Should I buy a Brand New G3258 or a Used i3-530, i5-3470?

jblovekim · Jul 5, 2015

I'm building a pc for my brother and all I need is a processor and motherboard since I have spare rams, psu, casing, cooler and hdd.

I have a budget of around $110

I planned on getting a G3258 and overclocking it until its temperature can hold using the stock cooler. But curiosity got the best of me and tried searching for processors on my local area on facebook (I live in a small rural area and the only means to look for second hand items around here is through a buy and sell facebook group).

What was surprising is that I've seen a couple of potentially good deals which are:
1. i3-530 = $33 w/ hsf
2. i5-3470 = $71 w/o hsf

Thoughts on the i3:
What I though about getting the i3-530 was, I could even purchase a dedicated gpu but the struggle would be finding a second hand 1156 motherboard vendor (which I highly discourage as these are the ones who usually fail first) and buying a brand new would cost me about the same as a 1155 or 1150 or even higher.

Thoughts on the i5:
My rig has a i5-2400 (I even plan on using the 3470 as my main one once I bought it and have my brother use my 2400

).

I'm really just concerned though as how long do CPUs last for? the i5 3470 was around 2012 so I'm pretty sure it can still kick it on 2015 while the i3 530 was around 2010.

And here's what's really cool, I've seen a second hand Gainward GeForce GTX 460 SE for $35. I'm kind skeptical about second hand GPUs though as mine died after 4 years so I might be buying a brand new 730.

Supernova1138 · Jul 5, 2015

I wouldn't bother with the i3 530, it's slower than even the Pentium G3258 at stock, and finding a motherboard for it as you said is quite difficult. I'd say out of the CPUs you listed, the i5 3470 is probably the best option. The Pentium G3258 is a nice little overclocking toy, but even with an overclock it can struggle on newer games that really need more than 2 Cores/2 Threads to run well. An Ivy Bridge i5 is still pretty good, CPUs haven't really advanced all that much from a performance standpoint since Sandy Bridge came out in 2011. Intel has been focusing most of their efforts on improving their integrated graphics and power efficiency to make their chips more attractive for mobile devices, and AMD has spent the last 3 years doing absolutely nothing in the high performance CPU market, focusing almost exclusively on low end APUs for laptop and desktop.

As for the used GTX 460SE, I'd say try to find a new graphics card or at least a used one that isn't that old. The 460SE is five years old now, and probably wouldn't last too long before it will give up the ghost.

jblovekim · Jul 5, 2015

Supernova1138 :

Yeah i'm pretty much leaning on the i5 as well since I'll also benefit from it

. I have two people selling gt 730 video cards but all of them are those ddr3 ones and I was told that the ddr5 is the best version and only costs like $5 more (at least in my country). Indeed the 460 was a bad call and I was just in the heat of the moment since I saw its specs only to find out it was outdated as heck so if I'm unable to purchase a second hand 730 this week then I'll probably just buy a brand new one.

Oh and can you give me any tips on buying a second hand CPU? I don't exactly know what to look for but she allowed me to test it in her home if I ever try to purchase it.

What questions should I ask?
1. Have you overclocked it?
2. Is this still on warranty? (I believe intel has 3 years warranty and it might just still be covered just in case if she bought it on 2013 despite it being available on 2012, I'll just have to know for myself)
3. When did you purchase this?
4. Were you the first owner?
5. How long do you use this every day?
6. Why are you selling it?

What should I check for?
1. Should I check its idle/full load temps?
2. Check for burnt marks?

(It's 2:39AM here I'll try getting back to you tomorrow)

MakoRuu · Jul 5, 2015

The G3258 is a monster. And unless you're doing CPU intensive work like video rendering which requires more cores, I would go with it over the i3-530 all day long. Not that the i3-530 could do all those things very well, anyways...

The Biostar H81MHV3 is about $45 on Newegg and it's a solid board. But it's very small and doesn't come with a lot of bells or whistles. (Only one PCIe x16 lane and 2 DIMMs)

Unless your budy is doing some next level stuff, old processors would work just fine. But the i3-530 is not a good place to start.

I recommend finding an inexpensive 1366 workstation and getting the Xeon W3520 for $8 on eBay. It's the equivalent of the i7-920 Hyperthreaded quad core and it's more than capable for today's use. I currently have one in my PC and it's rocking everything I do. And if your buddy needs a new GPU, you can get the GT 640 on eBay for anywhere from $20 to $30 brand new.

I bought a Dell Precision T3500 on ebay for $90
Threw in another 2 GBs of RAM for a total of 6
My old GTX 650 ti SSC

It can play all of my games on medium to high settings.

Though recently I upgraded to the GTX 960 SC and now it plays them at ultra. lol

Some good 1366 workstations are:

Precision T3500
Precision T5500
HP z400
HP z600

Good luck in your budget. Don't let people tell you that old tech is bad tech. You just have to make sure to know where the cut off line is. (In this case it's after the i3-530 and a bit closer to the i3-2100.)

Take great care to consider workstation Power supplies are not equipped to handle massive graphics cards, and the bios does not allow CPU overclocking. My T3500 only has one six pin PCIe cable. It was difficult to find a GPU for it. But if you're using low profile GPU's that only draw their power from the PCIe lane, or require only one power connector, you should be fine.

jblovekim · Jul 5, 2015

MakoRuu :

The G3258 is a monster. And unless you're doing CPU intensive work like video rendering which requires more cores, I would go with it over the i3-530 all day long. Not that the i3-530 could do all those things very well, anyways...

