Questions On Pentium G3258

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May 7, 2014
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Im building budget(ish) pc, and I want to get the new Pentium g3258, and I have a few questions, When I saw the specs, it states that on 'memory support', it says that its only '1333mhz'. Does this mean that I can only get 1333mhz memory? And another, should I get this CPU?

Thanks In Advance 😀
 
Solution


The Pentium G3258 is going to perform best for most games. I've seen little evidence that the X4-750K AMD CPU is a better way to go. It may have four cores, and while it's great in many games as well I know it got just over HALF the performance in Metro Last Light as an i5-4670K since that game is very demanding of the CPU. Since both CPU's have four cores each core must be about 60% the performance of the Haswell architecture though the Pentium may be slightly lower.

So again the G3258 is going to win in most games (i.e. StarCraft 2) because most games don't need more than two cores and it has higher performance per core than AMD CPU's, and it's questionable whether the X4-750K would beat it by much in games that really need a great CPU.

The X4-750K (or 760K) may pull ahead in games like BF4 but we need a balanced system that's going to be the best on AVERAGE (i.e. 8/10 games).

The i3 is not a great idea IMO. It's more money, and may have hyperthreading but it's not overclockable. If a game supports hyperthreading it can at MOST get 30% more improvement though 15% is more likely. You can overclock the G3258, though this does present a BUDGET issue as the motherboard to support that will be slightly more expensive.

Sorry if this is complicated. Just trying to give you an informed opinion so you can decide.

I still recommend the G3258. You can then drop in a 4-core Haswell CPU later if your budget allows and you think you need it but the X4-750K uses the FM2 motherboard which doesn't have any better CPU's yet I believe.
 
Update:

*This is to show that the G3258 is the best value. And to be clear, the comment that dropping to a GTX750Ti but getting the X4-750K would DOUBLE your frame rate is completely incorrect. In fact, since I prove below that the G3258 is a slightly better CPU then your frame rate would be LOWER by getting a worse CPU and lower again by getting a worse graphics card, so you might be closer to 20FPS at times not 60FPS.

1) http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2014/06/24/intel-pentium-g3258-review/5

These two games (Skyrim, Shogun 2) are actually more demanding of the CPU than average though less than some modern games like BF4.

Note that the G3258 actually BEATS the FX-8350 even when not overclocked though it does not do as well as the 4-core Intel CPU's. It ties or beats the FX-8350 in Shogun 2 though getting 4.8GHz is unlikely with an inexpensive motherboard.

These are only two benchmarks, but considering the poor FX-8350 performance it makes me question if the X4-750K/760K would be any better.

2) http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/cpu/70977-intel-pentium-anniversary-edition-g3258/?page=7

Ignore the top charts as they aren't using a dedicated card and drop all the way to the bottom. In THREE GAMES the G3258 almost matches or ties the i7-4770K. It ties in Bioshock Infinite.

3) ***NOTE*** http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pentium-g3258-overclocking-performance,3849-4.html

Arma 3 - G3258 beats the X4-750K
BF4 - G3258 ties the X4-750K
Grid 2 - G3258 beats the X4-750K
Metro LL - G3258 roughly ties the X4-750K
Thief - G3258 beats the X4-750K
Tomb Raider - G3258 ties the X4-750K (think chart is mislabelled)
WOW - G3258 beats the X4-750K

*So the G3258 beats or ties the X4-750K.
 


Thanks for your time taken to help me with my problem. I have made my mind up on the Pentium K thanks to those charts and what you have stated.

Another question, if I overclock the Pentium, will it bottleneck a GTX770?
 
yes the Pentium will definitely be a bottleneck with a GTX770. Even a GTX 760 will be bottlenecked by the CPU in some games and applications.
Couple this Anniversary Pentium G3258 together with a graphics card like the EVGA GTX750 Superclocked 1GB / MSI GTX750ti GAMING 2G / MSI R9 270 GAMING 2G videocard / MSI R7 260X 2G and you will have no problem running the latest games on high settings 1080p for about 150$.
BTW i would recommend getting cheap watercooling set like Coolermaster Seidon 120V or Corsair H55 with it to reach a magic 4,5 GHz 😛
 


It may be overkill, but I wanted to go for a h100i or 105. So, I can't get a GTX770? But, I see some reviews, and they have the Pentium K with a GTX780Ti.... And also, is it overkill if I went with the Asus VII Ranger motherboard?
 


