Hyper-threading

[dougdangger]

Hi guys.

 

I have a Pentium G3258 OCd to 4.6ghz.  Everything runs at about 60fps on high to max at 1080p.

 

My problem is GTA V.  I get stuttering when I'm in the city.  Otherwise everything is rock solid at 60fps.

 

I'm certain my cpu is pegged, both cores, when playing cpu intensive games as such.  The 3258 is only single thread dual core.  Will I notice a big difference with a Core i3 with HT?  I know i5 quad cores will definitely be a step up, but it costs quite a bit of money.

 

$130 buys me a decent i3 whereas an i5 is about another $100.

 

All I care about is 60fps @ 1080p.  I have 8gb ddr3 and a 960.

 

Would an SSD help?  I've seen 120gb drives for as little as $50.  I have a fast internet so I have no problem installing only the OS and 2 - 3 games at most.

[Dabasepc]

i3 + 960 is great combo. yh it would help. go for it.

 

if you plan on upgrading for a 970 or better later, consider buying an i5 already.

[Mao_Zedong]

The i3 would be a little better, but wouldn't be worth it. If you do upgrade, get an i5 4430.

[Enderman]

I would wait to buy an i5 if I were you

a 4460 would be cheaper but you cant OC much

 

if you sell the G3258 that would get you some extra money too

[WoodenMarker]

An i3 would definitely help for games like GTA5.

I'd suggest picking up an i5 when on sale instead if you intend to keep up on AAA games in the future.

A ssd makes a world of difference when it comes to the responsiveness of your system but wouldn't usually affect your gaming performance.

[OAcesync]

Hi guys.

 

I have a Pentium G3258 OCd to 4.6ghz.  Everything runs at about 60fps on high to max at 1080p.

 

My problem is GTA V.  I get stuttering when I'm in the city.  Otherwise everything is rock solid at 60fps.

 

I'm certain my cpu is pegged, both cores, when playing cpu intensive games as such.  The 3258 is only single thread dual core.  Will I notice a big difference with a Core i3 with HT?  I know i5 quad cores will definitely be a step up, but it costs quite a bit of money.

 

$130 buys me a decent i3 whereas an i5 is about another $100.

 

All I care about is 60fps @ 1080p.  I have 8gb ddr3 and a 960.

 

Would an SSD help?  I've seen 120gb drives for as little as $50.  I have a fast internet so I have no problem installing only the OS and 2 - 3 games at most.

Get an i5, HT makes no difference and i3 don't have much improved single core perf. to a OC G3258

[Howhurl]

I think for whatever reason, GTA5 is tough on dual cores cpus (hyperthreaded or not). Min requirement is quad core apparently

[JustChilliing]

What's your GPU?

[JerkyMcDilerino]

What's your GPU?

 I would rather get i5 4460 or i5 4590 or i5 4590k for just gaming.

[dougdangger]

Thanks guys.

I think I will just save up and get an i5.

What's a good model that over clocks like a mofo but isn't so expensive?

I have a gigabyte b85 motherboard.  LGA 1150.  I think an i5 should work.

 

Also, would I have to reinstall the OS if it's just a cpu swap?

[WoodenMarker]

Thanks guys.

I think I will just save up and get an i5.

What's a good model that over clocks like a mofo but isn't so expensive?

I have a gigabyte b85 motherboard.  LGA 1150.  I think an i5 should work.

 

Also, would I have to reinstall the OS if it's just a cpu swap?

You wouldn't be overclocking your i5 on a B85 board. I'd suggest just getting whatever 1150 i5 is the cheapest that isn't some lower-clock power-saving one.

OS reinstallation should be unnecessary.

[dougdangger]

You wouldn't be overclocking your i5 on a B85 board. I'd suggest just getting whatever 1150 i5 is the cheapest that isn't some lower-clock power-saving one.

OS reinstallation should be unnecessary.

Thanks!

[arnavvr]

Get a used i5 4430, they go for the same price as new i3's

[Ketcchup]

i3 would improve your experience, but an i5 is a much better step

[SteveGrabowski0]

Get an i5, HT makes no difference and i3 don't have much improved single core perf. to a OC G3258

 

You're wrong on both counts:

 

(1) HT makes a big difference in comparing a Pentium to an i3 

 

 

(2) No i3 is touching an overclocked G3258 in single core performance. And yet that overclock doesn't save it from a core count deficiency the way HT did a respectable job of in the above videos. 

[SteveGrabowski0]

Thanks guys.

I think I will just save up and get an i5.

What's a good model that over clocks like a mofo but isn't so expensive?

