Are Pentiums Still Good?

[silasjdemone]

I was thinking of building another like budget rig, but im questioning if i should go with a Pentium because there not exactly future proof, are they?

[lookpuppy]

G4560 is the most budget oriented pentium right now, and is the forst pentium w/ hyperthreading

[silasjdemone]

Thats what i was gunna build off of, but im worried if it would be a good idea or not for the future

[Nicnac]

I'd wait for raven ridge apus. they're gonna release on Feb 12. and their graphics unit is comparable to a gt 1030 so definitely worth it for budget.

[Dissitesuxba11s]

@JayzTwoCents made a video on budget builds (see below). If you want a build that will last you a while, I suggest building a Ryzen based build or wait for their desktop APU's.

 

 

[Biggerboot]

18 minutes ago, silasjdemone said:

I was thinking of building another like budget rig, but im questioning if i should go with a Pentium because there not exactly future proof, are they?

My response to this type of question is usually - what are you looking to do today? 

[Sfekke]

Future proofing is really difficult since how will you predict the future?

It also heavily depends on what you do now, and will do in the next 4 years.

A G4560 will game pretty okay if that is what you are wondering about.

I'd suggest selecting a chip within your price range & looking at benchmarks where it uses a graphics card you plan to use.

That way you can make sure it performs somewhat up to your expectations

 

- Sfekke

[maartendc]

43 minutes ago, Sfekke said:

Future proofing is really difficult since how will you predict the future?

It also heavily depends on what you do now, and will do in the next 4 years.

A G4560 will game pretty okay if that is what you are wondering about.

I'd suggest selecting a chip within your price range & looking at benchmarks where it uses a graphics card you plan to use.

That way you can make sure it performs somewhat up to your expectations

 

- Sfekke

Eh, I'd say nowadays a dual core is NOT sufficient anymore to game on. More and more games are becoming more CPU intensive where 4 cores is really required, (such as Battlefield 1, Witcher 3, GTA V, etc.). This will just keep continuing in the future, so I would not be building anything with a dual core except for browsing and office tasks.

 

So, no. Pentiums are not still good, depending on what you want to do.

 

EDIT: Sidenote, depends also on the games you want to run. If all you need is Minecraft, CS:GO and WoW, then yes, Pentium is good enough.

[Biggerboot]

2 hours ago, maartendc said:

So, no. Pentiums are not still good, depending on what you want to do.

I wouldn't strictly count the pentium out vs all quad cores.  Of course I'd like to know the budget the OP has to work with but say a Ryzen 1200 isn't going to be that much greater in multithreaded tasks, at least paired with budget RAM.  However AM4 boards would be a nice place to start out small and then upgrade on the platform later.  That type of future proofing can be viable, but if your intention is to build it and leave it for 4-6 years I'd save for something better and perhaps wait for these GPU prices to fall.  Either that or look for older used hardware if available in your country.

[Ground]

Is it a rig you are planning to upgrade to a better CPU in the future? If not, a locked Haswell i5 + motherboard would probably cost about the same while allowing cheaper DDR3...

[silasjdemone]

I currently have an old AM3+ system,

fx 4300

shitty adata ram 8gb

gtx 1050ti

500w power supply.

 

Gaming mainly is what i would use it for. I would be obviously using gpu/psu. I play, csgo, arma, would love to play squad, rust, lol, a few other randoms too

[Sfekke]

13 hours ago, maartendc said:

Eh, I'd say nowadays a dual core is NOT sufficient anymore to game on. More and more games are becoming more CPU intensive where 4 cores is really required, (such as Battlefield 1, Witcher 3, GTA V, etc.). This will just keep continuing in the future, so I would not be building anything with a dual core except for browsing and office tasks.

 

So, no. Pentiums are not still good, depending on what you want to do.

 

EDIT: Sidenote, depends also on the games you want to run. If all you need is Minecraft, CS:GO and WoW, then yes, Pentium is good enough.

My brother uses an Dual Core i5-4570T, not quite a Pentium but it is a 2 Core 4 Thread system.

Grand Theft Auto V/PUBG/Planetside 2/Arma II & III run great on mixed medium/high with a GTX 1060 6GB.

I do have to say he hits about 90% CPU usage on average, but it keeps a stable 60FPS with no input latency.

 

@silasjdemone if you plan to CS:GO,Arma (I presume 2 or 3) & Rust then a Dual Core shouldn't hold you back too much if it has hyperthreading & you do not plan to multitask while gaming. Watching a 720P video while playing a game or using Discord/Skype do work fine, but heavy 10+tab Chrome browsing chockes a poor dual core.

[PhaseShift]

I'd say go for a ryzen 3 cpu. It offers a platform which is going to be relevant at the very least this whole year. You can just slot in a better ryzen chip later and be great for a few more years. Going for the g4560 is not worth it IMO - it's not a great chip and the platform is dead so the best you can do later is slot in a 7700k.

[Bhav]

Personally I enjoy my Pentium very much:

 

 

[Princess Luna]