Is the pentium really that bad (for gaming)

[Joelan]

I don't have a lot of money :/
But i want to build a pc for 1080p low settings gaming. (mostly bf4) My budget is about £550-£600 max (with windows)
I had the idea to get a good graphics card, good motherboard and good psu, then upgrade the cpu later meaning i would get the mid range gaming pc, but at a later date (I'm talking 6 months or so)

My plan was to get the R9 270x with the i5 4670k but thats almost all my budget gone.

I realised that all the haswell processors run on the same 1150 motherboards, so it would be easy for me to buy a lower end cpu (like the pentium G3220) then upgrade the cpu without needing to get a new motherboard.

So my question -

Is the pentium that bad?
Compared to an i3 with the same cores and clockspeed (which is over twice the price)
I don't see how it can be that much worse, and having to spend more on the cpu would mean i would have to get a lower gpu (which i really don't want to do).

Should i spend more on the cpu and buy a lower end gpu?

Should I do it the other way round? Buy the i5 4670k and a lower end gpu (Radeon 7750?) and upgrade it in a few months?

Is there any other way anyone can suggest?

 

[sourodip]

Save ur money if u want to buy a high end cpu along with a gpu,for now u can buy a hd7750, it's also good and would be perfect for the G3220(i'm currently using the 7750-it's a budget king).

 

[laviniuc]

it's not a bad cpu. sure it's missing ht but it's still a decent performer. it shouldn't bottleneck the 270x as far as i know.

 

[sourodip]

Save ur money if u want to buy a high end cpu along with a gpu,for now u can buy a hd7750, it's also good and would be perfect for the G3220(i'm currently using the 7750-it's a budget king).

 

[Memnarchon]

Hello.
After sandybridge tech was revealed by intel all Pentiums were nice entry lvl gaming CPUs.
Now with Haswell, Pentium has two Haswell cores which are great for any game use up to two cores.
For games that use 4 cores and more i3 and i5 will perform better but the dual core Haswell pentium should be enough to provide playble frame rates.

edit: This is from the 1st generation (sandybridge) of newer Pentiums at Jan 29, 2012.

But it will be enough to give you the general idea.

 

[Quaddro]

pentium G3220 is a decent dual core cpu..

yes, it'll struggle in newer games which is more thread optimized..

well, this cpu will hold r 270x performance, but you still gain around 80%-85% real performance of this card..

so i suggest you to take your first plan..
"buy a lower end cpu (like the pentium G3220) then upgrade the cpu without needing to get a new motherboard"

and in the future, you can upgrade your processor with i5 class..

 

[Joelan]

Hello.
After sandybridge tech was revealed by intel all Pentiums were nice entry lvl gaming CPUs.
Now with Haswell, Pentium has two Haswell cores which are great for any game use up to two cores.
For games that use 4 cores and more i3 and i5 will perform better but the dual core Haswell pentium should be enough to provide playble frame rates.

edit: This is from the 1st generation (sandybridge) of newer Pentiums at Jan 29, 2012.

But it will be enough to give you the general idea.

Awesome, hopefully i'll be able to get a quad core cpu before they become the norm for gaming pc's.