I have a gigabyte b85 motherboard.  LGA 1150.  I think an i5 should work.

 

Also, would I have to reinstall the OS if it's just a cpu swap?

 

Your question is interesting and I'm always a pretty big proponent of i3 over Pentium (I had one @ 4.4 GHz and it wasn't that good IMO), but I have never recommended i3s for GTA V. I figured I'd test it out by disabling cores and switching hyperthreading off on my Xeon E3-1231v3, and my simulated i3 was actually pretty damn impressive. Here is what I found with a Xeon E3-1231v3 (similar to an i7-4770 but much cooler running) with a moderately overclocked GTX 970 (1417 MHz).

 

I first tested by disabling two cores and disabling HT to simulate a G3258 at 3.8 GHz, and the results were pretty bad. Near sunset by the strip club it was running mostly 40s with dips into the high 30s, and even occasional drops into the 20s with truly horrible stutters a couple of times when I carjacked someone in the area (I would guess the spinning camera view while entering was the main problem here). It was pretty stuttery and driving wasn't great, mostly high 40s. Sleeping until daytime and then going out in the area around Michael's house the framerate was mostly high 50s whether walking or driving. I got an Infernus and drove it around the highway from south of Michael's house all the way to the Mt Chiliad area by going out the east side of the city and it was much better, with framerates in the high 50s and occasionally low 50s, though it would drop to low 40s when I got to that small town where the highway becomes a regular road. The town right before the Mt Chiliad forest. Overall I felt the game was unplayable in the city, reasonable in the country on my simulated 3.8 GHz Pentium. GPU usage was terrible, 45%-65% most of the time, even on the open road (I ran with vsync off on all tests).

 

So I rebooted, went into the BIOS, and switched hyperthreading on to simulate a 3.8 GHz i3 (the E3-1231v3 has a 3.8 GHz single and dual core turbo that it stays on 100% of the time in demanding single and dual core loads for me). The performance was stellar in GTA V. In that area by the strip club at the same time of day near sunset I was mostly getting 65 fps on foot or in the car, with some drops to the mid 50s in the area. When I drove downtown through the skyscrapers there was an immediately noticeable drop to 54 fps or so, but the stutter with the dual core and no HT was eliminated. I'd get low to mid 70s with drops into the low to mid 60s in the daytime walking and driving by Michael's house. Driving on the highway whether near sunset or in the middle of the day was great, 60s in the city, 70s in the country, and none of those drops in the small town before Mt Chiliad that I saw with the simulated Pentium. I could slap vsync on to 60fps and this i3 could feed my 970 very well, I was really impressed. GPU usage was in the 80s most of the time with very rare drops into the mid 60s. So it does bottleneck my 970 (with my Xeon it's mostly 95% GPU usage or better, with very very rare dips into the high 80s), but not nearly as much as I figured it would. It would be pretty damn good for playing at 60 Hz. Some drops into the 50s, but mostly 60 fps. GTA V is a really well written game.

 

Then I rebooted and went into BIOS and changed my simulated i3 to run at 3.0 GHz to see what effect the clockspeed had. And this test I have to give a big incomplete to. I started out at the same time near sunset by the strip club, and it ran mostly 60s on foot, mid 50s in a car, with drops into the mid 40s. So not as good as my simulated 3.8 GHz i3, definitely not butter smooth like with the simulated 3.8 GHz i3. Still smoother than the 3.8 GHz Pentium equivalent, higher framerates, but not great like the 3.8 GHz i3 equivalent was. Since the i3 that's always on sale for the lowest price (i3-4160) is 3.6 GHz, I think the 3.8 GHz i3 test would be a lot closer to actual results with an i3-4160 or i3-4170. I have to give the test an incomplete though because GTA V crashed on me when I switched the CPU to 3.0 GHz. I have never had GTA V crash on me, so I don't know what the hell happened there. I don't feel like redoing that test though.

 

The big caveat with these tests is an i3-41xx only has 3MB L3 cache while a Xeon E3-1231v3 has 8MB L3 cache. All gaming benchmarks I have ever seen say there is minimal difference in gaming with 3MB vs 6MB vs 8MB L3 cache, but I can't disable X amount of cache to test whether it makes a difference. But the difference between GTA V on the 3.8 GHz simulated Pentium and the 3.8 GHz simulated i3 was absolute night vs day, like the difference between running an HD 7770 vs a GTX 960 in most games. Playing about 15 minutes in dense traffic, cops chasing me, just lots of things going on it was a really smooth gaming experience on the simulated 3.8 GHz i3. 

