G3258 vs i3-4160 for NON-gaming budget build?

[Zorba Greekthe]

Zero gaming, and I do not edit video, music, or sound.

My use is 90% heavy Chrome browsing (hence will probably get 16GB of memory) and multi-tasking with various Office apps. Some light multi-media usage like music listening and movie watching as well.

Would I see ANY noticeable difference in paying the extra $40 for the i3-4160? It doesn't seem like hyper-threading is something that has any relevance to a user with my needs at all...or am I missing something?

 

[MasterDell]

Yikes you guys easy there... You cant compare an A10 to the i3 in performance. Not at all. An A10 has similar performance to the 760k/860k. Definitely an i3 and 8GB of RAM is in order. Dont waste money on a GPU. The 6300 will be destroyed by the 4130-4160 in single threaded performance which is what OP is doing. I would never suggest an FX 6300 for someone who is not gaming and editing. Not to mention that there would be a better upgrade path with any intel board over an AMD board. 😛 I would rather a g3258 over an FX 6300 for single threaded tasks. Single core pass mark score for the 6300 is embarrassing. It gets about 1400 where as the G3258 is at about 2100. That is a HUGE difference for the price youer paying. And I agree.. Whoever said to get a z series board with a g3258 is a moron.

 

[bsod1]

Yikes you guys easy there... You cant compare an A10 to the i3 in performance. Not at all. An A10 has similar performance to the 760k/860k. Definitely an i3 and 8GB of RAM is in order. Dont waste money on a GPU. The 6300 will be destroyed by the 4130-4160 in single threaded performance which is what OP is doing. I would never suggest an FX 6300 for someone who is not gaming and editing. Not to mention that there would be a better upgrade path with any intel board over an AMD board. 😛 I would rather a g3258 over an FX 6300 for single threaded tasks. Single core pass mark score for the 6300 is embarrassing. It gets about 1400 where as the G3258 is at about 2100. That is a HUGE difference for the price youer paying. And I agree.. Whoever said to get a z series board with a g3258 is a moron.

not a moron, just an overclocking enthusiast. The G3258 is an unlocked CPU after all.

 

[AHBman]

A lot of cash per year ....
An i3 eat at max 85 watts
An FX 6300 140 Watts

140 - 85 = 55 Watts = 0,055 KwH

Average unit price of KwH in USA : 0,08 $

By considering using PC in stress test 4h per day all the year

So,

0,055 kwh x 4h x 365d x 0,08 $ = 6,54 $

6,54 $ differnce between an i3 and an FX 6300, only, you won't save a lot cash per year man, sorry ....

 

[MasterDell]

Yikes you guys easy there... You cant compare an A10 to the i3 in performance. Not at all. An A10 has similar performance to the 760k/860k. Definitely an i3 and 8GB of RAM is in order. Dont waste money on a GPU. The 6300 will be destroyed by the 4130-4160 in single threaded performance which is what OP is doing. I would never suggest an FX 6300 for someone who is not gaming and editing. Not to mention that there would be a better upgrade path with any intel board over an AMD board. 😛 I would rather a g3258 over an FX 6300 for single threaded tasks. Single core pass mark score for the 6300 is embarrassing. It gets about 1400 where as the G3258 is at about 2100. That is a HUGE difference for the price youer paying. And I agree.. Whoever said to get a z series board with a g3258 is a moron.

not a moron, just an overclocking enthusiast. The G3258 is an unlocked CPU after all.

Yes a moron. Who suggests to overclock to someone who doesnt really know much about parts. He didnt even suggest a proper after market cooler. Someone who is doing web surfing and opening word docs should not be suggested to buy a pentium and a z series board when they can easily be told to buy an H81 and an i3 for the same price. My coffee is more expensive than what both processors together will cost per year. No reason to consider power savings.

 

[bsod1]

I chose the H97 above because it doesn't require to flash the BIOS, etc. works out of the box.

 

[Zorba Greekthe]

I would go for the i3-4160 over the 6300 because you'd save a lot of cash per year.
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-4160-vs-AMD-FX-6300

huh, I thought he was recommending the FX-8320 ... is it almost the same as the 6300?

