What would be the best upgrade in this situation? Possible CPU upgrade

[Oultra]

I guess I should start with my current specs, budget and location.

 

I currently have a Pentium G3258 @ 4.2 GHz with the stock cooler, 250GB Samsung SSD, Z97 motherboard, 8GB RAM, an ASUS R9 280 and a 60Hz 24" 1080p monitor.

 

My budget is around $200 USD (~$3800 MXN).

 

I live in Mexico city, Mexico, this means no Newegg or any US only stores, however, theres amazon.com.mx and some Amazon global stuff that they can ship to my country.

 

Now the problem.

 

I've played quite a few "demanding" games like Fallout 4, The Witcher 3, Rise of the Tomb Raider, etc... and while RoTTR didn't run quite well (50fps max on what I'd consider acceptable detail levels), I've been able to play any game that has caught my attention on this machine.

 

However, I've noticed that recent games (Q4 2015 - Q1/Q2 2016) are looking more and more detailed or demanding, and I'm worried about the capabilities of my CPU or if it will become a bottleneck for the upcoming generation of games (looking at you SW:Battlefront).

 

For this year, I'm interested in games like Black Desert, The Division, Firewatch and No Man's Sky, so now I'm here asking for your opinion and help.

 

I'm considering the following 2 scenarios, please tell me what you think would be the best or if you think there's a better one:

 

• Get a good air cooler/AIO and OC the crap out of my G3250, however there's a possible 2 core bottleneck if I continue with this CPU.
• Upgrade to a non-K i5 or an i3 and hope it's 4 physical cores(i5) or Hyper-threading(i3)  are a) an upgrade to my current CPU and b) enough to run the aforementioned games.

 

I know getting an i5-4690K would be the best option, but that would leave me with no money left to buy a cooler at all, and I kinda wanted to replace my stock cooler because it's now making quite a bit of noise to be honest .

 

TL;DR Is the i5-4690K really needed for upcoming games or can I get away with a (Haswell/1150) i3 or non-K i5, as a replacement for an overclocked (stock cooler) G3258?

 

Thank you very much in advance and sorry for any spelling mistakes, englando OP.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[comicsansms]

I am guessing you want to overclock.

I'd save up and get an i5 4690k and get the cooler later on, or get an i5 4460 if you need a better CPU now.

[Oultra]

2 minutes ago, Comic_Sans_MS said:

I am guessing you want to overclock.

I'd save up and get an i5 4690k and get the cooler later on, or get an i5 4460 if you need a better CPU now.

I'm not that interested in OC'ing, I mean, I currently have my g3258 overclocked, I just want to get rid of any CPU bottlenecks without overspending . The i5 4460 is within my budget, but is it worth the few more dollars over an i3? As in, would I regret not getting the 2 extra physical cores in the future? Thanks!

[runit3]

Get the 4690k, run it on the stock cooler until you can save up for a new cooler.

 

Ebay is always an option, although I'm unsure of any tax or import duties on electronics coming into Mexico.

[Oultra]

10 hours ago, Strike105X said:

I think you will regret it later on, having 2 extra physical cores helps, i would go with the 4690k, you wont need to overclock it, for general gaming performance, or the games you mentioned, its only emulation where you'd need to OC, and later on you can just get a decent cooler. I presume your getting it new right ? Because it does also come with a cooler :p.

Well if I don't need to overclock it i guess i can go with a cheaper non-K i5 right? And yeah my stock cooler is dying i guess, it's making too much noise even after cleaning it so i wanted to squeeze in a new cooler if possible.

 

10 hours ago, runit3 said:

Get the 4690k, run it on the stock cooler until you can save up for a new cooler.

 

Ebay is always an option, although I'm unsure of any tax or import duties on electronics coming into Mexico.

I just checked ebay, the shipping+import fees is like $60-$70 USD , thanks for the recommendation tho.

 

As for the 4690k vs non-K i5's, I'm also considering my other components and not just the specs of the CPUs, I mean, of course the 4690K is leagues ahead non-K models when properly overclocked, but I know (from personal experience) my GPU is not enough to max modern games at 1080p (R9 280) so even if I get the i5 4690k and a decent cooler, I'll be hitting a GPU bottleneck anyways, at least that's what I think.

