is it a good idea to upgrade from G3258 to i3 4160?

[Maurice97]

i was thinking of upgrading from my G3258 4.2GHz to core i3 4160 for a while till i save enough money to get core i5 4690k?
or is it a waste of money?

Thanks in advance

 

[DonkeyOatie]

How long is this process going to take (the saving bit)? The i3 is nearly half the cost of the 4690K, so by not getting the i3, you should get there a lot faster.

I don't think it is a good idea from an economic perspective. Saving the money will nearly halve the time you need to wait. What's your motherboard and what's your CPU cooler and GPU?

 

[Maurice97]

How long is this process going to take (the saving bit)? The i3 is nearly half the cost of the 4690K, so by not getting the i3, you should get there a lot faster.

I don't think it is a good idea from an economic perspective. Saving the money will nearly halve the time you need to wait. What's your motherboard and what's your CPU cooler and GPU?

i dunno how long it's going to take me to save enough for that i5
and my PC specs are:
Asus B85M-G
G3258 4.2GHz with arctic cooling freezer 13 pro
16GB ddr3 memory 1600MHz
Gigabyte Radeon HD 7850 2GB oc edition
1TB seagate 7200RPM HDD
and some weird branded cheap 500Watt PSU (i need to upgrade that asap because it's from my old build)
i built this PC a while ago as a budget gaming PC but i think it's time for an upgrade (i5 4690K, R9 390 8GB, 16gb ddr3 with 750watt PSU)

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Unless you plan to change your motherboard as well, don't bother with the 4690K. It is an unlocked chip and you cannot overclock it on the motherboard. An i5 4460 or 4590 would be plenty ,or a Xeon 1231v3 for extra power (but not speed).

Here's some Synthetic Benchmark data I collected last summer http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2791401/xeon-1231v3-haswells-synthetic-benchmarks-science-fair.html

You can see the relative performance of the Haswell CPUs.

I'n many circumstances, a well overclocked G3258 is as good as a stock i3 or very close.

 

[Maurice97]

Unless you plan to change your motherboard as well, don't bother with the 4690K. It is an unlocked chip and you cannot overclock it on the motherboard. An i5 4460 or 4590 would be plenty ,or a Xeon 1231v3 for extra power (but not speed).

Here's some Synthetic Benchmark data I collected last summer http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2791401/xeon-1231v3-haswells-synthetic-benchmarks-science-fair.html

You can see the relative performance of the Haswell CPUs.

I'n many circumstances, a well overclocked G3258 is as good as a stock i3 or very close.

but my G3258 is unlocked and i was able to overclock it to 4.2GHz easily using my B85M-G

 

[CTurbo]

You will not be able to overclock an i5 on your motherboard. I think an i5 4460 or 4590 would be a great match.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Unless you plan to change your motherboard as well, don't bother with the 4690K. It is an unlocked chip and you cannot overclock it on the motherboard. An i5 4460 or 4590 would be plenty ,or a Xeon 1231v3 for extra power (but not speed).

Here's some Synthetic Benchmark data I collected last summer http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2791401/xeon-1231v3-haswells-synthetic-benchmarks-science-fair.html

You can see the relative performance of the Haswell CPUs.

I'n many circumstances, a well overclocked G3258 is as good as a stock i3 or very close.

but my G3258 is unlocked and i was able to overclock it to 4.2GHz easily using my B85M-G

The 20th Anniversary G3258 was a special chip, with microcode than made it unlocked on any motherboard. K series chips are overclockable only on Z series boards.

 

[Rookie_MIB]

^^ What he said. Basically you have a 'cheaper' motherboard, as such the power delivery systems might not be quite up to the task of supporting overclocked CPUs and overclocking is only officially supported on Z-series chipsets for Haswell based CPUs.

Have you been reading the big flap about the Skylake OC on non-Z motherboards? It shows what lengths Intel will go to in order to keep overclocking limited to the enthusiast (K-CPUs and Z-motherboards - read: expensive) parts. They don't want people overclocking cheaper parts otherwise it would cannibalize their margins on their enthusiast parts.

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Non-Z overclocking was available when Haswell first came out, but Intel stopped it with a microcode change.

 

[Maurice97]

well, i'll get the i5 4690K first and later i'll upgrade to Z97 motherboard i can't afford both at the same time

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Don't want to be a pill, but why do you think you need the unlocked chip? What are you using the system for? Overclocking is of very limited value in gaming because the limiting factor is usually the GPU.

 

[dudeman509]

You'll really benefit very little from getting an unlocked chip. Just pick up the i5-4460 when you can and call it good. No need to waste money replacing the motherboard too - you're 2/3 of the way to building an entire Skylake system at that point.

 

[Maurice97]

Don't want to be a pill, but why do you think you need the unlocked chip? What are you using the system for? Overclocking is of very limited value in gaming because the limiting factor is usually the GPU.

i don't have the money to upgrade PC hardware every couple of years so OCing will be useful in the future
here where i live (in Israel) the i5 4690 costs 980 and the 4690K costs 1080 not much difference
and i'm going to use my PC for 1080p high-ultra gaming

 

[DonkeyOatie]

Fine. That plan will work then, and an overclocked 4690K will remain relevant for years to come on a good Z97 board.