Core 2 Quad VS G3258?

[RubyRoks]

I know that as a gaming CPU, the G3258 is on par with even an overclocked 5960X, but how does it fair in other situations, and not compaired to the 8-core beast, but to a dinky Core 2 Quad Q8300? How does it perform in general day-to-day tasks like watching youtube or twitch, zipping and unzipping files, so on and so forth? And how does it perform in tasks that it's not built for, but i put my C2Q through anyway, such as recording with Fraps or video rendering? Does the IPC improvement justify the missing 2 cores (and thus, lack of Far Cry 4)?

[Aniallation]

I know that as a gaming CPU, the G3258 is on par with even an overclocked 5960X

No it's not. G3258 is horrible for AAA gaming.

[Darel]

single threaded wins the pentium.. but overall cant compare to the quad.... it's still a damn pentium -.-

[RubyRoks]

No it's not. G3258 is horrible for AAA gaming.

I said on par, not beat. I'd say that except for Crysis 3 (which i have no interest in) it'd be fine for gaming.

[Speedbird]

I know that as a gaming CPU, the G3258 is on par with even an overclocked 5960X, but how does it fair in other situations, and not compaired to the 8-core beast, but to a dinky Core 2 Quad Q8300? How does it perform in general day-to-day tasks like watching youtube or twitch, zipping and unzipping files, so on and so forth? And how does it perform in tasks that it's not built for, but i put my C2Q through anyway, such as recording with Fraps or video rendering? Does the IPC improvement justify the missing 2 cores (and thus, lack of Far Cry 4)?

If you already own the Q8300, I'd go for that. However, if you're not sure which one to buy, get the G3258. My main rig is running a Q8200 and it's pretty good.

[Aniallation]

I said on par, not beat. I'd say that except for Crysis 3 (which i have no interest in) it'd be fine for gaming.

It's not even on par. What the reviews and benchmarks don't tell you, is that there are lots of lag spikes with the G3258 in many AAA titles, and the frame times are horrible. Of course, this is in AAA titles that will even run on the G3258 in the first place. 

[RubyRoks]

It's not even on par. What the reviews and benchmarks don't tell you, is that there are lots of lag spikes with the G3258 in many AAA titles, and the frame times are horrible. Of course, this is in AAA titles that will even run on the G3258 in the first place. 

And you know this....How?

 

If you already own the Q8300, I'd go for that. However, if you're not sure which one to buy, get the G3258. My main rig is running a Q8200 and it's pretty good.

My Q8300 SUCKS!!! Not only that, but i'm bottlenecking my SSD using it (my MoBo doesn't have SATA 6Gb/S) That being said, my GTX 560 isn't helping matters much either

[CorruptDataFiles]

i dont know in a year or so games will move to a min of 2 cores meaning the G3258 will become ancient

[flibberdipper]

No it's not. G3258 is horrible for AAA gaming.

Not horrible, just not the best.

 

But it will still probably rip the C2Q a new one.

[zappian]

The g3258 will destroy that old cpu oced.

 

Easily.

[RubyRoks]

The g3258 will destroy that old cpu oced.

 

Easily.

even in tasks like Fraps recording and video rendering?

[david cassar]

In games that use only 2 cores that pentium will rip it to shreds. Even when all 4 threads of the q8300 it still can't match the multi threaded performance of a g3258. A q9650 would beat the pentium in multi threaded (since its the top of the line core 2 quad) but a q8300 definitley won't.

On a side note you could try and get a Xeon e5450 and socket mod it. It's relatively simple and you would basically be getting a higher binned q9650 for cheap (a Xeon e5450 can be found for less than 50$)

[i_build_nanosuits]

And you know this....How?

[RubyRoks]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ub3lzTplYxM

Fair enough

[i_build_nanosuits]

Fair enough

if there was only two cpu available on planet earth, the G3258 and Q8300...i'd personaly pick the Q8300 and i'd clock the crap out of it.

You NEED 4 threads for current modern demanding games...you just do.

otherwise they stutter like crazy and you get aweful frametime variances accross the board making them unplayable at times...

it's better to have a constant 35FPS versus having FPS fluctuation from ZERO FPS all the way up to 65FPS like it does in my video.

[RubyRoks]

if there was only two cpu available on planet earth, the G3258 and Q8300...i'd personaly pick the Q8300 and i'd clock the crap out of it.

You NEED 4 threads for current modern demanding games...you just do.

Sadly, i have a board that doesn't support overclocking, nor can i find a BIOS that would allow it to.

[i_build_nanosuits]

Sadly, i have a board that doesn't support overclocking, nor can i find a BIOS that would allow it to.