 

My settings were 1080p, everything maxed out in the standard settings except MSAA and reflection MSAA off, and grass on Very High instead of Ultra. All advanced settings were turned off except for the streaming when flying.

 

To answer your OS question, nah, you don't need to reinstall the OS if you're just switching out the CPU. If you switch out the board you have to, but I never needed to reinstall Windows when I replaced my G3258 with a Xeon E3-1231v3 on the same Gigabyte H81 board.

[SteveGrabowski0]

Forgot to mention I did all highway driving tests with an Infernus as fast as it would go, to stress the CPU as hard as I could in normal gameplay.

[SteveGrabowski0]

I didn't test quadcore with HT off to simulate an i5 though. I have done it before in other games and haven't noticed any kind of meaningful difference vs having it on with my Xeon. Maybe it would here, but I doubt it, benchmarks I have seen show no meaningful difference between i5 and i7 in GTA V.

[hhamama66]

Hi guys.

I have a Pentium G3258 OCd to 4.6ghz. Everything runs at about 60fps on high to max at 1080p.

My problem is GTA V. I get stuttering when I'm in the city. Otherwise everything is rock solid at 60fps.

I'm certain my cpu is pegged, both cores, when playing cpu intensive games as such. The 3258 is only single thread dual core. Will I notice a big difference with a Core i3 with HT? I know i5 quad cores will definitely be a step up, but it costs quite a bit of money.

$130 buys me a decent i3 whereas an i5 is about another $100.

All I care about is 60fps @ 1080p. I have 8gb ddr3 and a 960.

Would an SSD help? I've seen 120gb drives for as little as $50. I have a fast internet so I have no problem installing only the OS and 2 - 3 games at most.

If you have a microcenter in your area, you can pick up an i5 4690k for about $150. When I was looking for a cpu, I was looking at the 4690k which was $250 on Amazon, but then I found the i7 4790k for the same price I was originally going to buy the i5 for, so I picked it up at microcenter

[lightningterror]

Here is your answer.

 

[i_build_nanosuits]

Here is your answer.

When it comes to CPU benchmarking the integrated benchmark for GTA V is not very useful because it only stress the CPU a little bit at the very end when you collied with the truck (that's where you see the G3258 really suck balls) but it's nowhere near as intense when compaired to highway chase with police chasing you and gun shooting and stuff...just saying.

It's great to test GPU's but when it comes to how the game react on the CPU side, not so much.

[typographie]

I think I will just save up and get an i5.

What's a good model that over clocks like a mofo but isn't so expensive?

I have a gigabyte b85 motherboard.  LGA 1150.  I think an i5 should work.

 

Intel usually only allows one i5 to be unlocked in each product generation, and it's usually the top-end (most expensive) model. In the case of Haswell that's the i5-4690K. Usually nothing but the highest-tier i5 and i7 are unlocked—the G3258 was a kind of special product for the 20th anniversary of the Pentium brand.

 

If you don't need to be able to overclock, the cheapest i5 you can get is an i5-4460 for about $190. It will perform almost indistinguishably from an i5-4690K at stock.

[dougdangger]

Your question is interesting and I'm always a pretty big proponent of i3 over Pentium (I had one @ 4.4 GHz and it wasn't that good IMO), but I have never recommended i3s for GTA V. I figured I'd test it out by disabling cores and switching hyperthreading off on my Xeon E3-1231v3, and my simulated i3 was actually pretty damn impressive. Here is what I found with a Xeon E3-1231v3 (similar to an i7-4770 but much cooler running) with a moderately overclocked GTX 970 (1417 MHz).

 

I first tested by disabling two cores and disabling HT to simulate a G3258 at 3.8 GHz, and the results were pretty bad. Near sunset by the strip club it was running mostly 40s with dips into the high 30s, and even occasional drops into the 20s with truly horrible stutters a couple of times when I carjacked someone in the area (I would guess the spinning camera view while entering was the main problem here). It was pretty stuttery and driving wasn't great, mostly high 40s. Sleeping until daytime and then going out in the area around Michael's house the framerate was mostly high 50s whether walking or driving. I got an Infernus and drove it around the highway from south of Michael's house all the way to the Mt Chiliad area by going out the east side of the city and it was much better, with framerates in the high 50s and occasionally low 50s, though it would drop to low 40s when I got to that small town where the highway becomes a regular road. The town right before the Mt Chiliad forest. Overall I felt the game was unplayable in the city, reasonable in the country on my simulated 3.8 GHz Pentium. GPU usage was terrible, 45%-65% most of the time, even on the open road (I ran with vsync off on all tests).

