[Adam] The Pentium G3258 Cheap Overclocking Experiment

[Karadjgne]

Huh, I had no problems with GW2 maxed graphics, on a 3750k @4.3, 660ti , even the Attack Lions Arch patch.

 

[Guest]

Hmmm, the posts about smoothness and stutter or lack of stutter for certain systems is intriguing. It would be cool to see an in depth analysis into this, including budget CPU's like the two in this against higher end options like FX's and I5's and exploring in a variety of games the frame time variances, with CPU load shown as well. Also, testing with different motherboards low end to high end and seeing if that makes a difference.

As was said above, 60 FPS is pointless if it's a stuttering mess. With more games taking advantage of 4+ threads recently, it almost has me thinking a dual core with two threads for a gaming machine may be reaching the point of obsolete. Raw FPS is all anybody seems to care about these days in the majority of reviews done for gaming hardware, more attention should be paid to lag and stutter IMO. It would be an interesting read for sure to see that aspect of budget CPU's like these explored more

Also, I have noticed that this Pentium lacks AVX and AES instruction set extensions, as well as a few others that other Haswell and Piledriver CPU's have. Maybe this could cause a slowdown in certain scenarios and applications? I'm not really sure about this though as I really don't know much about instruction set extensions and how much AVX or AES helps in games. I do know it has some SSE instructions and that most games use those, though.

 

[Novuake]

Huh, I had no problems with GW2 maxed graphics, on a 3750k @4.3, 660ti , even the Attack Lions Arch patch.

Problem and above 30FPS are very different things for different people.

 

[mamasan2000]

The frame time variance was really clear in the Crysis test, you could see the stutter.
And that game LOVES CPU cores. I've played it with a dualcore Athlon 3.2 GHz and 8-core FX (same graphics card). 8-core was much much better and I saw 60% utilization on all cores, give or take a few percent. It was a stuttering mess on dualcore.

I think Far Cry 3 is similar. In that it likes many cores.

 

[RedJaron]

^I know from my own comparisons in GW2 with a 970BE+HD7870 vs. i5-3570K+HD7770 that the latter was always smoother, regardless of graphical settings, so sometimes it is definitely IPC. I suspect that lack of threads is indeed the problem here though.

Ever manage to stay above 30 constantly no matter what in GW2? Because I have just about given up...

The Attack Lion's Arch patch was hellish on 3570K 4.7GHz.

I haven't played GW2 in a few months ( been finishing the Mass Effect trilogy finally, ) so I'm not sure if the recent updates have changed anything. But I rarely drop below 30fps on my 2600K + 6870. I'd say 95% of the time it's no problem, but yes, I had a few dips during the Lion's Arch story. It seemed like massive particle effects when 30+ players were in a fight were the biggest problem, but even then it only dipped to 25fps at worst. I see the same thing during huge attacks during WvW. I've got most things maxed when doing story or dungeons, but anytime I'm in heavily populated areas, I turn the details down just a bit. I won't say I keep a perfect framerate "no matter what" but it never feels choppy. Most the time it doesn't go below 45fps.

 

[Novuake]

RedJaron

I am too lazy to turn down detail for Zerging.

You should play again, Season 2 living world is getting interesting. SLOW but interesting...

 

[RedJaron]

I don't bounce back and forth a lot. If I'm gonna play WvW for an hour or two ( or someplace else that has a very high player population, ) I'll adjust the settings. Otherwise they stay where they are and I'll just bear with any slow sections when I'm running through LA or Divinity's Reach.

 

[Onus]

I need to try to get back into GW2 again; it's such a great world. Too bad [mostly] solo playability is pretty much impossible due to arbitrary respawns.

 

[Novuake]

I need to try to get back into GW2 again; it's such a great world. Too bad [mostly] solo playability is pretty much impossible due to arbitrary respawns.

WHen last did you play?

Some weird changes lately.

 

[Onus]

Hmmm, it's been at least six months I think.

