Budget CPU Upgrade

[Davidharris941]

I'm most likely getting a new monitor for black friday (29" 1080p ultrawide from LG) and I wanted a better CPU.. I had a $400 budget starting this build almost a year ago and mostly got the cheapest parts I could (except for psu). I went with a pentium g3258 since it was the most popular budget cpu at the time, and a ZOTAC gtx 950. The graphics card is fine for the games I play the most, but I think the cpu is bottlenecking performance on the more intense games (freezes randomly even when I'm not in an area that is easy to run).  I was thinking about getting the I5-4460 since it's pretty cheap and has good reviews, but I'm not sure if I can fit that into my budget. If I can't get that then what would be the next best thing? 

[Matias_Chambers]

i3 4150, I would highly recommend going for the 4460 though. 

[Matias_Chambers]

Just now, Matias_Chambers said:

i3 4150, I would highly recommend going for the 4460 though. 

Or 4160 or 4170

[Davidharris941]

11 minutes ago, Matias_Chambers said:

Or 4160 or 4170

I was just looking at the 4170 since it has a higher base clock than the other 2 and its the same price as the 4160. On the 4460, would more cores be better than hyper threading? I think I've heard some games benefit from hyper threading more than they do from additional cores, assuming this, a hyper threaded 2 core i3 would be better or the same in real world gaming and not synthetic benchmark scores right?

[Zytoc]

Real cores will beat out hyperthreading but I have an i3 with hyperthreading on my HTPC, which I play games on all the time and get well over 60 FPS with a GTX 970.  Also i5's are just faster than i3's, unless you are comparing a significant generation gap.

[fjdhdhcyfhf]

2 minutes ago, Davidharris941 said:

I was just looking at the 4170 since it has a higher base clock than the other 2 and its the same as the 4160. On the 4460, would more cores be better than hyper threading? I think I've heard some games benefit from hyper threading more than they do from additional cores, assuming this, a hyper threaded 2 core i3 would be better or the same in real world gaming and not synthetic benchmark scores right?

A 2 core with HT will give you 4 threads with each sharing some resources; I don't see how that could be better than a true 4-core. Id be interested to see where it is being reported some games perform better on logical cores than real cores

[Davidharris941]

Just now, SCHISCHKA said:

A 2 core with HT will give you 4 threads with each sharing some resources; I don't see how that could be better than a true 4-core. Id be interested to see where it is being reported some games perform better on logical cores than real cores

It was just something I thought I heard. Someone might have said it at some point but for some reason I just thought of that. The deciding factor on what I end up getting really just comes down to availability and price at the time I decide to buy it. I'm sure I can find some good deals during cyber monday and black friday.

[Matias_Chambers]

22 minutes ago, Davidharris941 said:

I think I've heard some games benefit from hyper threading more than they do from additional cores

No way. Physical cores are always better than hyper-threading. The i5 is the best option.

[fjdhdhcyfhf]

9 minutes ago, Davidharris941 said:

It was just something I thought I heard. Someone might have said it at some point but for some reason I just thought of that. The deciding factor on what I end up getting really just comes down to availability and price at the time I decide to buy it. I'm sure I can find some good deals during cyber monday and black friday.

You got it backwards. Turning off HT can be useful if the number of logical cores is excessive to your needs. Good luck its cyber monday here and It's pretty crap because they've been running on low stocks for the last few weeks. Im pretty tempted to get a cheap Intel NUC