 

I also want to spend my money more cautiously since I don't have that much money to spend in upgrades and, more importantly, games .

 

So let's say I don't get the 4690k, is an i3 and it's Hyper-threading enough or should I spend a few extra bucks and go for 2 extra physical cores?

 

Thank you very much guys for your help so far.

[runit3]

Just now, Oultra said:

So let's say I don't get the 4690k, is an i3 and it's Hyper-threading enough or should I spend a few extra bucks and go for 2 extra physical cores?

 

Thank you very much guys for your help so far.

The i3 quoted in my sig ran BF4 over 60fps with an R9-290X 8GB at 1440p (Ultra, no AA). On my main system I stay between 80-120fps. That is just about the worst case scenario I can think of for an i3 besides FC4, although I'm sure Mantle support helped the lil' guy chug a long a bit. The caveat to this is that I have my i3 OC'd to 4.5GHz, which you just can't do on Haswell. Also, at 1080p more load is going to be put on the CPU.

 

An i3 will work, and you're very likely to get a playable scenario out of it especially at medium settings with no AA (~60Hz). The main issue I would site is that it's going to become more of an issue if you're trying to keep up with AAA releases. 4 cores is vastly better for well optimized games. The non-K i5 and reserving some funds for a GPU upgrade is the best budget alternative, it's just a shame that you have a Z series board.

 

I also had a G3258 in the past, OC'd the piss out of it to 4.7 for 24/7 clock, and it still chokes in games like BF4 and FC4 (ran with an R9-280X at high settings no AA). What voltage are you stable at with the 4.2 OC? If it's already in the 1.28-1.35v area you're not going to be able to squeeze much more out of the chip regardless of which cooler you have. If it's sitting happy at 1.15-1.2v you may be able to do some exploratory runs around 1.3-1.35v just launching Cinebench to check stability at the 4.6-4.8 range. At least then you could rule out an expensive cooler.

[Oultra]

@Strike105X @runit3 Thank you very much for the explanation guys, I guess I just needed someone to convince me not to get an unlocked i5 (Haswell) for the moment, since my next planned upgrade, in about a year or so, will also include a platform upgrade, most likely Skylake but let's see what will be available by the time I save enough money.

 

My G3258 is currently at 1.2V, passed a 10 hour stability test and it rarely goes over 60 C under load (stock cooler), I don't know how well this is but I'm planning on retiring this little guy, saved me quite a few dollars when I was building my current PC, lesson learned tho, "future-proofing" the motherboard was a bad idea, since I don't think I'll ever get an over-clockable 1150 CPU anymore.

 

Now for the final question: i5-4440 or i5-4460? There's a couple good deals here on these 2 models, like $140 for the 4460 and $130 for the 4440.

 

Thanks again!

[runit3]

1 minute ago, Oultra said:

My G3258 is currently at 1.2V, passed a 10 hour stability test and it rarely goes over 60 C under load (stock cooler), I don't know how well this is but I'm planning on retiring this little guy, saved me quite a few dollars when I was building my current PC, lesson learned tho, "future-proofing" the motherboard was a bad idea, since I don't think I'll ever get an over-clockable 1150 CPU anymore.

 

Now for the final question: i5-4440 or i5-4460? There's a couple good deals here on these 2 models, like $140 for the 4460 and $130 for the 4440.

 

Thanks again!

You would be paying $10 for +.1GHz and a bit better TIM on the 4460, which won't matter as they'll both run on the stock cooler just fine. Save that money for something else IMO.

[Oultra]

9 minutes ago, runit3 said:

You would be paying $10 for +.1GHz and a bit better TIM on the 4460, which won't matter as they'll both run on the stock cooler just fine. Save that money for something else IMO.

Alright thanks for the information, I was actually comparing them both on intel's ARK website right now and couldn't find any game-changing difference, $10 saved, thanks!

[DunePilot]

I'd save my money and pick up a 4790k when you get the cash, you'll have the best cpu for that socket and it should tide you over for a few years where you can get by with a nice gaming performance and really only have to worry about updating your GPU if you need to.