 

[Zorba Greekthe]

Yikes you guys easy there... You cant compare an A10 to the i3 in performance. Not at all. An A10 has similar performance to the 760k/860k. Definitely an i3 and 8GB of RAM is in order. Dont waste money on a GPU. The 6300 will be destroyed by the 4130-4160 in single threaded performance which is what OP is doing. I would never suggest an FX 6300 for someone who is not gaming and editing. Not to mention that there would be a better upgrade path with any intel board over an AMD board. 😛 I would rather a g3258 over an FX 6300 for single threaded tasks. Single core pass mark score for the 6300 is embarrassing. It gets about 1400 where as the G3258 is at about 2100. That is a HUGE difference for the price youer paying. And I agree.. Whoever said to get a z series board with a g3258 is a moron.

not a moron, just an overclocking enthusiast. The G3258 is an unlocked CPU after all.

Yes a moron. Who suggests to overclock to someone who doesnt really know much about parts. He didnt even suggest a proper after market cooler. Someone who is doing web surfing and opening word docs should not be suggested to buy a pentium and a z series board when they can easily be told to buy an H81 and an i3 for the same price. My coffee is more expensive than what both processors together will cost per year. No reason to consider power savings.

Well, to be fair, the MicroCenter guy I talked to first asked me if I was interested in AMD or Intel, and I said Intel.

He also did not suggest OCing because I had told him right off that I only needed a basic usage machine with zero gaming...I did say multi-tasking, but it's possible that I didn't go into sufficient detail about my Chrome multi-tabs addiction. 😀

 

[Zorba Greekthe]

Someone who is doing web surfing and opening word docs should not be suggested to buy a pentium and a z series board when they can easily be told to buy an H81 and an i3 for the same price. My coffee is more expensive than what both processors together will cost per year. No reason to consider power savings.

The Pentium G3258 + MSI z97 combo at Microcenter is $100...where can I find an i3 + H81 combo for that price? Please supply link if available, thanks.

 

[MasterDell]

After reading the above, he looks even more like a moron. He suggested a board designed for overclocking.. Jeezus. Haha so to put this straight he says not to overclock and yet suggests an z series board and an unlocked pentium. And Bsod he is not a moron how?



*EDIT* Sorry was unaware of MS's deal for the cpu and mobo. Was referring here:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($69.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI Z97 U3 Plus ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($89.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $159.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-03 20:32 EST-0500



PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4150 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($114.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($48.99 @ Mwave)
Total: $163.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-03 20:34 EST-0500

 

[bsod1]

After reading the above, he looks even more like a moron. He suggested a board designed for overclocking.. Jeezus. Haha so to put this straight he says not to overclock and yet suggests an z series board and an unlocked pentium. And Bsod he is not a moron how?

haha alright after reading those things, probably. I just find these words a little strong for someone who tried to help. Good thing people ask for suggestions online before purchasing crap off people in retail stores. 😛

Anyway.

 

[AHBman]

Both of i3 and FX are good in multitasking (multithreading), and have 6 threads can help much than 4 threads, and you won't use your CPU at 100 per core in bureautic, so the bad score of FX will not limit at all, on the contrary, more threads = more tasks

Edit : the i3 4150 is also an "Haswell Refresh"

 

[Zorba Greekthe]

CPU: Intel Core i3-4150 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($114.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($48.99 @ Mwave)
Total: $163.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-03 20:34 EST-0500

But wouldn't I need to update the BIOS on that H81 since the i3-4150 is a Haswell Refresh chip?
That's what killed my other idea, of getting the 4160 at MC for $100 along with an open box Asus Z87...someone else on this thread alerted me to the BIOS issue.

 

[RazerZ]

You could get a 4130 Haswell. Although for the build described I think the G3258 would get the job done.

@g-unit1111 you own this CPU so how would you say it fares for the tasks he mentioned?

Also I doubt you would need 16gb ram, even with 50 tabs on chrome w/ multitasking. 8GB max.

 

[Zorba Greekthe]

You could get a 4130 Haswell. Although for the build described I think the G3258 would get the job done.

@g-unit 1111 you own this CPU so how would you say it fares for the tasks he mentioned?

