H81M-PLUS MoBo: Pentium G3258 Overclocked VS i3-4150.

[Viperspider]

Hi guys, first time builder here.

 

TL;DR: Red text.

 

I have my build mostly planned, except for the CPU. After posting in www.reddit.com/r/buildapc I was advised to get a G3258 and overclock it instead of getting the more expensive and non-overclockable i3-4150. Obviously since this is my first build, I have never overclocked a CPU or GPU before. I have some concerns about it. 

 

First off, as this is a budget build, I will not be buying an aftermarket CPU cooler and will just be using the stock coolers for the case, CPU and GPU. 

I am aware that overclocking can result in high temperatures, which is usually offset by an extra cooler but if I can I want to avoid paying for extra cooling. My question here is: Can I overclock the G3258 to at least 3.8GHz with only the stock cooler?

 

Secondly, I have some actual concerns about the H81M-PLUS motherboard and it's overclocking capabilities. I have read in some places that in order to overclock the G3258 with this motherboard I will need to "flash the BIOS". I'm not really sure what this is, I could learn about it online but I want to learn if it's necessary first. Can anyone tell me what I need to look out for and prepare for to overclock the G3258 on the H81M-PLUS motherboard?

 

Lastly, Have any of you overclocked the G3258 on the H81M-PLUS with the stock cooler? What results did you get?

 

If any of you think I should stick with the i3-4150, sound off in the comments.

 

Thanks to all who reply, planned specs below.

 

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/Tk9pJx

Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/Tk9pJx/by_merchant/

 

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£52.59) OR Intel Core i3-4150 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£89.64 @ Amazon UK)

Motherboard: Asus H81M-PLUS Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£39.97) 

Memory: Kingston Fury Black Series 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£50.91) 

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£42.97 @ Amazon UK) 

Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 280 3GB Dual-X Video Card  (£132.00) 

Case: Zalman Z3 Plus ATX Mid Tower Case  (£26.99 @ Amazon UK) 

Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  (£34.96 @ Amazon UK) 

Monitor: BenQ GL2250HM 60Hz 21.5" Monitor  (£89.99 @ Amazon UK) 

Keyboard: Logitech K120 - UK Layout Wired Standard Keyboard  (£8.98) 

OS: Win7 Pro 64bit (£41.99)

Cooling: Stock (£0)

 

Total: £521.35

[Laputacake]

You can overclock the pentium with stock cooler but I would go with the I3 because the hyper threading will help in games

[Viperspider]

You can overclock the pentium with stock cooler but I would go with the I3 because the hyper threading will help in games

Hi, Laputacake. Thanks for commenting.

 

That was my original plan, but I actually did some research and I found that Hyperthreading isn't actually implemented in most games. In the few games that it is implemented in, it does give slight FPS increases, but I'm wondering would a faster dual core produce greater results?

[Johannes_Lazor]

I dont think you can overclock much on a H81 board, Maybe from Asrock.
If you want to overclock you should look towards a Z87 but preferably a Z97 board.

i would recommend the G3258 even if it isnt overclocked for gaming rather than a i3-4150.

[Laputacake]

Hi, Laputacake. Thanks for commenting.

 

That was my original plan, but I actually did some research and I found that Hyperthreading isn't actually implemented in most games. In the few games that it is implemented in, it does give slight FPS increases, but I'm wondering would a faster dual core produce greater results?

That's probably comparing the I7 to the I5. To be able to get the pentium up to speed with the I3 you'd need a better cooler and for best results a Z97 board.

Not the most demanding game but

[mikat]

For 30$ the coolermaster Hyper 212 evo is a great cooler, you should pick up that one, its the best bang for the buck cooler ever, its even cooling my i7-4790k at full load 60 degrees celsius 

[Viperspider]

I dont think you can overclock much on a H81 board, Maybe from Asrock.

If you want to overclock you should look towards a Z87 but preferably a Z97 board.

i would recommend the G3258 even if it isnt overclocked for gaming rather than a i3-4150.

Hi Johannes_Lazor, thanks for commenting.

 

May I ask why you'd recommend the G3258 over the i3-4150 even when it's not overclocked? I assumed that since the base clock speed of the i3-4150 is 0.3GHz higher than the stock G3258 it would be better? Then you have hyperthreading which would increase multitasking capabilities.

[Viperspider]

That's probably comparing the I7 to the I5. To be able to get the pentium up to speed with the I3 you'd need a better cooler and for best results a Z97 board.

Not the most demanding game but

 

Interesting chart, thanks for posting.

 

So I'd need to get the G3258 above 4.4GHz to make it even with the i3-4150? Hmm, this is troubling news indeed.

 

This has shifted major points in the i3's favour.

[Viperspider]

For 30$ the coolermaster Hyper 212 evo is a great cooler, you should pick up that one, its the best bang for the buck cooler ever, its even cooling my i7-4790k at full load 60 degrees celsius 

Hi mikat, thanks for commenting.

