Pentium g3258 vs. X4 860k

[MadRussian42]

Hello, i'm thinking about parts for a gaming PC (gonna be running linux), and am not sure which cpu to choose. Should i go for the x4 860k, or the pentium g3258? How about when the two are overclocked? Any help will be greatly appreciated. 

 

-MadRussian42

[Coaxialgamer]

1 minute ago, MadRussian42 said:

Hello, i'm thinking about parts for a gaming PC (gonna be running linux), and am not sure which cpu to choose. Should i go for the x4 860k, or the pentium g3258? How about when the two are overclocked? Any help will be greatly appreciated. 

 

-MadRussian42

well , some modern games can't run on dual cores( and this will only get worse), so i would get the 860k.

[handymanshandle]

What games? Personally, I'd take an 860K any day over the G3258, but the games matter, even more so with a GPU and since this is Linux, it doesn't hammer the CPU nearly as hard as Windows.

[Dan Q]

Depends, how soon do you plan to upgrade ?

 

If soon. Go for the g3258

If not go for the 860k

 

[Majestic]

Both are pretty terrible. Spend the extra bucks on a i3-6100

[MadRussian42]

I play minecraft, cs:go, gmod, insurgency, and i hope to play X-plane 10. Not the most demanding games except maybe X-plane. As for upgrading, I plan to upgrade at the soonest two years from when i build.

[SirSquid]

I own a G3258 thats overclocked to 4.2GHz and i can say don't get it.  You can get a used first or second gen i7 for roughly the same price which in multi threaded work loads destroys the G32598.

 

edit: i just like to note the g3258 can handle a lot though, the only three games i could not run at max settings were arma 3, kerbal space space program, and battlefield 4.

[MadRussian42]

9 minutes ago, SirSquid said:

I own a G3258 thats overclocked to 4.2GHz and i can say don't get it.  You can get a used first or second gen i7 for roughly the same price which in multi threaded work loads destroys the G32598.

 

edit: i just like to note the g3258 can handle a lot though, the only three games i could not run at max settings were arma 3, kerbal space space program, and battlefield 4.

Are there any risks to buying a used cpu?

 

[PH-G7]

If you are going to be doing things like live streaming or video recording the 860k will do better due to the extra cores but if you are going to use a lot of single threaded applications then the 3258 will do better.

[SirSquid]

6 minutes ago, MadRussian42 said:

Are there any risks to buying a used cpu?

 

There's always some risk, if you buy it from ebay and it doesn't work you can always return it or file a claim with ebay and if you plan on buying it via craigslist i'd highly recommend you have them send time stamped pictures of the cpu working.

[Zodiark1593]

There are some benchmarks that show the OC Pentium matching or beating the OC Athlon in even multi-threaded workloads, however there are games that are artificially locked unless you're running 4 or more threads.

 

In addition, there may be penalties associated with context switching that can hammer minimum fps on the Pentium (despite averages being better), translating into random hitches and stutters in an otherwise smooth gaming experience.

 

There doesn't seem to be much in depth comparisons as far as these two cpus go, but the artificial lock to quad threads in games makes me lean toward the Athlon. 

[Dabombinable]

1 hour ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

What games? Personally, I'd take an 860K any day over the G3258, but the games matter, even more so with a GPU and since this is Linux, it doesn't hammer the CPU nearly as hard as Windows.

It doesn't hammer anything as hard as Windows, except maybe AMD and Nvidia's drivers.

[Prysin]

OP should wait and get the Athlon 845, which is based on Excavator.

It is supposedly going to have close to Sandy Bridge IPC (probably not equal to, but atleast close)... and it will be priced at $69.99 USD which makes it a pretty damn good purchase.

[Dabombinable]

16 minutes ago, Prysin said:

OP should wait and get the Athlon 845, which is based on Excavator.

It is supposedly going to have close to Sandy Bridge IPC (probably not equal to, but atleast close)... and it will be priced at $69.99 USD which makes it a pretty damn good purchase.

Excavator could have been released a while ago in the form of FX *4**, but no, they had to keep going full retard with Vishera.

[aisle9]

3 hours ago, MadRussian42 said:

As for upgrading, I plan to upgrade at the soonest two years from when i build.

860K, hands down. The G3258's upgrade path will be useless by then.

