Haswell Pentium G3258 @ 3.8Ghz, better for gaming than a Q9400 @ 2.66 (quad)?

[VirtualLarry]

Just curious. I have a friend with a Q9400 and a GTX460 2GB card that I hooked him up with.

Would a G3258, say with a minimum OC of 3.8 (what I was able to get with my combo with a GA-H81M-DS2V @ 1.2v), be any faster for gaming, than a Q9400 @ 2.66Ghz (stock)? He has 8GB of RAM and Windows 7 64-bit, and a 2GB GTX460.

If it's not significantly better, then I would probably forget it.

Also, would your answer change, if it were OCed to 4.3-4.5?

TBH, I don't know what PC games he plays anymore. (He has a PS4.) His monitor is 1080P.

 

[crashtech]

From what I can tell it wouldn't be an upgrade in fully threaded scenarios unless the G3258 could be heavily overclocked, but on lightly threaded games it would definitely be way better.

If you are selling it as an upgrade, I wouldn't. Not a dramatic enough difference.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Can he overclock the Q9400? If he could get that to 3+ ghz it would be the best solution. Otherwise pretty much what crashtech said. It would be a big upgrade in some single threaded games, but pretty much a wash in highly threaded ones. If I were to pick from the two from scratch I would pick the pentium, but I dont know if there is enough difference to make it worthwhile as an upgrade.

 

[cbn]

It will depend on the game how much difference between the two.

With that mentioned, I would take a look at this article:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-bridge-wolfdale-yorkfield-comparison,3487-20.html

Here was the composite gaming comparison:

Since the Q9400 has less cache (6MB vs. 12MB) and less clockspeed than the Q9550, I would expect the Q9400 to be slower by X amount.

Likewise, since the G3258 is a Haswell (vs. Ivy Bridge Pentium G2020) and clocked higher, I would expect the OC 3258 to be faster by X amount.

 

[4ghz]

From limited testing a g3258 clocked at 4.7 ghz is slightly faster then a Q9550 clocked at 3.7 ghz. Gained about 1.5 frames in Crysis 3 with a hd 7950. Handbrake frames went from 287 to 323 with the Pentium. So if you can OC the Q9400 its probably not worth it unless its for idle power consumption which dropped about 55 watts.

 

[Lepton87]

If that Quad can be overclocked to around 3.8-4GHz I think it would be the best option and it should OC that high. Q6600 65nm(G0) already overclocked to around 3.3-3.6 earlier stepping about 200MHz-300MHz lower, Q9XXX 45nm should overclock up to 4.2GHz, notice up to, it's like 5GHz SB, very rare, more realistic target would be 3.6-3.8GHz. HW would be faster in terms of FPS but because it's only 2 threaded CPU it would micro-stutter in some games. 2 threads just aren't enough in many games, for some games this CPU would be fine but in other games it would stutter even though FPS would be solid, but frame-times wouldn't. If at all possible overclock that quad to at least 3.5GHz and that should be the best option all around.

 

[cbn]

it would micro-stutter in some games. 2 threads just aren't enough in many games

Is the microstutter (which I haven't experienced with my OC G3258/4GB RAM to any significant degree expect for one game COD :ghosts which called for 6 to 8GB RAM) caused by the fact the processor is a "dual core" or is it caused by something else? (eg, processor being too weak in general, cpu to gpu mismatch, etc.)

 

[crashtech]

I also think that an overclock, perhaps accompanied by a Hyper 212 Evo, would by far produce the most gains per dollar, and the cooler could be used on a later upgrade.

The selling point of moving to the LGA1150 platform is that it opens up future upgradability, but with a G3258 that won't overclock well, it's not much of an immediate upgrade at all, except for ST performance.

 

[Lepton87]

Is the microstutter (which I haven't experienced with my OC G3258/4GB RAM to any significant degree expect for one game COD :ghosts which called for 6 to 8GB RAM) caused by the fact the processor is a "dual core" or is it caused by something else? (eg, processor being too weak in general, cpu to gpu mismatch, etc.)

Not so much dual core as dual threaded, dual core with 4 threads(i3) doesn't have that problem and not everyone is susceptible to it. It was especially obvious with older NV drivers but they have fixed that by now.
Here is a good example of what I mean, mostly 2 HW threads are enough but some games have started appearing that clearly want more threads.

It's not the norm but more and more games start to behave like that, necessitating at least a 4 threaded CPU

 

[el etro]

The both processor will likely produce the same fps amount(average and minimuns). Don't change your processor for use with the GTX 460.

