Pentium G3258 + gigabyte Z97X SOC Force Unboxing and overclocking Review (Voltage scaling done 09/07/14)

[Jumper118]

i've got my new pentium and a new board.

 

Test Bench Specs:

The bench itself is the box.

CPU: Pentium G3258 unlocked 

RAM: Avexir Mpower series 2400mhz cl10

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97X SOC Force

PSU: Cooler Master 500W low end thing with a dual 20A 12V rail with a max output of 360w on the 12v rail

Cooler: Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E Extreme

 

sexy pics of the unboxing and accessories. 

 

Voltage scaling and testing doc here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Z_svEsMZesaDSTL8LMopLMayjpRny8pDwtx-uojuAIw/edit#gid=0

 

some benches. beat slick

 

New benches with moar speed and even some over 5ghz

 

 

the motherboard:

Good:

the orangeness, because that adds an extra 50mhz to your oc

the dimm slots being soldered to the surface of the board makes it very interesting

massive gap between the pci x16 and x8 slot so when you do 2 way sli/cf your cards can breathe easily. they go 16x, 4x, 8x, 4x

the onboard buttons are a great idea, but i don't actually use them

the bracket for expansion cards is great for people like me who run pc's on top of the box for months before i can find a case for them

the rear i/o is great with a ps2 port for a proper keyboard.

the right angle sata ports will make it much better for cable management when i do put it in a case.

the voltage checkpoints are really useful if cpuz is lying, i haven't used them yet, but i intend to use them tomorrow.

the options in the bios are great, you can set all the things and turn lots of things off that i don't care about like temperature protection a pwm cpu fan control

the overall layout of the bios is pretty good and you can do a fixed voltage or an offset voltage!

the pic of the board on the box frozen is epic

the box is high quality and has a good texture. 

 

Bad:

the top pcie slot it at the very top which means i cant use it with my heatsink

getting into the useful bit of the bios is too hard, i have to press f2 twice after entering the bios to get it into the advanced mode.

there is a small section of the board wasted on the bottom left for a separate bit of pcb for the audio. it would rather the board be £5 cheaper.

it only has 8 power phases so the vrm heatsink isn't L shaped and massive like the z77 up7 was. this reduces the e peen factor

 

The pentium G3258

(note: this is my opinion on my particular chip and i know some will be better and some will be worse.)

 

 

Best:

 

 

Good:

£50 for an intel cpu that can oc properly. epic price

its a pentium

when overclocked it can match all i3's at stock even at a 4.6-4.7ghz 24/7 oc

it doesn't run very hot so you can run it on a cheap cooler

mine does 4.6ghz with xmp ram (2400mhz cl10) on 1.2v which is great

at low-mid oc's it uses a tiny amount of voltage

it will hold 2400mhz ram

its faster than most dual core amd chips, on a single core.

 

 

 

Bad

there is a serious lack of 5ghz benchmarking at a reasonable voltage.

the worst scaling after 4.7ghz ever.

complete lack of bclk overclocking.

its worse than ivy after 4.6ghz

i'm not impressed with the single thread performance. just the fact that i can only get 2cb more than my i5 is poor.

 

 

Next i plan to do a few test with a gpu's and also i will do some more cpu benchmarks. i still need to see how far i can push it on 1 core and also see if i can make my ram any faster.

[MikeTz]

Those pics...Just  :wub:

[Jumper118]

Those pics...Just  :wub:

thanks. it took a while to resize and upload all of them  :lol:

[Akolyte]

fantastic!  I CANT wait to see how far you can push this little chip!  

[DildorTheDecent]

Gigabyte used to make boards with quad SLi and a stupid number of phases but why stop Gigabyte?

Y U DO DIS?

[Jumper118]

Gigabyte used to make boards with quad SLi and a stupid number of phases but why stop Gigabyte?

Y U DO DIS?

because they are expensive still, they could have ditched a few things for 3 way sli or a couple more phases.

 

fantastic!  I CANT wait to see how far you can push this little chip!  

tbh i've had it to 1.6v trying to get it to bench at 5ghz and it wasn't playing ball . its either a lack experience on 1150 on my part, or this chip is annoying and will only do 4.9ghz. even if it can only do 4.9ghz, i think i can squeeze some more out of it yet. 

[Faa]

Gigabyte used to make boards with quad SLi and a stupid number of phases but why stop Gigabyte?

Y U DO DIS?

Well yes/no. Google the z68x-ud7 -> 24 phases. Google Jumper's board -> 8 phases. Which board has better "power delivery"? Jumper's board, sound weird uh?

The physical count/marketings count is just the amount of chokes you have, it just means nothing literally nothing - it's just all about how many phases the pwm chip has and for cpu vrm the highest you can get are 8 phases nothing more because the pwms that do have more than 8 phases arent even vdr12 certified. That z68x's pwm chip is just a 6+0 design which is Intersil so its analog & Jumpers board has a 8+0 chip thats from IR which is always digital. How do they manage to get 24 phases? With doublers. Most doublers are just doubling two times only, some do more thats how they go from a 6+0 design to 24. What are doublers useful for? Spreading the load a bit by splitting a phase in two channels which is effective spreading the temps so easier to cool and many outdated pwm chips need a separate channel for each voltage.