 

looks like you need a replacement, in that case i'd suggest this, add DDR3 RAM if you don't already have them...if you have ddr3 ram it's fine to re-use them RAM speed won't affect performance in games:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4150 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($99.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Motherboard: ASRock H97M Anniversary Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($63.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Total: $163.98

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-07 14:15 EST-0500

 

If somehow you can spend a little more, i'd suggest you go with this one instead...will get better performance and will last a lot longer before needing replacement again:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($174.69 @ SuperBiiz)

Motherboard: ASRock H97M Anniversary Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($63.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Total: $238.68

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-07 14:16 EST-0500

[Aniallation]

And you know this....How?

Thought switching to Intel would be a good idea, switched out my Phenom II X6 for a G3258, experience was awful. 

[othertomperson]

if there was only two cpu available on planet earth, the G3258 and Q8300...i'd personaly pick the Q8300 and i'd clock the crap out of it.

You NEED 4 threads for current modern demanding games...you just do.

 

Someone needs to tell Ubisoft. For all the "games don't even run with a dual core" (which is a reference to a BUG in Far Cry 4), that game, like Far Cry 3, uses CPU3 and NOTHING ELSE.

[i_build_nanosuits]

Someone needs to tell Ubisoft. For all the "games don't even run with a dual core" (which is a reference to a BUG in Far Cry 4), that game, like Far Cry 3, uses CPU3 and NOTHING ELSE.

you can force those games to run on a dual thread cpu like the G3258 but the CPU is just plain too weak the performance is aweful.

[Aniallation]

looks like you need a replacement, in that case i'd suggest this, add DDR3 RAM if you don't already have them...if you have ddr3 ram it's fine to re-use them RAM speed won't affect performance in games:

 

If somehow you can spend a little more, i'd suggest you go with this one instead...will get better performance and will last a lot longer before needing replacement again:

Honestly you could go with H81 + non-refresh chips for both of those and save some money

 

 

Someone needs to tell Ubisoft. For all the "games don't even run with a dual core" (which is a reference to a BUG in Far Cry 4), that game, like Far Cry 3, uses CPU3 and NOTHING ELSE.

Uh, no.

 

The limitation is not a BUG. It is there for a reason. Even in AAA titles that do run on a dual core, the experience is, again, awful. If the 4-thread restriction wasn't there, there would be far more people trying to run the game on G3258s + a high end GPU thinking that there would be no bottleneck, only to discover that it lag spikes like hell and then coming to people like us to whine about it.

[i_build_nanosuits]

Honestly you could go with H81 + non-refresh chips for both of those and save some money

yes, but most of the time the haswell refresh skus only cost like 5$ more and the H97 anniversary board is very cheap right now and still offer better features and connectivity...i just feel the 10 or 15$ extra is worth it for a slightly faster cpu and a much better motherboard...but i have nothing against say an i5-4440 and a cheaper H81 board...sure!

 

To OP, here are your other options, non-refresh haswell cpu's:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($100.95 @ SuperBiiz)

Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($39.89 @ SuperBiiz)

Total: $140.84

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-07 14:32 EST-0500

 

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($171.98 @ NCIX US)

Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($39.89 @ SuperBiiz)

Total: $211.87

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-07 14:33 EST-0500

 

it is indeed a little cheaper, but if you go with that board i suggest you get a SINGLE 8GB stick of RAM, that way you can throw another one later and get 16GB if needs be!

[profesorfrink42]

I said on par, not beat. I'd say that except for Crysis 3 (which i have no interest in) it'd be fine for gaming.

 

I'm a proud owner of a G3258.

 

It won't cut it in most AAA games. I know that, I've come to accept that. It won't cut it in multithreaded applications, and that includes something as simple as having a powerful game and alt-tabbing to check a messaging client of your choice and check a wiki on your browser.

 

I was hitting 100% CPU in Hitman Absolution, with around 60 or so percent on the GPU.

 

I really love my CPU, but if you want to do anything while you're gaming I wouldn't recommend. AND, if you want to play the upcoming AAA titles, I wouldn't recommend it either. The main problem the Pentium has are minimum framerates, it's not uncommon to simply drop to 20 FPS or even freeze for a second sometimes.

 

In my case, I simply want a gaming rig that will be used solely for gaming, not streaming, not rendering, and I will play (right now) "old" games since I'me somewhat new to pc gaming and I still have to catch up. After that, I'll upgrade to an i5.

[Aniallation]

^ This

[harrynowl]

Are you willing/can you OC your Core2Quad? At ~4Ghz it'd be a pretty good CPU in games.