Intel’s Pentium G3258 – Budget Overclocker’s Dream or Big Bust?

THE TECHNOLOGY X TEST BENCH

All of the components we use for testing are standard off-the-shelf PC components from major manufacturers, that can be purchased at a variety local retailers and online. We’ll also provide links to our components or similar ones that are available for those of you that find an interest in our equipment.

Test System 1

PC CHASSIS: Cooler Master Elite 130
MOTHERBOARD: MSI H97I AC
CPU: Intel Pentium G3258
MEMORY: G.Skill Ripjaws Z 1600MHz
GRAPHICS CARD: EVGA GTX 670 FTW
CPU COOLER: Stock
POWER SUPPLY: EVGA Supernova NEX 650 Watt Gold Fully Modular
STORAGE: Samsung 830 256GB

Test System 2

PC CHASSIS: Cooler Master HAF XM
MOTHERBOARD: Asrock z77 Extreme4
CPU: Intel i7 3770K
MEMORY: G.Skill Ripjaws Z 1600MHz
GRAPHICS CARD: EVGA GTX 670 FTW
CPU COOLER: Stock
POWER SUPPLY: Corsair TX 750 Watt V2
STORAGE: Samsung 830 256GB

 

OVERCLOCKING AND BENCHMARKS

This chip is clocked stock at 3.2GHz but is built to overclock, and using MSI’s BIOS I was able to get the clock speed to 4GHz at 1.20V at 75C at full load if I spent a little more time tweaking it I could have gotten the voltage lower, but frankly I didn’t get the chance. Mind you this is on the stock cooler in a Mini-ITX case where airflow is less than ideal.

OC

BENCHMARK SOFTWARE

The software used for today’s analysis is typical of many of our reviews and consists of CPU-Z, FutureMark’s 3D Mark 11, PCMark 8, Adobe’s Photoshop and Premiere Pro CC, WinRAR, Cinebench,Passmark, Battlefield 4, Crysis 3, Tomb Raider (2013) and Bioshock Infinite we prefer to test with easily accessible software that the consumer can obtain, and in many cases, we even provide links. Our selection of software allows each to build on the last and to provide validation to results already obtained.

Technology X strives to create a testing environment that can be easily replicated, and to completely describe every setting and parameter required to achieve the FPS and results we would achieve in our applications and system would be impractical and yet still may not provide you with a perfect environment to test your CPU

CINEBENCH

CINEBENCH is based on CINEMA 4D, which is used often by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in many blockbuster movies. This test scenario pushes all of your system’s processing cores to the limit to render a photorealistic 3D scene. This scene makes use of various different algorithms to stress all available processing cores.
Cinebench-Pentium-G3258

As you can see here, the cores and hyperthreading of the i7 are shown in all their glory, and with a mild overclock with the stock cooler I might add, performance increases by around 15% not too bad.

PASSMARK

Passmark is a simple to use and easy to understand benchmarking tool, for this test I choose to give the CPU overall score since the benchmark can be very in depth testing everything from CPU Floating point math to I/O speeds on storage drives, instead of throw a ton of information at you I’m giving you the important bits. (see I’m a helpful guy)

Passmark-Pentium-G3258

Again the i7 shows its mettle and provingwhy it commanded a price tag triple of the Pentium, and again the overclocked Pentium does a decent job.

INTRODUCING THE NEW PENTIUM G3258 The Intel Pentium G3258 Anniversary Edition CPU represents the first time Intel has allowed for overclocking on a Pentium series part since the introduction of it’s Core family of processors in 2009. What makes this worth writing about is the fact that this is Intel’s first enthusiast grade processor to be released at under $100, since the Core 2 Duo E2160 (which also was capable of overclocking exceptionally well). Thus, making it very appealing to users looking to get the best bang-for-buck, or those looking to get their hands on an inexpensive overclocking chip. With…

Review Overview

Performance
Overclocking
Price
Features
Warranty

Very solid Bang for the Buck

Although it has its flaws, The Pentium Anniversary is one of the best budget CPUs available especially with the addition of non Z97 overclocking, It performs well in lightly threaded tasks and most games.

User Rating: 4.49 ( 4 votes)

8 comments

  1. Nice review fggt

  2. This review helped a bunch thanks!

  3. Sweet review! I agree with spending the extra $30 and going AMD.

  4. Err, that last sentence on the first page. I have to say, the FX 6300 may be more expensive, but it leaves that Pentium in the dust on multi-threaded applications. The comparable chip to the Pentium would be the 760K or 860K, which are only $10-$20 more.

    • The reason I mention the FX 6300 is that it does much a better job at what it does, the 760K or 860K don’t have upgrade options. Thanks for your feedback and have a wonderful day!

  5. I went from intel to amd and back to intel, and the biggest difference to me was reliability and responsiveness. I don’t think ill ever go back to amd processors, you pay for what you get rings true for me on this occasion

    • ‘Responsiveness’

      This one is a bit confusing to me, as I know what the word means but don’t completely understand your meaning. I’d consider all modern processors to be quite “responsive” in day to day tasks, and unless you’re doing heavy workloads, it is difficult to tell one processor from another. If we’re talking about performance, the Intel’s generally do win-out, but for an added price, which usually goes without saying.

      ‘Reliability’

      This one is also odd, while I understand how stressful computer-related issues can be, I have found in my experience that they are very linked to the processor. Unless your CPU (any CPU) is overheating due to insufficient cooling, or is unstable due to heavy overclocking, it is rare for it to be unreliable. What i mean by that is, for the most part a processor either works as it should or doesn’t work at all.

      With all that said, if you’ve had better experiences with Intel and prefer what they offer, by all means you should definitely stick with what you know. But, I would never count any single company out of the occasion based on an anecdotal experience.

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