 

[Yuriman]

I moved from a mildly overclocked Q6600 to a Haswell i3 in my wife's computer and found that for highly threaded tasks, they were close to an even match. In games that were one-thread heavy (most of them) the i3 walked all over it. Civ5 will gobble up as much CPU as you can throw at it and take advantage of extra threads, and the i3 was close to 50% faster.

I don't own a Pentium so I can't comment on microstuttering, but I'd be reluctant to buy a 2 thread processor, personally, and an i3 around twice as expensive.

 

[Lepton87]

I don't own a Pentium so I can't comment on microstuttering, but I'd be reluctant to buy a 2 thread processor, personally, and an i3 around twice as expensive.

Neither do I but I'll do a little experiment, I'll disable 4 cores and HT and see how well it runs games, of course that's going to be a bit beefed up i3 with 15mb L3 but the point is 2 threads and it shouldn't behave any better.

 

[cbn]

Not so much dual core as dual threaded, dual core with 4 threads(i3) doesn't have that problem and not everyone is susceptible to it. It was especially obvious with older NV drivers but they have fixed that by now.

Yes, one thing I noticed about folks complaining about micro stutter with G3258 (around the time of the first reviews) was that they all seemed to be using Nvidia cards.

So how much of that micro- stutter has been fixed since the drivers were changed?

Do we have before and after numbers?

 

[Lepton87]

Yes, one thing I noticed about folks complaining about micro stutter with G3258 (around the time of the first reviews) was that they all seemed to be using Nvidia cards.

So how much of that micro- stutter has been fixed since the drivers were changed?

Do we have before and after numbers?

There are tests somewhere. I remember reading some tests but in Polish, I can look for it if you want.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Yes, one thing I noticed about folks complaining about micro stutter with G3258 (around the time of the first reviews) was that they all seemed to be using Nvidia cards.

So how much of that micro- stutter has been fixed since the drivers were changed?

Do we have before and after numbers?

Here is a video showing framerate and frame times for a G3258 paired with an R9 280 in BF4:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBpaceIotV0

 

[cbn]

Here is a video showing framerate and frame times for a G3258 paired with an R9 280 in BF4:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBpaceIotV0

Here is the analysis article linked in that video:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-pentium-g3258-review

They make a really good point throughout about cpu and gpu balance (pointing out that a 750 GTX ti gave better results than a 760 GTX in one instance)

Here was their conclusion:

Pentium G3258 Anniversary Edition - the Digital Foundry verdict

Is this the processor to buy for a budget gaming build? In terms of raw computational performance, 4.5GHz of Intel dual-core power is capable of some superb results that no other low-budget processor can match. However, despite the ludicrous clock-speeds, on the most advanced titles, you do find yourself lowering quality presets or introducing frame-rate caps in order to combat some notable stuttering.

I use a R7 250X with my OC 3258 and I just don't see the micro stuttering folks mention during BF 4 64 player on 1080p low.

 

[cbn]

Now regarding the two thread vs. four thread processor issue, what other variables are also at play?

For example, I know the Core i3 is simply not a Pentium with HT.

Haswell Core i3 also has features Pentium doesn't have like AVX and AVX II. Furthermore, some Core i3s like the i3-4330 Anandtech and Tom's tested have 4MB cache compared to Pentium's 3MB cache.

So I have to wonder if a Core i3 (even at lower clocks) isn't substantially more powerful as a multi-threaded processor as well.

 

[Lepton87]

Now regarding the two thread vs. four thread processor issue, what other variables are also at play?

For example, I know the Core i3 is simply not a Pentium with HT.

Haswell Core i3 also has features Pentium doesn't have like AVX and AVX II. Furthermore, some Core i3s like the i3-4330 Anandtech and Tom's tested have 4MB cache compared to Pentium's 3MB cache.

So I have to wonder if a Core i3 (even at lower clocks) isn't substantially more powerful as a multi-threaded processor as well.

Games don't use AVX instructions and additional cache gives low single digit gains at best. It's all about HT and that two additional threads at least in games. I can disable four cores and HT in my CPU and it's going to be barely faster than an actual pentium(maybe 5% faster on average) despite 15MB l3 vs 3MB and 4 channel DDR4 controller vs dual channel DDR3

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3150591 2C/2T Graphics Score 22355
Physics Score 4557
Combined Score 4213
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3100092 6C/12T
Graphics Score 22304
Physics Score 16848
Combined Score 7333

Can someone compare the first test result with a Pentium at ~4.4GHz? Physics score of course
There should be no difference.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Games don't use AVX instructions and additional cache has low single digit gain at best. It's all about HT and that two additional threads at least in games.

