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cheap cpu for 7950..

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Looking at a G3258 for a mini itx build,

will mostly used for minecraft and games like that, nothing intensive.

Would it cut the mustard or would an i3 be better ? wanna keep the build cheap as possible, mind.
 
G3258 is a great minecraft/general use CPU, there is really no need for anything else.

We have one running a 560ti, runs minecraft perfect at 1080p.
 
An i3 would be better due to hyperthreading, but I've got a G3258 @ 4.2GHz running an R9 280X (aka 7970) and it performs beautifully (using a £20 Rajintek Themis cooler). The G3258 will bottleneck a 7950, but the it's only £55 and at that price you really can't complain. In some aspects, it seems faster than my 4670K @ 4.2GHz.
 
I would avoid the Pentium at all costs.

I built a LOL rig last year with some left over parts and put a Titan Black with the Pentium to make sure there would be no GPU bottlenecks. Whilst the FPS told a reasonably sound story the actual experience left a lot to be desired. It stuttered really badly, enough to completely ruin the gaming experience in most games.

Only one or two were OK but it's certainly not a CPU I would even touch.
 
Seems to do exceptionally well in some instances but poor in others. I do wonder if the i3 would be better in a years time with dx12 possibilities with it's hyper threading or a second hand 2500k or something would be much more desirable. Looks like they are notably cheaper also, that would certainly be the better move and provide that system with a solid future.
 
I have one running lightroom, photoshop, Dirt 3 and a 7970. Works great, runs games on ultra. no complaints!
I have mine overclocked to 4.6 on a AIO watercooler.runs nice and cool and smooth. Best £45 i have spent!
 
Seems as if the G3258 is more of a stopgap - it allows you to make a nice gaming rig cheaply right now but also means you can pop in an i5 or i7 in a couple of years to breathe new life into it. Unfortunately, the lack of Broadwell K CPUs slightly hampers such a plan.
 
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Thanks for the suggestions,

Its for my 10 year old girl , i dont think shes really gonna care about clock speeds and hyperthreading tbh :D aslong as it plays minecraft she'll be a happy bunny :D:D

Ill keep an eye out fleabay for cheap i3's but most i seen have gone for silly money (70-80 with no heatsink !) , got a couple of months till xmas so i may still grab a bargain :D
 
Urbanfreestyle said:
I have one running lightroom, photoshop, Dirt 3 and a 7970. Works great, runs games on ultra. no complaints!
I have mine overclocked to 4.6 on a AIO watercooler.runs nice and cool and smooth. Best £45 i have spent!
Click to expand...

It was OK with Dirt. Pretty much everything else though just stuttered really badly. Like literally paused.

Oddly enough when measuring the FPS with FRAPS it did not show any signs of stutter which was odd, hence the benchmarks looked very good. When I actually sat down and tried to game on it though with GTAV?

There's a reason Intel released a unlocked dual core but not the I3....

The Pentium is nothing but an overclocker's toy. Oh, and also for people who just want to perform light duties like Photoshop and the internet. Otherwise? I would go for the FX 6300 and £40 Gigabyte MATX board every single time.

It will kick several shades out of the Pentium at anything but single threaded tasks.
 
Problem is bang per buck though, cost.

G3258 around £50

i3 Around £120

i5 K series around £180 upwards.

5 year old AMD platforms are pointless, when every i5 since the 2500K outperforms them. And besides, if i5 has proven time and time again that 4 cores are plenty, why no FX-4 recomendations for budget gaming systems?

I too have been contemplating a budget CPU gaming set up, but a few recent titles have me believe it fruitless, an i3 seems sensible, but if spending around £120, it dillutes future upgrade value therefor makes saving a bit for an i5 4690k the best value long term for anyone with a Z97 board.
 
The more i read about the g3258 the more confusing it becomes as you got people saying its good and people saying its not.
Was thinking of getting for my son to play games on instead of his Am1 system he has now.
He don't play many games mostly Lego games but hes trying his hardest to get games that are for the older people like half life etc which we wont allow and then i seen the Dolphin emulator where he can play the older platform games as theres not much pc games for kids these days.
 
Some of the very latest games are checking you have a quad core before they will run. Some need the quad core, some don't its an artificial lock. I set up an Ancient QX6700 machine for games for the kids. Thus far it running everything. But they only have older games like minecraft etc. I was using it for World of Tanks. The G3258 is faster than my QX6700. But QX6700 won't be blocked even though it is slower.

Everyone says get a newer intel quad core but its a lot more money. Or go AMD. But the AMD don't have an upgrade path. If you will never upgrade the machine thats not an issue.
 
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For budget gaming, the FM2+ 860k is quite a decent contender.
Sure, there's no CPU upgrade path, but at £55, it's cheap, there are some decent motherboards for it, and it'll overclock if you need.
 
chippy08 said:
The more i read about the g3258 the more confusing it becomes as you got people saying its good and people saying its not.
Was thinking of getting for my son to play games on instead of his Am1 system he has now.
He don't play many games mostly Lego games but hes trying his hardest to get games that are for the older people like half life etc which we wont allow and then i seen the Dolphin emulator where he can play the older platform games as theres not much pc games for kids these days.
Click to expand...


Seriously dude you can take my word for it; with anything even so much as related to the word "Game" they are useless.

The last time I can remember a game only using two cores was Fallout 3. In fact, if you tried to run it on more cores it used to crashed so you had to hack the INI and limit it to two threads.

As I said before I set mine up with a Titan Black @ 1080p and it was useless. I made sure I eliminated every single excuse and the bottom line was just how it is...

I took out the Titan Black, threw in an old Quadro and gave it to my aunt as her shopping and music PC. Absolutely fine for those duties of course.
 
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