 

If you're really planning on going two years before you upgrade, it might be worth it to go in for a Skylake i3. It'll be more expensive up front, but when you're ready to drop a more powerful chip in there, you'll still be able to install a Skylake i7 and avoid changing your motherboard, RAM, etc. Spending a little more up front could save you a decent chunk of money down the road.

[smittywits]

2 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

860K, hands down. The G3258's upgrade path will be useless by then.

 

If you're really planning on going two years before you upgrade, it might be worth it to go in for a Skylake i3. It'll be more expensive up front, but when you're ready to drop a more powerful chip in there, you'll still be able to install a Skylake i7 and avoid changing your motherboard, RAM, etc. Spending a little more up front could save you a decent chunk of money down the road.

This is actually the exact advice I gave to a friend of mine who just had his 860k die on him.

 

If you're going to choose between the Pentium and 860k, OP, I'd go with the 860k. Over either of those, I'd grab something like an i3 6100. The up front cost for my friend was about $300, but in the long haul it'll wind up saving him more than half that.

[xiej]

4 hours ago, SirSquid said:

I own a G3258 thats overclocked to 4.2GHz and i can say don't get it.  You can get a used first or second gen i7 for roughly the same price which in multi threaded work loads destroys the G32598.

 

edit: i just like to note the g3258 can handle a lot though, the only three games i could not run at max settings were arma 3, kerbal space space program, and battlefield 4.

KSP 1.0.5 is Single Core...

[_StrikE_]

6 hours ago, MadRussian42 said:

Hello, i'm thinking about parts for a gaming PC (gonna be running linux), and am not sure which cpu to choose. Should i go for the x4 860k, or the pentium g3258? How about when the two are overclocked? Any help will be greatly appreciated. 

 

-MadRussian42

If your going to overclock especially I will take the G3258 over an AMD quad any day, I had an FX4300 cpu, while its a bit weaker then the 860k its not by much, my FX4300 was overclocked at 4.6 ghz, and I originally went for the G3258 for the single threaded strong performance, to my surprise at 4.1 ghz the G3258 wrecked my FX4300 at everything (except synthetic benchmarks), from single threaded gaming performance to multithreaded ones as well. In fallout 4 I jumped from a minimum fps of 24 I had with the FX to 50 fps minimum with the G3258, that said, I would honestly recommend going with skylake i3-6100, it has a better upgrade path.

[SkyFall]

I'll just throw this video from Austin Evans in....
 

 

[smittywits]

10 minutes ago, SkyFall said:

I'll just throw this video from Austin Evans in....

-snip-

 

What about running games that don't launch with less than 4 virtual cores? That's why most people are recommending the 860k over the G3258. Not because it's bad, but because some games just won't run on a G3258.

[SkyFall]

1 minute ago, smittywits said:

What about running games that don't launch with less than 4 virtual cores? That's why most people are recommending the 860k over the G3258. Not because it's bad, but because some games just won't run on a G3258.

Thanks for your input, I'm aware that the G3258 won't run all games.

 

I'm not sure if there are games on linux which demand 4 cores.

[smittywits]

Just now, SkyFall said:

-snip-

I'm not sure if there are games on linux which demand 4 cores.

You can game in a VM.

[SkyFall]

2 minutes ago, smittywits said:

You can game in a VM.

Why on earth would you do that?
You would need to buy a windows license anyways, so OP would be better off by installing Windows directly.

[smittywits]

1 minute ago, SkyFall said:

Why on earth would you do that?
You would need to buy a windows license anyways, so OP would be better off by installing Windows directly.

I do it for work on occasion while waiting for things to move across a network or process. The point is the G3258 is hindered in that aspect. It's only going to worsen as more games come out with higher requirements. 2 cores just isn't enough for any computer that you're going to be gaming on anymore.

[SkyFall]

4 minutes ago, smittywits said:

I do it for work on occasion while waiting for things to move across a network or process. The point is the G3258 is hindered in that aspect. It's only going to worsen as more games come out with higher requirements. 2 cores just isn't enough for any computer that you're going to be gaming on anymore.

I see your point and you are definitely right.

 

I am not sure whether it makes sense to sacrifice single core performance for more cores in a linux environment.

 

@MadRussian42, why did you choose linux for your build and would you use a Windows virtual machine for gaming, if necessary?

Edited February 16, 2016 by SkyFall