Also I doubt you would need 16gb ram, even with 50 tabs on chrome w/ multitasking. 8GB max.

Please say more about what you mean by "get the job done"---aside from Benchmark numbers, would I see any noticeable improvement during actual use compared to my current main PC (Thinkpad with an i5-2450M, 8GB DDR, 128GB SSD boot, 500GB HDD, Win7HP) at all with the G3258 or the i3?

I mean, if not then there are lots of other things I could do with $250-350.

 

[mdocod]

i3-4130 vs FX-8320:

i3 is up to ~45% faster in lightly threaded workloads and costs less to implement.
8320 is up to ~65% faster in heavily threaded workloads and would be paired with a dGPU, which has additional performance advantages in terms of system responsiveness, but costs more to implement.

---------

i3-4130 vs A10-7850K

i3 is up to ~30% faster in lightly threaded workloads and costs less to implement.
7850K is up to ~10% faster in heavily threaded workloads and about twice as fast in SIMD/GPGPU workloads.

For the system usage that Zorba has described, all of these CPUs are exceptional high value options. each system would have its own strengths and weaknesses. In this particular case, with low to no emphasis on GPU demands, the i3 is initially the better value than the A10, but it's important to note that Kaveri and the HSA/hUMA environment is very new to the desktop, as such, there is a lot of performance scaling from software optimizations and compiler changes to be had on Kaveri in the coming years. The stronger iGPU in the A10 will steadily be leveraged more and more for executing instructions unrelated to graphics. Initially, the i3 may be stronger, but in the long run that may change.

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Differences in power dissipation and it's effect on costs of operation are generally only meaningful in enterprise applications where the system runs at sustained high load continuously and is on 24/7. For home-use or small-office use builds like this, the only time power dissipation is a significant concern is if it gets in the way of certain form factor or noise level goals. (Intel systems are much better suited to VESA size ITX builds, for example).

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The 760G board I was suggesting is cheap in price, but not in build quality. The low price comes from the fact that the components and chipset are dirt cheap because they are pretty old now. Build quality is actually better than any H81 or FM2+ board in it's price class. (At microCenter, that price class is practically free).

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If you already have an i5-2450M in your current system, then the performance advantages of any of the CPUs being discussed here are not apt to be significant for the intended use of the machine. The i3-4130 is only ~30% faster than your i5. I wouldn't call that a significant enough change to bother with. I usually upgrade when the difference will be double or better.

 

[Zorba Greekthe]

I wouldn't call that a significant enough change to bother with. I usually upgrade when the difference will be double or better.

Wow, that could take another 5 or 10 years then!

Hmmm maybe I should just put the money into the short-throw home theater projector I've been looking at then...

 

[g-unit1111]

You could get a 4130 Haswell. Although for the build described I think the G3258 would get the job done.

@g-unit1111 you own this CPU so how would you say it fares for the tasks he mentioned?

Also I doubt you would need 16gb ram, even with 50 tabs on chrome w/ multitasking. 8GB max.

The PC that I built these tasks for is about almost exactly the same as what the OP wants - Office, web browsing, and video streaming. This CPU is definitely powerful enough for the price. Just about any PC can run MS Office apps without using much power. And I definitely agree about the RAM, I can have like 100 tabs open on my laptop and I hardly ever use any RAM. Not that I would have 100 tabs open on my laptop. :lol:

 

[mdocod]

... I can have like 100 tabs open on my laptop and I hardly ever use any RAM. Not that I would have 100 tabs open on my laptop. :lol:

Your tabs must be empty!

That's less than 100 tabs, on a machine with a discrete GPU. over 6GB used. Oh, and this is in XFCE. Add about 1.5GB to this figure to account for an iGPU+windows.

 

[RazerZ]

For fun I opened 100 tabs in chrome of different bookmarks I had, opened up one of my projects in word, and played a movie in the background. Here's my results.

Using Win 7 HP 64 bit.

 

[AHBman]

This is what i said, you won't use 100 per 100 per core in this situation, more threads can really help

 

[Zorba Greekthe]

You could get a 4130 Haswell. Although for the build described I think the G3258 would get the job done.

