Will a Pentium G3258 be a bottleneck for the GTX 970?

Billspear

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Sep 26, 2014
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I have a new build that I'm putting together this weekend. I have limited funds so I went with a great combo deal on Newegg and got the Pentium for $37.50. However, I do not have a GPU yet and I would like to get one soon.

My question is, if I get a GTX 970, will the Pentium G3258 be a bad bottleneck? I will most likely attempt to overclock it to 4GHz on the stock cooler. What can I expect if I were to play a game like Crysis 3 on max settings? Will any damage result to the CPU or GPU? This is my first PC so I'm clueless. If it helps, I can post my build below.

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H81M-DS2V Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: XFX XTR 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

I know, I know, the 650W PSU is total overkill but the 550W version sold out literally hours before I placed my order. I was set on the XFX XTR 😀 Also, the 1866MHz RAM was cheaper than 1600 at the time of purchase.

P.S. I plan to upgrade to an i7-4790k in the near future. I just got the Pentium to start me off. So if I buy the GTX 970 now, it'll eventually be paired with a CPU that can handle it and then some.
 
Solution
There will be no damage, but you will not be able to enjoy the full performance of a GTX 970.

Your CPU is a 2-core/2-thread one, and is very likely to hold you back when gaming. Most games nowadays will use 2 cores, some may use more. Considering 2 cores is all you have, anything else that happens to use CPU power will cause the game to stutter/slow down. Since windows itself runs a shitload of processes at all times, this is a very likely scenario.

Keep in mind that this happens no matter what card you have. A good card will just have more potential for you to waste. Also, it does not mean that games will not perform well, it means that they will perform very inconsistently and will have significant hiccups.
There will be no damage, but you will not be able to enjoy the full performance of a GTX 970.

Your CPU is a 2-core/2-thread one, and is very likely to hold you back when gaming. Most games nowadays will use 2 cores, some may use more. Considering 2 cores is all you have, anything else that happens to use CPU power will cause the game to stutter/slow down. Since windows itself runs a shitload of processes at all times, this is a very likely scenario.

Keep in mind that this happens no matter what card you have. A good card will just have more potential for you to waste. Also, it does not mean that games will not perform well, it means that they will perform very inconsistently and will have significant hiccups.
 
Solution


Dont underestimate that pentium when overclocked, can match some i5s in gaming in some cases.
 
Thanks for the response guys. I'm beginning to understand. So basically the ONLY downside is graphical performance, especially in games? The graphics will be good but the frames will suffer? Just want to make sure my PC isn't going to blow up or something (lol)

My plan was to get a very cheap CPU and motherboard to start me off along with a good graphics card and take my chances for the time being. I did get the G3258 along with that Gigabyte mobo for $75 even.

When I eventually upgrade to the i7-4790k by years end, I'll most likely get a Z97 board with it. After that, my system will be complete.

Edit: Would it be wise to get an after-market cooler now if I overlock the Pentium above 4GHz? Say, the Cooler Master 212 EVO or a Zalman? I'll also be ready for the i7.

 


I'm not, it's just that no matter how fast it is, it only has two threads. This means games will have to share CPU time with other processes. The CPU may achieve very decent average frame rates nonetheless, but hiccups will be there.
 


I dont think you understand. Even with a quad/hex/oct it still has to share with other processes. Look at the benchmarks.

Surely you can tell from AMDs cpus, faster cores works better in games then lots of slower cores.

Clearly an i5 is superior, but for the price when overclocked the pentium can hold its own very well. Being a dual core isnt too bad a handicap when clocked at 4.4Ghz
 
I dont think you understand.

Don't assume people don't understand because they do not agree with you. I understand it perfectly clear, I'm just pointing out your logic is flawed.

Even with a quad/hex/oct it still has to share with other processes. Look at the benchmarks.

Yes, the hardware is shared, but that is what the scheduler is for. If your CPU has 4 threads, it can schedule 4 concurrent CPU tasks, whereas with 2, CPU time will have to be shared for the same 4 tasks. For a game, a couple fast threads is usually all you need, but if those threads are also used for other purposes at the same time, performance will be unreliable.

My point is that the drawbacks of a dual core will never be countered by increased clock frequencies. This is because that CPU does not lack frequency, it lacks execution units to run tasks simultaneously. The CPU scheduler will try to allocate as many tasks as it can to the execution units available, but sometimes, it will have to allocate tasks that are very badly optimized. When that happens, those tasks will have nowhere to be allocated to other than the same two EUs the game code is being executed on. If the CPU had at least hyper-threading, you'd be losing 25% performance at most. In a 2core/2thread cpu, that would cause a 50% loss, meaning it will be noticed every single time.

The biggest advantage brought by the original dual core CPUs was to user experience. You could achieve similar performance on a single core CPU back then, when tasks were even less optimized, but the user experience was worlds behind. Leaving a second core available to the system meant it would still be responsive under heavy load.

What I am saying now is that, 10 years after the original Pentium D's, two cores (and worse, two threads), is no longer enough to guarantee the same experience. Software developers have been working hard to better explore this resource, after all.

To the OP, my point stands: you will be able to use the GPU without problem, but will not be able to enjoy its full potential until you upgrade.