- Nov 20, 2005
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One of my favorite tricks for building a nice rig on a budget back in the day was buy a new platform where everything was top notch- RAM, mobo, etc.- except for the CPU. The CPU would just be a stopgap until years later when you could get a top chip for that platform for cost savings that were greater than what the original stopgap CPU cost. The fact that almost every CPU could be OCed back then made waiting on the stopgap CPU not a painful experience.
Every since Sandy that practice seems foolhardy. Not only does it take longer for CPUs to fall off in value, but there hasn't really been a chip below a i3 that a serious user or gamer could survive on as a stopgap even with OC. You either went i5 or i7 day one or you were wasting money. That makes changing platforms very costly all at once, which pretty much forces some people to cut corners on say the mobo or RAM or GPU to afford that i5. We have needed a stopgap that wasn't there.
I tried to give the G3258 a chance, but it failed. It didn't matter how fast I could get the two cores, just having two threads meant even weak games like Rocket League stuttered. It was not the stopgap I was looking for.
But maybe the Pentium G4620 is finally a decent stopgap? Four threads means recent i3 performance in gaming, and even though its locked I bet it could still keep up with a 2500 non-k for the task.
Part of the question also comes down to cost. It looks like the Pentium G4620 will be sub-$100. Looking at 6700k prices, that chip was $370+ for months after launch, with some deal prices as low as $290 a year later when the demand had dropped. If history repeats that gives us a gap of $80 of possible savings if someone waits to buy a 7700k until its the best price possible. If the Pentium G4620 can be had for around $80, and its decent usage-wise, then there is no penalty for "getting by" on a Pentium G4620 for a year.
Is the Pentium G4620 the stopgap I dream it will be? Or will it fail gamers like the G3258, or have jacked up prices due to high demand for the early months of its existence? Thank you for any thoughts.
Every since Sandy that practice seems foolhardy. Not only does it take longer for CPUs to fall off in value, but there hasn't really been a chip below a i3 that a serious user or gamer could survive on as a stopgap even with OC. You either went i5 or i7 day one or you were wasting money. That makes changing platforms very costly all at once, which pretty much forces some people to cut corners on say the mobo or RAM or GPU to afford that i5. We have needed a stopgap that wasn't there.
I tried to give the G3258 a chance, but it failed. It didn't matter how fast I could get the two cores, just having two threads meant even weak games like Rocket League stuttered. It was not the stopgap I was looking for.
But maybe the Pentium G4620 is finally a decent stopgap? Four threads means recent i3 performance in gaming, and even though its locked I bet it could still keep up with a 2500 non-k for the task.
Part of the question also comes down to cost. It looks like the Pentium G4620 will be sub-$100. Looking at 6700k prices, that chip was $370+ for months after launch, with some deal prices as low as $290 a year later when the demand had dropped. If history repeats that gives us a gap of $80 of possible savings if someone waits to buy a 7700k until its the best price possible. If the Pentium G4620 can be had for around $80, and its decent usage-wise, then there is no penalty for "getting by" on a Pentium G4620 for a year.
Is the Pentium G4620 the stopgap I dream it will be? Or will it fail gamers like the G3258, or have jacked up prices due to high demand for the early months of its existence? Thank you for any thoughts.