applications it's quite a nice little chip.

 

[Cerb]

I already bought a pair of i3 rigs (one IB, one SB, both 3.4Ghz), that are pre-builts. Pain to upgrade (due to "Secure Boot")

Why does that make them a pain to upgrade? Just turn it off in the BIOS once, and you're done. Bye bye secure boot. You can still get all the great bennies of EUFI (to be read with both tthe solid backing of being truth, yet still thick sarcasm, since plain text leaves much to be desired).

So 20AP would be better for straight-up productivity over an i3, but for gaming, i3 would be better? Even IB or SB i3?

Based on their testing being in a perfect review environment, **** no, the i3 or i5 will be better for basically everything! Add in A/V, your printer status monitor, Steam, Afterburner, your mobo tweak/sensor utility (or Speedfan), and so on, and so forth, then having browser and Explorer windows in the background, if not other background tasks, and you're going to choke that poor CPU's cache and memory IO capability, while not having HT to help out when one thread is stalled on a core. That's on top of the OCed one still not beating the stock i3 in many of those tests, and only just barely doing so most of the time when it does.

Another $50-70 for an i3, or $70-150 for an i5, will go a long way, in practice, unless you're making a single-threaded one-trick pony PC.

 

[Vesku]

Based on their testing being in a perfect review environment, **** no! Add in A/V, your printer status monitor, Steam, Afterburner, your mobo tweak/sensor utility (or Speedfan), and so on, and so forth, then having browser and Explorer windows in the background, if not other background tasks, and you're going to choke that poor CPU's cache and memory IO capability, while not having HT to help out when one thread is stalled on a core. That's on top of the OCed one still not beating the stock i3 in many of those tests, and only just barely doing so most of the time when it does.

Unless you are actively running a full antivirus scan or some such I don't see an i3 beating this Pentium @ 4.5+Ghz in single threaded applications.

 

[toyota]

Unless you are actively running a full antivirus scan or some such I don't see an i3 beating this Pentium @ 4.5+Ghz in single threaded applications.

http://i.imgur.com/ICQlSnU.png

you seemed to have missed the key word which was GAMING.