Intel now offering hyperthreaded Pentium CPUs!

[escape093]

https://www.overclock3d.net/news/cpu_mainboard/intel_now_offer_pentium_cpus_with_hyperthreading/1

 

"With the release of Kaby Lake, Intel are now offering Pentium branded CPUs with Hyperthreading, allowing consumers to get two cores and four threads at some insanely low prices."

 

Above is a screen grab from Intel ARK of the specs of the G4620, one of these nifty new hyperthreaded Kaby Lake Pentiums.

 

Also from the article linked above is this handy table with the newly-launched Pentium SKUs:

 

A lot of gamers have been avoiding Pentiums due to their lack of threads, but that could change a little with these new CPUs, which have 4 threads, which will hopefully allow for games like Far Cry 4, which uses 4 threads (rather unnecessarily), to be playable without any workarounds. Emulation enthusiasts who are strapped for cash may also find these to be an attractive buy, as they offer excellent single-threaded performance (which emulators heavily rely on), without heavily compromising on the ability to use multi-threaded applications, and should be reasonably faster in PCSX2, which can take advantage of more than 2 threads.

 

With Ryzen right around the corner, this does seem just a little bit late, but it shows that Intel isn't completely brain-dead/sitting on its ass, but I am curious to see if Intel will apply this to their other CPUs and give us quad-core i3s and eight-thread i5s, especially now that Ryzen looks more compelling than ever.

[MimigaKing]

Absolutely no reason to buy an i3 for 3 times the price them

[Aereldor]

On 1/11/2017 at 1:02 AM, MimigaKing said:

Absolutely no reason to buy an i3 for 3 times the price them

These things don't appear to perform on par with i3s, though. I can't figure out why. So far, very few benchmarks have been released. Hopefully, Digital Foundry will have a few soon.

Edit: The only reason is clock speed. The Pentium G4620 has a clock speed of 3.7 GHz- identical to the Core i3 6100. They perform identically. Poof.

 

The Core i3 7100 will be slightly faster, owing to its increased clock speed.

[themaniac]

welp there goes the i3's...

[DarkBlade2117]

3 minutes ago, MimigaKing said:

Absolutely no reason to buy an i3 for 3 times the price them

Eh $75 x 3 = $225. i3 = $225? LOGIC?!?!?

 

2 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

These things don't appear to perform on par with i3s, though. I can't figure out why. So far, very few benchmarks have been released. Hopefully, Digital Foundry will have a few soon.

He's got a few more up for other games.

[MyName13]

So what makes them different from i3s?

[Deli]

Is Intel trying to respond to what AMD is going to release to the lower end market?

[Dackzy]

this might be neat for a HTPC

[Shoob]

3 minutes ago, MyName13 said:

So what makes them different from i3s?

The main difference is that Intel disabled AVX, which makes no difference in games and it has a lower tier iGPU.

[DarkBlade2117]

Just now, MyName13 said:

So what makes them different from i3s?

Comparing kabylake - kabylake the i3-7100 is about $35-$40 more for a 400Mhz higher clock and has a slightly better iGPU. It also supports AVX2.0 (Don't know what it is but the pentium doesn't have it)

[AnonymousGuy]

5 minutes ago, Deli said:

Is Intel trying to respond to what AMD is going to release to the lower end market?

It's not necessarily a response so much as locking the market down so they never have a chance of getting their foot in the door. Similar thing happened few years ago where Xeon-D popped up to stop ARM from ever having a shot of entering the server market.

 

It's also a slick way of not having to lower any of your prices when you can just intro more competitive SKUs lower in the stack.

[Guest]

you would think the i3-6100 would perform identically to this.. 

 

very nice for the low end market, but kind of makes the locked i3's pointless. 

[Sauron]

13 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

These things don't appear to perform on par with i3s, though. I can't figure out why. So far, very few benchmarks have been released. Hopefully, Digital Foundry will have a few soon.

presumably no turbo boost - or a less aggressive one

[Alec_FC]

Unlock one of them and watch the money flood in...

[Aereldor]

11 minutes ago, DarkBlade2117 said:

Eh $75 x 3 = $225. i3 = $225? LOGIC?!?!?

 

He's got a few more up for other games.

Yeah, @Morgan MLGman and I were just talking about those. I still can't figure out why they're so much slower than the Core i3 6100. 200MHz is a negligible improvement in clock speed, as well as Kabylake's architectural improvements being negligible. Furthermore, they chips have the same amount of cache. Basically, they're the same chip 200MHz apart. Why is the Pentium hitting 100% all over the place?

[Aereldor]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

presumably no turbo boost - or a less aggressive one

The Core i3 6100 doesn't have turbo boost either. Last I recall, those are limited to Core i5, and core i7 chips, as well as a bunch of Xeons.

[DarkBlade2117]

1 minute ago, Aereldor said:

Yeah, @Morgan MLGman and I were just talking about those. I still can't figure out why they're so much slower than the Core i3 6100. 200MHz is a negligible improvement in clock speed, as well as Kabylake's architectural improvements being negligible. Furthermore, they chips have the same amount of cache. Basically, they're the same chip 200MHz apart. Why is the Pentium hitting 100% all over the place?

My i3-6100 was hitting 100% all the time in GTA

[Deli]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

presumably no turbo boost - or a less aggressive one

I think i3 has already no Turbo Boost.

[Aereldor]

1 minute ago, DarkBlade2117 said:

My i3-6100 was hitting 100% all the time in GTA

Even in the built-in benchmark, with something as weak as the GTX 960?

 

Huh, maybe it is on par with the 6100.

[DarkBlade2117]

1 minute ago, Aereldor said:

Even in the built-in benchmark, with something as weak as the GTX 960?

 

Huh, maybe it is on par with the 6100.

Was using an R9 290. My 6100 was clocked at 4.5GHz though. I would test it but kind of just sold and shipped my i3-6100 to pay for a new keyboard

[captain cactus]

I'm sorry, but even at this price you should avoid it. Not unlocked, still a dual core and yes it may have Hyperthreading but with current and future titles on Vulkan/DX12 wanting more and more cores there's really no reason to get this unless you're only playing older titles. It's why AMD is going 4/6/8 on the core count for Ryzen with SMT on the consumer platform.

 

This feels like one of those G3258 scenarios but with a locked CPU where it looks good on paper and everybody is hyped for it cuz low price yo but as soon as people load up games they're being held back severely by the low core count (with some games even going as far as removing objects in game or not booting at all when running on a dual-core CPU). 4 physical cores <-2 Hyperthreaded cores.

[Yoinkerman]

Wow Intel hasn't been competitive in this low end market since the e2160 in 2006.  They must really be scared of Zen.

 

Good for us tho

[Aereldor]

1 minute ago, Yoinkerman said:

Wow Intel hasn't been competitive in this low end market since the e2160 in 2006.  They must really be scared of Zen.

 

Good for us tho

The G3258? And Celerons have been the best value at the low-end for a while. Just ask @ONOTech about his tests with a Celeron G1840. 

[imreloadin]

I see on ARK it says that they're "launched" anyone know how long until we are actually able to buy them?

[Yoinkerman]

5 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

The G3258? And Celerons have been the best value at the low-end for a while. Just ask @ONOTech about his tests with a Celeron G1840. 

I have two g3258s, they're toys at best. I still recommend the 860k over them for average joes on a budget because normal people don't care there's an .ini hack to play far cry 4 with 2 cores they just want it to work.