The Biostar H81MHV3 is about $45 on Newegg and it's a solid board. But it's very small and doesn't come with a lot of bells or whistles. (Only one PCIe x16 lane and 2 DIMMs)

Unless your budy is doing some next level stuff, old processors would work just fine. But the i3-530 is not a good place to start.

I recommend finding an inexpensive 1366 workstation and getting the Xeon W3520 for $8 on eBay. It's the equivalent of the i7-920 Hyperthreaded quad core and it's more than capable for today's use. I currently have one in my PC and it's rocking everything I do. And if your buddy needs a new GPU, you can get the GT 640 on eBay for anywhere from $20 to $30 brand new.

I bought a Dell Precision T3500 on ebay for $90
Threw in another 2 GBs of RAM for a total of 6
My old GTX 650 ti SSC

It can play all of my games on medium to high settings.

Though recently I upgraded to the GTX 960 SC and now it plays them at ultra. lol

Some good 1366 workstations are:

Precision T3500
Precision T5500
HP z400
HP z600

Good luck in your budget. Don't let people tell you that old tech is bad tech. You just have to make sure to know where the cut off line is. (In this case it's after the i3-530 and a bit closer to the i3-2100.)

Take great care to consider workstation Power supplies are not equipped to handle massive graphics cards, and the bios does not allow CPU overclocking. My T3500 only has one six pin PCIe cable. It was difficult to find a GPU for it. But if you're using low profile GPU's that only draw their power from the PCIe lane, or require only one power connector, you should be fine.

Thank you very as this was very informative. My brother wants this to play league of legends and mmorpgs online BUT he'll also use it for editing pictures on photoshop and lightroom. Unfortunately the best and cheapest video card available on my area would be a 730 that costs around $55.

How about the i5-3470? It's $1 more compared to the G3258. Which cpu would be better?

Supernova1138 · Jul 5, 2015

The G3258 can potentially be a bit better than the i5 3470 in single threaded games like League of Legends, but that's with overclocking, at stock they would pretty much be a toss up. For Photoshop and Lightroom, the i5 3470 would be better due to the higher core count. The Pentium would have to have a pretty extreme overclock put on it in order to make up for having half the cores for that particular workload, which you definitely would not be able to achieve on stock cooling.

For $1 more, I'd take the i5, as its better for the productivity software and is better equipped if your brother wants to play some newer games in the future compared to the Pentium. Try to find a 7 series motherboard for the i5 3470 eg. H77, Z77, or B75 chipset, that will give you the least headaches and will offer PCI-E 3.0 support. The 6 series chipset boards e.g P67, Z68, H67, H61 can work with Ivy Bridge CPUs, but will likely need a BIOS update, which will require you to have a Sandy Bridge CPU lying around to do the update. The 6 series boards also don't have PCI-E 3.0 support.

MakoRuu · Jul 5, 2015

jblovekim :

MakoRuu :

Thank you very as this was very informative. My brother wants this to play league of legends and mmorpgs online BUT he'll also use it for editing pictures on photoshop and lightroom. Unfortunately the best and cheapest video card available on my area would be a 730 that costs around $55.

How about the i5-3470? It's $1 more compared to the G3258. Which cpu would be better?

I'd like to know where you're at buying an i5-3470 for the same price as a G3258. lol

In America the G3258 is about $70.

The i5-3470 is about $205

The i5-3470 at a $1 price different would be a steal. I'd buy it ten times out of ten.

G3258 - two single threaded cores
i5-3470 - four single threaded cores

jblovekim · Jul 5, 2015

MakoRuu :

jblovekim :

I'd like to know where you're at buying an i5-3470 for the same price as a G3258. lol

In America the G3258 is about $70.

The i5-3470 is about $205

The i5-3470 at a $1 price different would be a steal. I'd buy it ten times out of ten.

G3258 - two single threaded cores
i5-3470 - four single threaded cores

The i5-3470 is used BUT still though you're right! it's still way too low as I was expecting around $120+. The only good thing about being in a little town is that when people sell their stuff, they usually sell it way too low since there is little to no demand at all for a second hand cpu. So instead of rotting their CPUs when they get a new rig, they just sell it for like 50% less than the price to at least get back something.

MakoRuu · Jul 6, 2015

jblovekim :

MakoRuu :

jblovekim :

I'd like to know where you're at buying an i5-3470 for the same price as a G3258. lol

In America the G3258 is about $70.

The i5-3470 is about $205

The i5-3470 at a $1 price different would be a steal. I'd buy it ten times out of ten.

G3258 - two single threaded cores
i5-3470 - four single threaded cores

The i5-3470 is used BUT still though you're right! it's still way too low as I was expecting around $120+. The only good thing about being in a little town is that when people sell their stuff, they usually sell it way too low since there is little to no demand at all for a second hand cpu. So instead of rotting their CPUs when they get a new rig, they just sell it for like 50% less than the price to at least get back something.

That's a steal, brother. Snatch it up while you can. lol

jblovekim · Jul 6, 2015

Thank you guys! I'll be getting the i5 one. I picked MakoRuu's last reply since it had all the quotes from his previous replies as well as mine.

MakoRuu · Jul 6, 2015

Congrats on your amazing bargain. lol

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