 

Haha, well I appreciate the tip but I was hoping to avoid buying extra cooling Trying to keep the costs as low as possible.

[Johannes_Lazor]

Hi Johannes_Lazor, thanks for commenting.

 

May I ask why you'd recommend the G3258 over the i3-4150 even when it's not overclocked? I assumed that since the base clock speed of the i3-4150 is 0.3GHz higher than the stock G3258 it would be better? Then you have hyperthreading which would increase multitasking capabilities.

G3258: Barebones Dual core CPU aimed for a workload that uses 2 cores efficiently(Like Gaming) With Great Overclocking abilities.

i3-4150: Hyperthreading, it gets higher Multitasking capabilities.

Thats my view on this matter.

[Johannes_Lazor]

For 30$ the coolermaster Hyper 212 evo is a great cooler, you should pick up that one, its the best bang for the buck cooler ever, its even cooling my i7-4790k at full load 60 degrees celsius 

Enough to cool my A6 6400k so it never gets hotter than 55 Degrees C At Full load At 5ghz.(It is a shit CPU so it probably doesnt count though)

[Viperspider]

G3258: Barebones Dual core CPU aimed for a workload that uses 2 cores efficiently(Like Gaming) With Great Overclocking abilities.

i3-4150: Hyperthreading, it gets higher Multitasking capabilities.

Thats my view on this matter.

 

Thanks for your input!

 

I'm still on the fence as to which one to get. I would like some multitasking capability, but I would also like as much gaming performance as I can get and it looks like an overclocked G3258 at 4.5GHz is comparable to the i3-4150 at only a fraction of the cost.

[SteveGrabowski]

Hi, Laputacake. Thanks for commenting.

 

That was my original plan, but I actually did some research and I found that Hyperthreading isn't actually implemented in most games. In the few games that it is implemented in, it does give slight FPS increases, but I'm wondering would a faster dual core produce greater results?

 

That's absolutely false. Hyperthreading isn't something a game has to implement; it's something controlled by the thread scheduling in Windows. Whether or not a game uses hyperthreading boils down to whether it uses enough threads. I have a hyperthreaded Xeon CPU, and from running Riva Tuner Stats Server while playing I can tell you most new games run 6-8 threads most of the time, and everything I have played released in the last couple of years runs at least three. Reddit is wrong, even on heavy overclocks a Pentium G3258 cannot keep up with an i3 clocked 1GHz lower. Here is a video a fellow poster, @i_build_nanosuits made by simulating a 4.5 GHz G3258 + GTX 780 using his i7-4770k by overclocking, disabling cores, and disabling hyperthreading. It's not a pretty sight. That low GPU load is indicative of a pretty serious bottleneck.

 

 

And it's accurate, based on my experience with my own 4.4 GHz G3258 with a GTX 970. Now contrast that to this video where he's playing BF4 with an i3-4130 + GTX 780.

[SteveGrabowski]

Interesting chart, thanks for posting.

 

So I'd need to get the G3258 above 4.4GHz to make it even with the i3-4150? Hmm, this is troubling news indeed.

 

This has shifted major points in the i3's favour.

 

Hitman Absolution if I recall isn't that well parallelized compared to newer games, and the Pentium still struggles to keep up. The gulf between an OC Pentium-AE and a Haswell i3 just keeps getting wider and wider over time.

[SteveGrabowski]

Also, I'd recommend not buying an AMD card with an i3 (or even worse a Pentium). The DirectX11 overhead in the AMD drivers seems to be too much for anything less than an i5 to handle, though the Nvidia DX11 overhead seems lean enough to allow the i3 to still perform very well. See this article from Eurogamer where they discuss it:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-review

 

For this reason the extra 28 pounds for a GTX 960 instead of an R9 280 really makes a lot of sense. Now if you had an i5 build I would recommend the 280 above the 960 all day, but when building a budget system it's really important to try to play to your other components' strengths and minimize its weaknesses.

 

Sorry to recommend more expensive parts, but it gets you closer to a price to performance sweet spot. I cannot recommend Pentium G3258 for AAA gaming when you can't even launch Far Cry 4 nor Dragon Age Inquisition on a Pentium.

[SteveGrabowski]

Though I will add that @zappian says the i3-4160 + R9 270x combo works really well in his system.

[Viperspider]

Though I will add that @zappian says the i3-4160 + R9 270x combo works really well in his system.

Hi SteveGrabowski, thank you for all of your comments.

 

I have read all of your posts and thanks to your obvious knowledge and sources of information, I now understand that the Pentium is the wrong way to go. Thank you very much for posting!

 

As for upgrading to a GTX 960 to work with the i3-4150, I will consider it and will try to save the money to allow that in to the build. I will also consider the 270x. 

 

In your opinion, which would be the better video card to go for?

 

Also, is the H81M-PLUS motherboard compatibile with 1600MHz DDR3 RAM? That's an issue I was meaning to check, but I'm not sure how yo go about it.