 

So I rebooted, went into the BIOS, and switched hyperthreading on to simulate a 3.8 GHz i3 (the E3-1231v3 has a 3.8 GHz single and dual core turbo that it stays on 100% of the time in demanding single and dual core loads for me). The performance was stellar in GTA V. In that area by the strip club at the same time of day near sunset I was mostly getting 65 fps on foot or in the car, with some drops to the mid 50s in the area. When I drove downtown through the skyscrapers there was an immediately noticeable drop to 54 fps or so, but the stutter with the dual core and no HT was eliminated. I'd get low to mid 70s with drops into the low to mid 60s in the daytime walking and driving by Michael's house. Driving on the highway whether near sunset or in the middle of the day was great, 60s in the city, 70s in the country, and none of those drops in the small town before Mt Chiliad that I saw with the simulated Pentium. I could slap vsync on to 60fps and this i3 could feed my 970 very well, I was really impressed. GPU usage was in the 80s most of the time with very rare drops into the mid 60s. So it does bottleneck my 970 (with my Xeon it's mostly 95% GPU usage or better, with very very rare dips into the high 80s), but not nearly as much as I figured it would. It would be pretty damn good for playing at 60 Hz. Some drops into the 50s, but mostly 60 fps. GTA V is a really well written game.

 

Then I rebooted and went into BIOS and changed my simulated i3 to run at 3.0 GHz to see what effect the clockspeed had. And this test I have to give a big incomplete to. I started out at the same time near sunset by the strip club, and it ran mostly 60s on foot, mid 50s in a car, with drops into the mid 40s. So not as good as my simulated 3.8 GHz i3, definitely not butter smooth like with the simulated 3.8 GHz i3. Still smoother than the 3.8 GHz Pentium equivalent, higher framerates, but not great like the 3.8 GHz i3 equivalent was. Since the i3 that's always on sale for the lowest price (i3-4160) is 3.6 GHz, I think the 3.8 GHz i3 test would be a lot closer to actual results with an i3-4160 or i3-4170. I have to give the test an incomplete though because GTA V crashed on me when I switched the CPU to 3.0 GHz. I have never had GTA V crash on me, so I don't know what the hell happened there. I don't feel like redoing that test though.

 

The big caveat with these tests is an i3-41xx only has 3MB L3 cache while a Xeon E3-1231v3 has 8MB L3 cache. All gaming benchmarks I have ever seen say there is minimal difference in gaming with 3MB vs 6MB vs 8MB L3 cache, but I can't disable X amount of cache to test whether it makes a difference. But the difference between GTA V on the 3.8 GHz simulated Pentium and the 3.8 GHz simulated i3 was absolute night vs day, like the difference between running an HD 7770 vs a GTX 960 in most games. Playing about 15 minutes in dense traffic, cops chasing me, just lots of things going on it was a really smooth gaming experience on the simulated 3.8 GHz i3. 

 

My settings were 1080p, everything maxed out in the standard settings except MSAA and reflection MSAA off, and grass on Very High instead of Ultra. All advanced settings were turned off except for the streaming when flying.

 

To answer your OS question, nah, you don't need to reinstall the OS if you're just switching out the CPU. If you switch out the board you have to, but I never needed to reinstall Windows when I replaced my G3258 with a Xeon E3-1231v3 on the same Gigabyte H81 board.

Thanks!  Makes sense.

[Prysin]

Hi guys.

 

I have a Pentium G3258 OCd to 4.6ghz.  Everything runs at about 60fps on high to max at 1080p.

 

My problem is GTA V.  I get stuttering when I'm in the city.  Otherwise everything is rock solid at 60fps.

 

I'm certain my cpu is pegged, both cores, when playing cpu intensive games as such.  The 3258 is only single thread dual core.  Will I notice a big difference with a Core i3 with HT?  I know i5 quad cores will definitely be a step up, but it costs quite a bit of money.

 

$130 buys me a decent i3 whereas an i5 is about another $100.

 

All I care about is 60fps @ 1080p.  I have 8gb ddr3 and a 960.

 

Would an SSD help?  I've seen 120gb drives for as little as $50.  I have a fast internet so I have no problem installing only the OS and 2 - 3 games at most.

you can get a locked i5 at 160-170 USD.

 

I suggest you wait until Black Friday, if you can stand waiting that long. Intel stuff usually go on incredible sales around those times.

 

That, or you can buy a Athlon X4 860k + R9 290 TRI-X OC from sapphire. That will play GTA5 just fine at 1080p.

 

(The 860k is basically a A10 7870k, just clocked down 200MHz)

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