I3/950 or G3258/960?

[rivalrifle]

I3 4170 with GTX 950 Factory OC or G3258 with GTX 960?

 

[CTurbo]

i3 + 950 for sure

 

[KKAW]

I3 4170 with GTX 950 Factory OC or G3258 with GTX 960?

A lot of games utilize 4 threads/virtual cores.
Especially if you are playing heavy games like GTA V the i3 4170 + GTX 950 is the way to go!

Also the GTX 960 will not be able to yield it's potential performance with the G3258.

For best performance you can overclock your GPU safely using this guide:
Safe GPU Overclocking Guide 2015

 

[JackNaylorPE]

The 950 is so close on the heels of the 960 I gotta think there will be no successor to the 650 Ti Boost.

Overclocking is really "cake" and very simple.

1. Do a yahoo / google search on "Guru3D [insert your card here]":
Example: http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/asus-geforce-gtx-950-strix-review,1.html

2. Go to the drop down and move to the overclocking page
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_geforce_gtx_950_strix_review,30.html

3. Input the data you see

With AfterBurner we applied the following settings:

Temp Target 95 Degrees C
CPU clock +125 MHz (from default 1140 MHz)
power limiter 111%
Mem clock +700 MHz (x2 for effective data-rate = 6600 + 700 + 700 = 8000 MHz)
Voltage N/A
FAN RPM default

4. Try it. No worries whether your card does better or worse, every card will be different; it;s just a starting point. You simply have to go way out of your way to hurt your GPU with MSI Afterburner or any other OC utility w/o physically modding the card or using custom BIOSs. nVidia has clamped down so much both legally and physically on the board that with the built in protections there's nigh on nothing to worry about. You also won't be able to get near the maximum temperature of the GPU (98C on 970 / 92C on 980 Ti. 95C on 950. The 970 starts throttling at 80C, 980 Ti at 85 ... dunno about then 950 yet.

5. The above being said, it's best to use the more rugged PCB designs. On nvidia side, outside of the special cards like the Classified and Lighting types, among the "Big 4", these have come from Gigabyte G1 and MSI Gaming series of late followed a few steps behind by Asus and then EVGA which historically has used a reference PCB / VRM. . Be aware that the 9xx series cards can well exceed their rated TDP .... by 100 watts or more on some models so select PSU accordingly.

6. Adjust core and memory up and down as you see fit. If it never crashes, you can try higher; if it does, you gotta go lower. I would suggest finding your stability point with core first and then doing memory.

 

[rivalrifle]

OK, I think I go with the i3 and the 950

 

[lawszepie]

how about G3258 + 950?
do they couple well together?

 

[KKAW]

how about G3258 + 950?
do they couple well together?

I wouldn't recommend the G3258 unless you will upgrade to something like the i5 4690K soon, it's more of a placeholder rather than a proper CPU for gaming.

It's performance is very poor in gaming especially since most new games utilize more than 2 virtual cores, however since it can overclock you can overclock it. Even if you overclock it the performance will be not as up to par with i3 4170 when it comes to games that utilize more cores.

Stil with the i3 4170 + GTX 950