@g-unit1111 you own this CPU so how would you say it fares for the tasks he mentioned?

Also I doubt you would need 16gb ram, even with 50 tabs on chrome w/ multitasking. 8GB max.

The PC that I built these tasks for is about almost exactly the same as what the OP wants - Office, web browsing, and video streaming. This CPU is definitely powerful enough for the price. Just about any PC can run MS Office apps without using much power. And I definitely agree about the RAM, I can have like 100 tabs open on my laptop and I hardly ever use any RAM. Not that I would have 100 tabs open on my laptop. :lol:

@g-unit1111:
wait, you mean you built a G3258 + MSI Z97 system that handles heavy multi-tasking without any issues?
Or were you talking about an i3-4130 based system?

 

[g-unit1111]

@g-unit1111:
wait, you mean you built a G3258 + MSI Z97 system that handles heavy multi-tasking without any issues?
Or were you talking about an i3-4130 based system?

No I built a HTPC with a G3258, an MSI H81M-E33 motherboard and 8GB of Mushkin Silverline RAM. For that purpose it will handle video playback and streaming, internet browsing and MS Office use (although I can't really imagine anyone wanting to use MS Office on an HTPC :lol: ). And why would you need 100 tabs open anyways? Unless you're doing some heavy volume stock trading, I can't see why anyone would have that many tabs open.

 

[Onus]

People are making this a lot more difficult than it needs to be. If the OP will be popping in and out of different applications a lot, a SSD will make a bigger difference than the CPU.
At work, I've got an old dual-core E8200 and a GT620, running MS Office, two browsers (IE & FF) with 3-8 total tabs open, multiple layers of security software, a couple of terminal server sessions, Remedy (hog), Wordpad, and 1-2 other applications and the machine is entirely "sufferable" for performance. Some things lag, but likely because I've only got 4GB of RAM and no SSD.
Based on that, although I am reluctant to recommend something I haven't used myself, the G3258 should be sufficient for the OP. You might add a low-end graphics card if you experience video stutter or frame drops, but you'd only need a $30-$40 card.

 

[Zorba Greekthe]

No I built a HTPC with a G3258, an MSI H81M-E33 motherboard and 8GB of Mushkin Silverline RAM. For that purpose it will handle video playback and streaming, internet browsing and MS Office use (although I can't really imagine anyone wanting to use MS Office on an HTPC :lol: ). And why would you need 100 tabs open anyways? Unless you're doing some heavy volume stock trading, I can't see why anyone would have that many tabs open.

No, not stock trading...just ADHD! 😀
But I think 20-50 tabs is more likely. I have about 25 right now as I type. Not experiencing any slowdowns yet, though occasionally I notice some background/desktop apps like RocketDock or Wunderlist acting up.

 

[Zorba Greekthe]

People are making this a lot more difficult than it needs to be. If the OP will be popping in and out of different applications a lot, a SSD will make a bigger difference than the CPU.
At work, I've got an old dual-core E8200 and a GT620, running MS Office, two browsers (IE & FF) with 3-8 total tabs open, multiple layers of security software, a couple of terminal server sessions, Remedy (hog), Wordpad, and 1-2 other applications and the machine is entirely "sufferable" for performance. Some things lag, but likely because I've only got 4GB of RAM and no SSD.
Based on that, although I am reluctant to recommend something I haven't used myself, the G3258 should be sufficient for the OP. You might add a low-end graphics card if you experience video stutter or frame drops, but you'd only need a $30-$40 card.

No video stutter or frame drops, since whenever I watch movies, I tend to close all my other apps.

My typical usage is 20-30 Chrome tabs, Word, Excel, an audio player, Wunderlist, Wordpad, Notepad, WordWeb, Dropbox, Google Drive, Foxit Reader, F.lux, Windows SE, and other minor/background apps. This is currently on an i5-2450M laptop with 8GB hovering around 70% RAM usage and 20-30% on two of the 4 threads shown.

So do you think upgrading to a GS3258 or i3-4130 desktop would yield any significant improvements at all? Or would I have to spend an additional $140 or so for a true quad-core i5 Haswell to see noticeable improvements for this type of usage?