For the reviews, they used a 780 Ti to see how severe the bottleneck would be. Getting such a powerful board and cooler is pointless if you have a Pentium. The Ranger is overpriced. For best performance, get a Gigabyte Z97X-SOC Force. Benchmarked to be the best.
 
For the price of an expensive z97 motherboard and aftermarket heatsink, you could get an i5 4440 and h81 motherboard and be fine. I really wouldn't get a dual core now in the year 2014. Going to get bogged down in any kind of modern multiplayer game like BF4.


The i5 setup would be much better than spending so much on a cooler and motherboard for a dual core cpu. You could also drop to a 750ti and it's quite capable at 1080p, there's droves of reviews on youtube about it.
 


The Gigabyte board's color does not fit my build, Im going for either a red-black or yellow-black build
 


You would get one, yes, but this depends in what games you play. You can get DDR3-1600 and the Pentium, but don't expect 100% GPU usage. I would go for at least an i3, i5 at most.
 
You can even oftentimes find locked i5 cpus on ebay/amazon at a decent price used and as long as it's from a good seller you're fine. It will be many years before a Sandy/Ivy bridge i5 isn't good enough for gaming. The dual core Pentium g3258 is very strong per core being haswell and could game well, just don't do heavy multitasking. I would strongly recommend dropping to the gtx 760 or even gtx 750ti and getting an i5 to begin with though, even if it's the cheaper locked i5 4440 or i5 4570,etc. With the saved money, you could still get the z97 mobo you seem to want, thought that's sorta pointless with a locked cpu unless you're going to crossfire/sli

It really doesn't take much to play stuff well on 1080p. An r9 270x or gtx 760 will easily suffice. On a little lowered settings like turning off MSAA which is unnoticeable to me anyway, the GTX 750ti is quite capable, and you could save money by getting a smaller power supply since the 750ti sips power.

In 2014, I'd strongly suggest a quad core, even if you have to pick up a sandy/ivy bridge used secondhand
 
Just bought this for my stepson's bday to play Wildstar:
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Pharst%C3%85r/saved/j4vqqs
Stock speed out of the box it got 45-58ish FPS. We overclocked it VERY easily to 4.5 Ghz (with a very good air cooled setup) and are seeing up to 80 FPS in open world with medium settings. It will be very competitive. Also, though it isn't very "budget" oriented, if you want or plan on getting a G Sync monitor, the EVGA SC or FTW 750ti cards are the only ones made with the display port needed to run G Sync (just an fyi).
 


With that kind of money why not go with the i5 4690k? Get rid of the cooler, thermal paste, extra fans etc. Run it stock. You can get a decent case for half that with still good cooling. HD instead of an ssd. (Upgrade later). Somebody correct me if I'm wrong but an i5 running stock is still better than the g3258 pegged out to its limits in most applications. Not to mention longer cpu life. Better long term solution too for games that use multiple cores. Not to mention i5 oc'd would simply destroy the pentium for the most part if you decide to go that route.

 


We play mmo's exclusively which use 2 cores. The new Pentium over clocked is a very powerful single core for this purpose. So I decided to spend the money elsewhere on a good overclocking motherboard, incidentally 1150 socket (ripe for i5 upgrade), case, cooler, and fans. I also heard and wanted to try the 750ti. I'm not too techy but I wanted to maximize my money. This setup easily overclocked and handles Wildstar well (which he doesn't play anymore) and gets 90 fps on ultra in wow. The next "obvious" upgrades would be an i5 and better gpu but to be honest I think I'll holiday gift him a G sync monitor as these are reported to have ZERO input lag which would make him competitive in pvp. I wanted to see how good this chip was and I am now building an HTPC/light gamer with a G3258 for the big screen in the living room :).
 


1) I know
2) All my kid's money can go to another gpu or cpu lol.
I built this with upgrades in mind...

 


Yeah I was thinking CM N200 but to be honest I wanted to try this case; kind of a narrow Air 540...I splurged a bit. Basically the hardware is best price/performance with a few extra bells and whistles and 1150 socket can be upgraded give my kid something to work towards. As far as HTPC I'm not knowledgeable really but that's for another thread. Bottom line: we love the new Pentium G3258, particularly with a 750ti.

 


Wow, this thread was started a few months ago and its shocking to see that its still so quite popular 😀 Just curious, it wont bottleneck with the new STRIX GTX750Ti?

 


Not a bit. You will get even more fps if overclocked too.