Upgrade to Pentium G3258 from i7 920 good idea?

[Nikolas Caven]

Is it a good idea to get the Pentium as an upgrade from my 1st gen i7 920? The upgrade to Z87/Z97 would be great, but I'm not sure if it would be an upgrade performance-wise for the CPU. I am going to overclock the Pentium... but still performance upgrade? Or Side-grade? My i7 920 gets around a 5300 in Passmark.

I would sell the i7 920 and motherboard for around $300-$350 to buy the Pentium and motherboard. (and possibly a decent ssd if enough left over)

My current setup is I7 920, Asus P6T v1.0, 6 gb of OCZ Platinum DDR3 1678 mhz CL8 RAM in triple channel, 6x 80 gb SATA hard drives in RAID, and GTX 460 x2 in SLI, and a 1000 watt PSU.

 

[de5_Roy]

NOT A GOOD IDEA.
seriously, core i7 and dual core pentium are two extreme ends on a performance scale. i7 is way better than pentium. your current setup is good.

if you want to o.c. the pentium, try one in a different pc instead of "upgrading" your current one. because it'd be a downgrade in reality.

 

[logainofhades]

That would not be an upgrade at all. This would be considered an upgrade.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($249.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($89.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $339.96
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-04 11:52 EDT-0400)

 

[de5_Roy]

That would not be an upgrade at all. This would be considered an upgrade.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($249.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($89.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $339.96
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-04 11:52 EDT-0400)

for cpu overclocking, new devil's canyon core i7 4790k or i5 4690k would be better options if their o.c. performance turns out to be good. with core i7 4790k, OP will at least get 4Ghz with hyperthreading at stock settings. combo that with a decent gigabyte z97x ud5 or asus z97 pro class motherboard (or asrock z97 killer or gigabyte z97 sli) would be better than the core i7 920 setup. the existing i7 pc will hold up well till devil's canyon cpus come out and get tested by reviewers.

 

[Nikolas Caven]

Problem with H97 is no SLI support but other than that its great. I was more going to get the Pentium so i have a cpu until I get a better one, and to cut down on power cost... My i7 EATS 250 watts under full load which is more than my GPUs - the system only uses 430 watts under full load. And X58 is nice but there is so many things it does not have that 97 chipset does. The Xeon looks awesome.

 

[de5_Roy]

ah. the pentium as stopgap makes more sense now.

 

[logainofhades]

Problem with H97 is no SLI support but other than that its great. I was more going to get the Pentium so i have a cpu until I get a better one, and to cut down on power cost... My i7 EATS 250 watts under full load which is more than my GPUs - the system only uses 430 watts under full load. And X58 is nice but there is so many things it does not have that 97 chipset does. The Xeon looks awesome.

Same CPU, with an SLI capable motherboard.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($249.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 Extreme3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($129.91 @ Newegg)
Total: $379.89
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-04 12:57 EDT-0400)

And with an i5 4460
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($184.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 Extreme3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($129.91 @ Newegg)
Total: $314.90
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-04 13:08 EDT-0400)

 

[Comgen]

An update of the platform from a Bloomfield to a last gen Pentium, makes no sense to me (even if unlocked).
Not a good idea.

+1 for logainofhades
The Xeon E3 v3 family (in most cases) is the best choice @ power/price ratio.
Another thing is if you like and have the overclock passion, of course, then the choice should fall on a K series, like de5_Roy said.
Both choices have their pros and cons, the one who has to decide, is you based on your needs.

Spoiler

Btw a month ago I updated a Bloomfield platform of a friend, mostly a gaming ring.
With more ram 12GB (in triple channel, without debate the real benefit, but since it is a feature that we have, we use it) + SSD + new cooling system & medium/high overclock for the 920; at least ~3.5GHz or more (which is an easy OC even with the bad revision, ofc if you have a decent cooling on the CPU).
This is to say that it is still a very respectable platform for general use, and for gaming if paired with a good GPU.
I agree on consumption, especially with video cards like the GTX 480 and such.

In my opinion it's much better to stay with what you have. If you really want to upgrade your system, and you want an unlocked processor, then wait another few months for the devil's canyon processors (I only suggest them because you are not on a 2700k 3770k 4770k platform, otherwise I would have never suggested them, for many reasons.

 

[Nikolas Caven]

Thanks all for your input I think ill wait until Devils Canyon to see what it does with CPU pricing.
@ Comgen: Your feed back is very helpful, and I like to overclock, mainly because of it meaning I will 1 Extend the performance of the CPU for as long as I can, and 2 because I like to overclock. And I am mainly using the PC for videoediting and gaming.
@ logianofhades : I think that I may either go with the Xeon and motherboard, or perhaps in place of an i5-4460 I would get an fx 8350 (as they are similar price and 8350 in somewhat better- though not a lot), as I have a an old Phenom ii x3 system with an SLI compatible AM3+ motherboard in it.

 

[Joseph DeGarmo]

You might want to check into Haswell-E.

http://wccftech.com/intel-haswelle-core-i7-5960x-core-i7-5930k-core-i7-5820k-specifications-unveiled-flagship-8-core-boost-33-ghz/

 

[Nikolas Caven]

An update of the platform from a Bloomfield to a last gen Pentium, makes no sense to me (even if unlocked).
Not a good idea.

+1 for logainofhades
The Xeon E3 v3 family (in most cases) is the best choice @ power/price ratio.
Another thing is if you like and have the overclock passion, of course, then the choice should fall on a K series, like de5_Roy said.
Both choices have their pros and cons, the one who has to decide, is you based on your needs.

Spoiler

Btw a month ago I updated a Bloomfield platform of a friend, mostly a gaming ring.
With more ram 12GB (in triple channel, without debate the real benefit, but since it is a feature that we have, we use it) + SSD + new cooling system & medium/high overclock for the 920; at least ~3.5GHz or more (which is an easy OC even with the bad revision, ofc if you have a decent cooling on the CPU).
This is to say that it is still a very respectable platform for general use, and for gaming if paired with a good GPU.
I agree on consumption, especially with video cards like the GTX 480 and such.

In my opinion it's much better to stay with what you have. If you really want to upgrade your system, and you want an unlocked processor, then wait another few months for the devil's canyon processors (I only suggest them because you are not on a 2700k 3770k 4770k platform, otherwise I would have never suggested them, for many reasons.

Figures, what I ended up getting is an i7 3970x and motherboard. The 3970x was a gift from my father, the motherboard I got is an MSI X79-A GD-45. Performance is night and day from the i7 920! Especially in video editing 😛 cut render times by more than half. I love enthusiast-grade hardware xD its so nice.

 

[logainofhades]

Free enthusiast class hardware is always good. 😀