Pentium G3258 Overclocked vs i3-4130

[Woody1999]

Just a little thought I had.

I will be building a computer for a friend within a few months, and we have a really tight budget. Originally we were going for the i3-4130, but I've been looking at the Pentium and it is truly an astonishing chip.

Would a Pentium, with an ASRock Z97M Anniversary motherboard designed specifically for it and a 212 Evo, beat an i3 if overclocked? In respect to gaming, that is. Because I could save my friend a lot of money by going for the Pentium and I would love to experiment with it.

Here is one of our drafts: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/Woody1999/saved/JJdgXL

Woody

 

[SylentVyper]

Just so we're clear, here's a price comparison:

Pentium:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($63.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($25.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97M Anniversary Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($84.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $174.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-06 18:26 EST-0500

Core i3:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4150 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($99.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($39.89 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $139.87
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-06 18:27 EST-0500

The Pentium build wouldn't be any cheaper, but overclocked it would be comparable in most situations. Though I would tend to lean towards the i3 to avoid issues in 3+ threaded games (read: Far Cry 4)

See this comparison by TH for i3 vs Pentium: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pentium-g3258-overclocking-performance,3849-4.html

You're right, it's an amazing chip, but still, for overclocking on air, I don't think it's any sort of better, especially if it's the same cost, or in this case more expensive.


Edit: Just wanted to point out for the same money, didn't go through your whole build list, and I know you're UK lol My point was to show that it's really not any cheaper to go the Pentium route, and the i3 will perform the same or better.

 

[rockie_]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4150 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor (£84.16 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 Anniversary ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£59.60 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£55.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£34.45 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 270X 2GB Dual-X Video Card (£129.95 @ Amazon UK)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£32.99 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£45.49 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £442.63
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-06 23:34 GMT+0000

the PSU is way plenty but more future proof

 

[Saif Uv]

Nope. The i3 4150 performs better in multithreaded applications and handles more applications simultaneously ! And most games now a days are optimized to use more than two threads! So go for the i3 .

 

[NightAntilli]

Don't go for the Pentium. Games are starting to require 4 cores/threads to run properly. The best examples are Far Cry 4 and Dragon Age: Inquisition. It's only gonna get worse from here. If you want some sort of guarantee to be able to run all games that are coming out these days, you must go for at least an i3. Or you'd have to look at the AMD option if an i3 is too expensive, which is the Athlon X4 860k. It's slightly slower than the pentium, and you won't have an upgrade path for the CPU. But you're sure that you can at least run all games since it's a quad core. Here's a performance comparison:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoT638ErboU

I still recommend an i3 though.

 

[Woody1999]

Well my friend only plays games like CS:GO and H1Z1, he won't be needing all out gaming chops. It's more just an experiment to see how good a build we can get out of a certain budget. He can always upgrade in the future if he needs. Plus, we'd both like to play around with overclocking, and the Pentium is one of the best chips our there for it.

Also, in consideration to the first reply, surely using a poor quality motherboard just to show me that the i3 is cheaper is a bad thing? What if he wanted to get an i5-4690K in the future (which he suggested to me)? He wouldn't be able to overclock it on that board, whereas the Z97 board would be a much better option.

Woody

 

[rockie_]

Ha , if i had H97 mobo , i could always get i7 4790(K) or Xeon E3-1231 V3 . No , need of overclocking/risks/hassle