Should I get quad or duo core?

Flamo353

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Aug 22, 2014
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http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Pentium-G3258-vs-AMD-Athlon-X4-860K

Intel Pentium G3258:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117374

AMD Athlon X4 860K:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113379

I'm looking for the best cpu for my money. I'm building my first general use/gaming pc ever :'). The pentium G3258 is slightly better performance wise, and has other advantages as well. It's also $10 cheaper, however my main concern is the number of cores in each processor.

I like to have many things running at once since I'm a person that constantly clicks between windows and multitasks quickly/regularly. I read online that the more cores your processor has, the more efficient it becomes at completing multiple tasks at once (if this isn't generally true please clarify). So, I was wondering if I should get the AMD quad core or the Intel duo core. Any thoughts?
 


Both are entry level processors that are very cheap. Paired with a good GPU they can play games on High-Ultra decently but they will both be a little bottleneck. The imporvement in 'multitasking' is for serious multitasking like encoding video, converting video, photo work, compressing, decompressing while for example gaming. If you don't do all of that you may not need the extra 2-cores on the 860K. In some cases developers may make games incompatible with Dual-Cores so there are risks with going with the G3258.

I own an 860K and it has done well for gaming but I feel like I should just recommend the Pentium G3258. I bought and built a budget FM2+ PC expecting Excavator (and hoping for a 6-8 Core). It was cheap to build and performed well enough but at the end I ended up building another build also with an FX 8350. Although I got the 8350 and Crosshair V Formula Z at bargain prices ($220 total) I think I used more money then what I would have used if I had went LGA 1150 instead. I tend to not sell what I buy so by going with LGA 1150 I would have had a slightly superior gaming performance compared to the 860K and then would have been able to upgrade directly to an i5, Xeon, or i7 processor. Going with the 860K I had to buy another whole new system which takes time to build and although cheap it is not as good as an Intel i5/i7 processor.

To save you the trouble of having to switch platforms in the near future I would suggest you go with an G3258 if this is all your budget can get you right now. At least then you can just pop in a Haswell i5/Xeon/i7 or Broadwell versions depending on the motherboard you get.
 


I want multiple things to load faster, should I go for the quad core if that's the case? I'm not worried about the cpu handling games, I think both will be prove sufficient in terms of gaming. I'll go for the pentium if nobody answers my question about the multitasking/quad core vs duo core