The cheapest board you can get with a 8+0 design is the z87x-ud3h and for z97 it's the soc force. The z87x-ud7h is marketized as a 16 phase but uses the same exact vrm as the z87x-ud3h but with doublers to achieve that "16 phase"

[DildorTheDecent]

Well yes/no. Google the z68x-ud7 -> 24 phases. Google Jumper's board -> 8 phases. Which board has better "power delivery"? Jumper's board, sound weird uh?

The physical count/marketings count is just the amount of chokes you have, it just means nothing literally nothing - it's just all about how many phases the pwm chip has and for cpu vrm the highest you can get are 8 phases nothing more because the pwms that do have more than 8 phases arent even vdr12 certified. That z68x's pwm chip is just a 6+0 design which is Intersil so its analog & Jumpers board has a 8+0 chip thats from IR which is always digital. How do they manage to get 24 phases? With doublers. Most doublers are just doubling two times only, some do more thats how they go from a 6+0 design to 24. What are doublers useful for? Spreading the load a bit by splitting a phase in two channels which is effective spreading the temps so easier to cool and many outdated pwm chips need a separate channel for each voltage.

The cheapest board you can get with a 8+0 design is the z87x-ud3h and for z97 it's the soc force. The z87x-ud7h is marketized as a 16 phase but uses the same exact vrm as the z87x-ud3h but with doublers to achieve that "16 phase"

My UP7 has "32 phases" really it is just eight phase with doublers/quadrupelers right?

Still, all the little boxes surrounding the CPU socket is pretty cool.

[Jumper118]

My UP7 has "32 phases" really it is just eight phase with doublers/quadrupelers right?

Still, all the little boxes surrounding the CPU socket is pretty cool.

its worth having all of them for the massive badass heatsink that you need to cover them all.  

[harrynowl]

its worth having all of them for the massive badass heatsink that you need to cover them all.  

No PCB waste

[Biased Opinion]

my chip should show up on monday and i will see if i can break your record with the thing. Your board might be a bit better for it than mine but at least it is still a ROG boards so it wont be lacking.

[harrynowl]

I wonder if I can achieve the same overclock with my cheapo ITX board:)

[DildorTheDecent]

its worth having all of them for the massive badass heatsink that you need to cover them all.  

Oh yes.

[APrettyCoolWalrus]

Thanks man, those smexy pics made me have to change my pants!

[Mister Snow]

I have to ask, what camera are you using because that pictures look so good?

[seiny]

Thanks man, those smexy pics made me have to change my pants!

That's gross man, cool pf pic btw

[DildorTheDecent]

Thanks man, those smexy pics made me have to change my pants!

Dude that's hot.

[APrettyCoolWalrus]

Dude that's hot.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[Jumper118]

I have to ask, what camera are you using because that pictures look so good?

i am using an olympus D720 which is a compact camera that i got off ebay for £40. its pretty good for a compact. its got 10x optical zoom and the super macro is incredible compared with any other compact i've had.  

[Faa]

My UP7 has "32 phases" really it is just eight phase with doublers/quadrupelers right?

Still, all the little boxes surrounding the CPU socket is pretty cool.

Yeah exactly. It's the IR3563: http://www.irf.com/product-info/datasheets/data/pb-ir3563b.pdf

It's just the best PWM chip, not many boards have these except gigabyte, msi's top of the line one, Asus starting from z87 expert all the way up to the most expensive ones, rampage boards don't have this one. They come with nice protection things like power supplies have such as OCP.

[PokémonTrainerFour]

Great review, I'm looking at an SOC Force myself. Orange is so sexy.

 

I take it that there's a pretty nice OC experience with it?

[PhantomChevron]

Nice review, I got a question though, on the intel website it says max ram speed is 1333, how did you get it to work with 2400? Also is it possible to use 1600mhz ram for th G3258?

[Jumper118]

Great review, I'm looking at an SOC Force myself. Orange is so sexy.

 

I take it that there's a pretty nice OC experience with it?

it was very good on the motherboard side of things, i only had to clear the cmos once.

Nice review, I got a question though, on the intel website it says max ram speed is 1333, how did you get it to work with 2400? Also is it possible to use 1600mhz ram for th G3258?

haswell has a great imc, so it can hold fast ram. it runs at 1600mhz out the box the i just enabled xmp to get mine to run at 2400mhz

[DildorTheDecent]

Yeah exactly. It's the IR3563: http://www.irf.com/product-info/datasheets/data/pb-ir3563b.pdf

It's just the best PWM chip, not many boards have these except gigabyte, msi's top of the line one, Asus starting from z87 expert all the way up to the most expensive ones, rampage boards don't have this one. They come with nice protection things like power supplies have such as OCP.

Do you know of an application that exists to see how many phases may be active at any time?

[Faa]

Do you know of an application that exists to see how many phases may be active at any time?

If the bios doesnt allow you to monitor it, then obviously no