Which CPU for gaming? G3258 vs 1045T

[VirtualLarry]

G3258 @ 3.8Ghz, with single 7950 card, and 8GB,

OR

1045T @ 2.7, 3.0, or possibly 3.5, with dual 7950 cards and 16GB?

Was looking at the Witcher 3 sys reqs thread in VG&CE, and wondering.

 

[Arachnotronic]

The dual 7950s, obviously...

 

[VirtualLarry]

The dual 7950s, obviously...

That wouldn't be bottlenecked by the lower IPC of the 1045T? Especially one running significantly lower than 4Ghz? (Max I ever had this one clocked to stable was 3.51Ghz.)

Edit: The Thuban is basically like a Phenom II X4, with two additional cores. So would a 3.0Ghz Phenom II X4 bottleneck CF 7950s?

 

[escrow4]

Phenom barely. Witcher 3 recommends a quad for both minimum and recommended although I doubt an X6 has the puff to push up minimums. See pcgameshardware core scaling test in Inquisition - the old Phenom's minimums just died.

 

[VirtualLarry]

What if I upgraded to an FX 8-core? Would that be better than the Thuban?

I've resisted upgrading, because the FX-8 only has 4 FPUs, wheras the Thuban has 6, and I primarily do DC with that rig.

 

[AtenRa]

FX8320, OC to 4GHz with default cooler and you are done.

 

[DownTheSky]

FX8320, OC to 4GHz with default cooler and you are done.

Your ears and nerves are done too. Just buy a decent cheap aftermarket cooler.

EDIT: I have this sucker installed
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099
It keeps my 8320 cool n quiet. I'm too lazy to search, but you should be able to find even cheaper decent models.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

I've got the arctic freezer pro 7 rev 2 on my FX. It's really cheap and even with the stock TIM I've got nothing but great temps out of such a "hot" processor. I do have 5 medium-to-low 120mm fans in a Raidmax Cobra case, but nothing loud or crazy effective.

 

[Abwx]

What if I upgraded to an FX 8-core? Would that be better than the Thuban?

I've resisted upgrading, because the FX-8 only has 4 FPUs, wheras the Thuban has 6, and I primarily do DC with that rig.

You really have nothing else than the lower clocked Phenom X6.??..

For FPU that doesnt matter, there are only four on a FX8xxx but they are twice as powerfull, if not more, as a single X6 FPU, the scores in the benches let no doubt about it, check Cinebench for SSE2 heavy bench, Povray is also adequate for FP comparisons.

What is DC.??..

FX8320, OC to 4GHz with default cooler and you are done.

If possible a 8350 is better, the OP somewhat sell some PCs, if it s for a sale i wouldnt advice overclockings if there s a chip that manage to reach the targeted frequency at stocks settings, unless of course that the buyer agree to the thing to save some costs and get the PC at lower price, although there s not much difference between a 8320 and a 8350, something like 35€ here, surely the same $ amount in the US.

 

[frozentundra123456]

It is an apples to oranges comparison because you are comparing a single video card to SLI. If all else were equal, I think a pentium at 3.8 (I think it should do 4.0 or more easily though) would perform better in most games than a phenom 2 at 2.7 or 3 ghz. It would depend on the game of course, but I think only the most highly threaded games would stand a chance in a direct cpu to cpu comparison, unless the phenom was overclocked to something well above 3ghz.

That said, I dont see either system as particularly well balanced. I would hesitate to go with a non-HT dual core for a gaming machine these days, and an old, slow clocked phenom seems a poor match for SLI.

Edit: No offense Larry, but I have to say, you come up with some very "novel" PC configurations!! Best option might be to sell one of the 7950s and one of the cpus, and buy an FX8350, or an i5 for the intel system.

 

[Yuriman]

DC = distributed computing

~

I agree with frozentundra. My preference is generally to spend more on my CPU than on my GPU, because I do more with my PC than game and browse the web, and it sounds like you do too. I'd be very reluctant to put either an x6 or Pentium in a primary rig for myself.

Probably none of my business, but it seems you're often very budget constrained, are your utilities free? You might try trimming back some fat in your budget for a month or two so you can buy higher end parts. Shut down the PCs at night + aggressive sleep timer, lower the heat a hair, run the appliances during off-peak hours, etc. and see what you can free up for some nicer parts.

 

[Essence_of_War]

I think a lot depends on what games and what resolutions.

If you're trying to play triple-A titles at 2560x1440+, then you are almost certainly only GPU bottle-necked and the xfire is certainly the way to go.

If you're playing stock Skyrim at 1920x1080 or lower, you might actually hit a CPU bottleneck on the 1045T. A single 7950 should be able to max out that game coupled with a modern i3/i5.

What games and resolutions are you trying to play at?

 

[Flapdrol1337]

for the question pentium vs amd multicore there isn't really a good answer as both are great for some games and quite bad in others.

safe choice? i5 and single 7950.

 

[VirtualLarry]

You really have nothing else than the lower clocked Phenom X6.??..

Yes. I have a pair of Q9300 rigs, now at stock, with single PCI-E x16 slots, a pair (one not yet built) of G3258 rigs, one at 3.8, with single PCI-E x16 slots.

