Dual core for gaming?

[Zeke_]

I only have about 60-70$ for a CPU and am wondering if the Pentium lineup of cpu's would be a good option. I want something with a decent upgrade path and something that will hold up well with modern games at reasonable settings. Is getting a dual core going to hold me back in the long run? 

[flibberdipper]

The new Kaby Lake Pentiums with Hyperthreading are basically i3's, and i3's are a pretty solid starting point. For the older non-HT Pentiums, the only one to bother with is the G3258, and with that you'd better hope that you can OC it to at least 4.2-4.4.

[typographie]

2 hours ago, Zeke_ said:

Is getting a dual core going to hold me back in the long run? 

To some degree, sure, but you can't buy a $60–70 CPU that won't hold you back in the long run. That's the nature of this tier of product.

 

I doubt you can do better than the Pentium G4560 for this price. It's basically a cheaper Core i3, and we've seen Hyperthreading really helps i3's to do alright in most games today.