 

[Novuake]

Hmmm, it's been at least six months I think.

You are missing out, good old Mordremoths making big trouble.

 

[Alpha3031]

Wait, the Pentium Overclock used a cooler and a Z97 board?

 

[wolverine96]

I am confused. In the configuration section (page 2 of the article) under Motherboards it lists "Pentium Overclock [motherboard] = MSI-Z79 Gaming 7, Pentium Stock [motherboard] = MSI H81M-P33"

So did you use the Z97 board for the "Intel Pentium G3258 (Overclock)" benchmark results, or did you use the H81 board? It sounds like you used the H81:
"MSI was more than happy to poll its engineers for their advice on the least-expensive motherboards from both camps still able to tune our two CPUs. We took those products, added factory cooling, and made another run at overclocking."

If you did use the H81 board, why is the Z97 board even mentioned?

(I'm sorry if somebody else has already asked this in an earlier comment. I don't feel like wading through 90 comments, LOL.)

 

[envy14tpe]

^ Yes, the way the article was written it is not 100% clear as to what setup was used for each CPU combo. Although we are assuming only the MSI H81M was used for the G3258.

The article should make a list saying this CPU was used on this MOBO with this Cooler. That would end all questions.

 

[shmann]

what were the core temperatures when playing bf4 on the overclocked g3258? up towards 80 degrees also?

 

[chrisdash]

Stutter stutter stutter!

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

Who cares how many FPS its pushing if its a stuttering mess.

Wow, I learnt a lot more in this one comment than in the whole article. Really wasn't expecting that. I guess my cheap watercooled 3258 project just went flying into the trash can.

 

[Aikei]

Just to make it clear, does "stock" g3258 means g3258 overclocked on cheap motherboard? Cause it seems like it, judging from the specifications on the second page, whi is kinda misleading... Am I right?

 

[Onus]

Stock means stock; as it comes, running to-spec, not overclocked at all.

 

[wolverine96]

Stock means stock; as it comes, running to-spec, not overclocked at all.

So why are they praising the overclocking ability of the MSI H81M-P33 motherboard if they used it only in their stock system?

"With the advent of overclocking-capable H81, B85, and H87 boards, though, platform cost dropped. Using the products recommended by MSI for entry-level builders, our combination of Intel parts is actually cheaper than the AMD package."
(source)

 

[Alpha3031]

Stock means stock; as it comes, running to-spec, not overclocked at all.

So why are they praising the overclocking ability of the MSI H81M-P33 motherboard if they used it only in their stock system?

"With the advent of overclocking-capable H81, B85, and H87 boards, though, platform cost dropped. Using the products recommended by MSI for entry-level builders, our combination of Intel parts is actually cheaper than the AMD package."
(source)

Typos, probably.

 

[Aikei]

Stock means stock; as it comes, running to-spec, not overclocked at all.

Ok, but the specs say they used the expensive Z board for the overclocked version. While the H81 board they were talking about is mentioned only for the stock version in the specs. And on the first page they said they used the H81 for the overclocked version... There is definitely some condtradiction.

 

[envy14tpe]

This was definitely the most frustrating review I've read on this site. It is extremely unclear what was done and with what setup.

Can someone edit the article and make it clear?

 

[LucoTF]

I think someone copy-pasted that table, and whoever was supposed to proof read it was hungover or asleep

 

[TUF Enforcer]

Keep in mind that even though your getting 80fps or whatever, there will most likely be a lot of stutter in most games. I had an i3 3220 and that stutters in cpu demanding games like bf3 multiplayer and crysis 3. I don't think this Pentium would do better.

I now have an i5 4670k, stutters are completely gone. heck, even my laptop with an i5 2430m was less stuttering than my i3 3220.
If you want to play games on a budget, I recommend a low end i5, like a i5 4460 at least.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

If your mobile i5 was less stuttery than the desktop i3, something's wrong. Both are 2C4T, and the i3 has a higher clock rate than the maximum boost on the i5.