My only existing rig with dual PCI-E x16, has a 1045T in it. It is AM3+, so I could drop in an FX.

I don't own any Intel quad-cores newer than the Q9300 currently, nor any Intel-based mobos with dual PCI-E x16 slots, save for a DFI X48 board that is still BNIB.

For FPU that doesnt matter, there are only four on a FX8xxx but they are twice as powerfull, if not more, as a single X6 FPU, the scores in the benches let no doubt about it, check Cinebench for SSE2 heavy bench, Povray is also adequate for FP comparisons.

What is DC.??..

Distributed Computing.

If possible a 8350 is better, the OP somewhat sell some PCs, if it s for a sale i wouldnt advice overclockings if there s a chip that manage to reach the targeted frequency at stocks settings, unless of course that the buyer agree to the thing to save some costs and get the PC at lower price, although there s not much difference between a 8320 and a 8350, something like 35€ here, surely the same $ amount in the US.

No, this is for personal use, for coin mining and some (slight) gaming. Also for heating my room in the winter.

Does it matter for coin mining, whether you use a PC with dual video cards, versus two PCs with single (same) video cards? Is there any benefit for having two together in the same PC for hashing?

Just thinking, it would be easier on my PSU if they were seperate, there wouldn't be any Crossfire issues. (My BIL has a PC I built for him, with CF 6870 cards, and he says that CF crashes half of his games if it's enabled.) And it would be easier on the PSU(s).

I'm wondering if I would even notice a difference in games, with two 7950s, versus one, at 1080P?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Edit: No offense Larry, but I have to say, you come up with some very "novel" PC configurations!! Best option might be to sell one of the 7950s and one of the cpus, and buy an FX8350, or an i5 for the intel system.

Uhm, I just bought the video cards, I'm not selling them off. I primarily wanted them for distributed computing, which will run just fine one card to a PC, with my G3258 CPUs.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Why not G3258 + CF 7950s?

Also, if you can afford extra GPUs for DC, buy a freaking i5 already.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If you're playing stock Skyrim at 1920x1080 or lower, you might actually hit a CPU bottleneck on the 1045T. A single 7950 should be able to max out that game coupled with a modern i3/i5.

What games and resolutions are you trying to play at?

Well, the only "modern" game I currently own (my sole game on my Steam account) is Skyrim. I don't have any mods either. My monitors are 1920x1080, although I do own a couple of 1920x1200 monitors too.

I could upgrade both G3258 rigs to $120 Haswell i3 3.5Ghz CPUs, possibly. I hesitate to get a quad i5, because then I would want the unlocked version, and then I would want a Z97 board to go with it, and the price of both kind of sprirals upwards.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Why not G3258 + CF 7950s?
Also, if you can afford extra GPUs for DC, buy a freaking i5 already.

1) Because that would require purchasing an expensive x8/x8 1150 board, and if I purchased an expensive board, I would want an expensive CPU to pair up with it.
2) The 7950 cards were $130 ea. A nice SLI/CF-capable x8/x8 1150 board is like $140+, and a 4670K is like $230-240. That's $380. And that would leave me without nice GPUs.

I primarily run DC, so for that, the GPUs are more important than an i5. For gaming it may be different.

I originally just intended to put one 7950 in each G3258 rig, and call it a day.

Let's put it this way, are there many games on the market today, that I won't be able to play, at 30FPS mins, with a G3258 and a single 7950 at 1080P, even set as low as "med".?

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Is there any benefit for having two together in the same PC for hashing?

Less powerconsumption, so a better coin/W ratio?

 

[Yuriman]

The performance hit from slower PCIe is pretty small, and definitely much smaller than the hit you'd take with getting a slower processor. Personally, I'd vote you go with this board:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-389-_-Product

And this CPU:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819117302

Grand total = ~$250


If you decided to go with an i3 instead, it would come out to around $180 total.

There's nothing wrong with locked chips. They'll outperform dual cores and older AMD quads/hexes any day of the week. By going with a K and Z chipset, you're spending 50% more for ~33% more performance, not including a heatsink.

 

[soccerballtux]

only way it makes sense to go intel at AMD's pricepoints is if you get a quad core

 

[AtenRa]

Sell the Phenom X6 1045t cheap on ebay(you can get $80 easily) and get the FX8320($150 at Newegg). Then OC to 4GHz with default cooler(same as FX8350) and default voltage (turn off Turbo).
I could OC my FX8350 at 4.4GHz with default Cooler but it was getting too loud, so I dont recommend using the default cooler above 4.2GHz for 8-cores.

CF those HD7950 for gaming and mining,

Done for only ~$70 bucks

 

[crasherkid]

I had a G3258 I borrowed for a few days but unfortunately mine only ran at 3.9GHz as the motherboard was capped off at 1.2 vcore

 

[SPBHM]

for witcher 3 I would think X6+ dual cards is a lot better

if you are willing to sell stuff on ebay, it might be a good idea to replace the 7950s with a single 290? because the single 290 does not require two PCIE slots

 

[escrow4]

Just sell off everything old and new from your desktops and spare parts and build a 5820K rig with those 7950s. Problem solved. Permanently.