Makes me wonder if HT has proved so useful in Haswell i3's if it's not worth it to go for Xeon/i7 in case games want 8 threads in 2/3 years. Everyone says SMT is useless in games and to buy an i5, but SMT is obviously doing a lot of heavy lifting with the i3 Haswells.

 

[Lepton87]

Makes me wonder if HT has proved so useful in Haswell i3's if it's not worth it to go for Xeon/i7 in case games want 8 threads in 2/3 years. Everyone says SMT is useless in games and to buy an i5, but SMT is obviously doing a lot of heavy lifting with the i3 Haswells.

i7 will be able to play games longer than an i5, even the mainstream version, I think that in the future even SB i7 could be better than HW i5 in games. There is one example of a game that wants more than 4 threads already, NBA 2K15. I upgraded my 2500K to 2600K just for this reason but the upgrade itch had to be scratched again so I have what's in my sig with my old system still waiting to be sold.

 

[lyssword]

Games don't use AVX instructions and additional cache gives low single digit gains at best. It's all about HT and that two additional threads at least in games. I can disable four cores and HT in my CPU and it's going to be barely faster than an actual pentium(maybe 5% faster on average) despite 15MB l3 vs 3MB and 4 channel DDR4 controller vs dual channel DDR3

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3150591 2C/2T Graphics Score 22355
Physics Score 4557
Combined Score 4213
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/3100092 6C/12T
Graphics Score 22304
Physics Score 16848
Combined Score 7333

Can someone compare the first test result with a Pentium at ~4.4GHz? Physics score of course
There should be no difference.

yeah, Physics Score 4686 on my 4.6 g3258

 

[SteveGrabowski]

i7 will be able to play games longer than an i5, even the mainstream version, I think that in the future even SB i7 could be better than HW i5 in games. There is one example of a game that wants more than 4 threads already, NBA 2K15. I upgraded my 2500K to 2600K just for this reason but the upgrade itch had to be scratched again so I have what's in my sig with my old system still waiting to be sold.

I wonder how long until the i5 is 4C/8T. I love that I can get an i5-4590 for $190, but I keep feeling like it will be a mistake to not spend the extra $60 and get a 4C/8T Xeon E3-1231v3. There is absolutely no way I'm spending an extra $140 to go up to the i7-4790k though.

 

[Lepton87]

yeah, Physics Score 4686 on my 4.6 g3258

So IPC advantage of so much more cache and better memory subsystem is on the order of 3% taking into account frequency. So you have 5% higher frequency and 2.8% higher score.

 

[Lepton87]

I wonder how long until the i5 is 4C/8T. I love that I can get an i5-4590 for $190, but I keep feeling like it will be a mistake to not spend the extra $60 and get a 4C/8T Xeon E3-1231v3. There is absolutely no way I'm spending an extra $140 to go up to the i7-4790k though.

I rarely look into Xeons but this one makes sense, it is the cheapest way to get 4C/8T and it costs 250$, if you don't OC it's a lot better than 4690K and much better value than 4790K. In future games it might hold its own against an overclocked 4690K and eventually even beat it all without the hassle of OC, I would take it instead of 4690K. As for 4790 it's so expensive that it makes sense to add a few dollars and just buy 5820K but the platform as a whole is much more expensive. I would definitely buy this Xeon over this locked i5, very worth it.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I rarely look into Xeons but this one makes sense, it is the cheapest way to get 4C/8T and it costs 250$, if you don't OC it's a lot better than 4690K and much better value than 4790K. In future games it might hold its own against an overclocked 4690K and eventually even beat it all without the hassle of OC, I would take it instead of 4690K. As for 4790 it's so expensive that it makes sense to add a few dollars and just buy 5820K but the platform as a whole is much more expensive. I would definitely buy this Xeon over this locked i5, very worth it.

Is there any difference between the E3-1231v3 and the i7-4770 other than
(1) The i7-4770 has 100MHz higher turbo
(2) The E3-1231v3 has 4W lower TDP
(3) The E3-1231v3 has no IGP
(4) The E3-1231v3 can support ECC RAM
(5) The i7-4770 costs $60 more

Is there something I'm missing for why these two CPU's should be so different in price?