[SteveGrabowski]

Hi SteveGrabowski, thank you for all of your comments.

 

I have read all of your posts and thanks to your obvious knowledge and sources of information, I now understand that the Pentium is the wrong way to go. Thank you very much for posting!

 

As for upgrading to a GTX 960 to work with the i3-4150, I will consider it and will try to save the money to allow that in to the build. I will also consider the 270x. 

 

In your opinion, which would be the better video card to go for?

 

Also, is the H81M-PLUS motherboard compatibile with 1600MHz DDR3 RAM? That's an issue I was meaning to check, but I'm not sure how yo go about it.

 

A 280 is better than a 270x and costs basically the same in the US, though maybe it's different where you live. I'd personally go with the GTX 960 over the R9 280 in an i3 system even though it costs more and has less VRAM based on the Eurogamer review where they show even a GTX 750 Ti (a pretty weak GPU by AAA gaming standards) keeping up with an R9 280 in COD Advanced Warfare when combined with an i3-4130 (with an i5 an R9 280 slaughters a GTX 750 Ti).

[SteveGrabowski]

Most likely your board will come with a BIOS new enough for an i3-4150. However, since an i3-4150 is a Haswell Refresh CPU (as is a Pentium G3258), if the board has been sitting on a store shelf or in a warehouse since before last June it will need a BIOS update. Thankfully Asus boards, and the H81M-PLUS specifically, support flashing the BIOS via a USB flash. See this here:

 

http://www.asus.com/microsite/2014/MB/New_4th_gen_Intel_processor_compatibility/

 

Here is the information about the BIOS you need.

 

http://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/H81MD_PLUS/HelpDesk_CPU/

 

If your system posts though I think your BIOS is new enough.

[SteveGrabowski]

If that's a huge concern you could buy an i3-4130 instead of the i3-4150. The 4130 is 100MHz slower, so about 3% weaker than the 4150. I'd just get the 4150 though since Asus supports updating the BIOS via a flash drive in the somewhat unlikely case that your board doesn't come with a new enough BIOS already out the box.

 

Or if you want another 3% you could get the i3-4160. After that the i3s get a lot more expensive with the extra 1MB of L3 cache though.

[tmlhalo]

I'd like to add that you aren't guaranteed anything when overclocking. It could crap out a couple hundred MHz over stock or it could be the next platinum chip. At least with the I3 you're guaranteed what is on the box.

[Viperspider]

A 280 is better than a 270x and costs basically the same in the US, though maybe it's different where you live. I'd personally go with the GTX 960 over the R9 280 in an i3 system even though it costs more and has less VRAM based on the Eurogamer review where they show even a GTX 750 Ti (a pretty weak GPU by AAA gaming standards) keeping up with an R9 280 in COD Advanced Warfare when combined with an i3-4130 (with an i5 an R9 280 slaughters a GTX 750 Ti).

 

I live in Ireland and PC components are crazy expensive here. I've found that it's actually cheaper to buy them in the UK and ship them over, even with the exchange rate being close to £1=€1.44 on amazon. I'm sticking with Amazon thanks to free shipping!

 

As for the GPU issues, will the R9 270x out-preform the R9 280 due to the compatibility issues you mentioned? I really don't mind which one I get, SAPPHIRE offer both cards at a good price, while still looking cool as shit.

 

I am considering the GTX 960, for £26 more it could be worth the upgrade. I will decide closer to the buying time.

[Viperspider]

I'd like to add that you aren't guaranteed anything when overclocking. It could crap out a couple hundred MHz over stock or it could be the next platinum chip. At least with the I3 you're guaranteed what is on the box.

 

Hi, tmlhalo. Thanks for commenting.

 

Yeah, I am definitely leaning more towards the i3. It seems like a much better processor overall.

[SteveGrabowski]

I live in Ireland and PC components are crazy expensive here. I've found that it's actually cheaper to buy them in the UK and ship them over, even with the exchange rate being close to £1=€1.44 on amazon. I'm sticking with Amazon thanks to free shipping!

 

As for the GPU issues, will the R9 270x out-preform the R9 280 due to the compatibility issues you mentioned? I really don't mind which one I get, SAPPHIRE offer both cards at a good price, while still looking cool as shit.

 

I am considering the GTX 960, for £26 more it could be worth the upgrade. I will decide closer to the buying time.

 

Nah, the 280 would outperform the 270x.

[Viperspider]

Nah, the 280 would outperform the 270x.

 

Thanks for all of your help, Steve. 

 

I just noticed your posts about the BIOS, those links are very helpful, thank you!

 

I'm still a bit confused about the GPU issues though. You mentioned the 280 may have some issues with the i3, but that a 270x (according to another user) performs just fine with it. Which suggests the 270x may be the better choice. As for the 960, I understand that that is the better choice overall if I can afford it.

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I am trying to choose between the 270x and the 280, and I will get whichever one will give me the best performance with the i3.