Help needed picking a cpu

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LukeSykpe

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Jan 2, 2016
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Greetings everybody

So I am looking to upgrade my CPU. I am going to be using fallout 4 as an example because that is the game I mostly intend to run. I currently have a Pentium g620 @ 2.60 GHz. This while running fallout 4 on my r9 270x gets unstable 20 frames, with the GPU running at 17 - 30% of its capability on lowest settings. First off I know this is a CPU bottleneck but it boggles my mind how low frames I am actually getting. Is this normal behavior or is there something wrong with my card? It would be a stretch to call it even remotely playable especially in heavier areas of the map. Now I am divided between a couple of options because of my low budget which is pretty tight. First up is the AMD Athlon X4 860k which I have heard performs decently, can be overclocked, comes at a great price and has some multi-threaded work potential since it can support 4 threads. My other option is the Pentium g3258. Now this has great overclock ability and price but is only a dual core dual thread processor which makes me double think and while I do realize it has greater potential than AMD for an upgrade since its an LGA 1150 chip I am mostly working with the idea that when I upgrade I will Opt for a newer skylake processor if I go for an AMD board. The last option I am considering is an FX 6300 processor which while better than the Athlon is currently outside my budget range when you factor in a motherboard and I would have to wait albeit not as long as for like an i5

Now what I am aiming for is mostly running titles such as fallout 4 far cry 4 or battlefield besides minecraft and League of Legends although that last one I can run pretty much fine with my current setup. I would also like to have some leeway for something like recording or maybe even streaming and also some university work that could benefit from more than two threads but if the Pentium runs that much better I am willing to drop said benefit and hold off on the recording part until I can acquire something better. Also consider that I won't be overclocking right away but rather when I get a better cooler a month or two down the line.

Now the reason why I'm asking here is because wherever I look I find very much conflicting information including some that suggests the chips mentioned above don't run much, albeit better, than my current g620 and the fact that this bottlenecks me as hard as it does kind of scares me. I am trying to get more of our final answer to this from someone more accustomed than I am. Like is the Athlon worth it for the next two or three years? Or will I run into huge problems down the line? The reason why I'm considering the Athlon is because even if it's not too great a year or two from now I won't feel as bad for the 75 euros as I will for the FX's 120, as in how much better is the FX compared to it? So much as to justify the extra potentially wasted money, since I am aiming for an upgrade a year or two from now? I am not planning on upgrading my GPU since its pretty much brand new for the next couple years at least and I'll make sure to have a better CPU before I do so I am mostly interested in this specific card. Thanks everybody in advance.

-LukeSykpe
 
Solution
Darkbreeze
To be honest, with a Haswell, Haswell refresh or Skylake i3, you can probably run most games on almost any GPU card you care to use, with a varying amount of bottleneck, if any, depending on how CPU dependent the game is. If it's a game that's almost entirely GPU bound, you won't even notice a difference, much, between an i3 and an i5 or i7 in most facets of the game. Certainly it will perform better than a G3258 or X4, or even most FX chips for that matter.

As seen here through pretty extensive testing, when used with a GTX 980, the i3-4360 put up tremendous numbers in both applications and games, whipping an FX-8320E overclocked to 4.6Ghz in almost every title, and staying very close to an i5, even beating it in a few cases...
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LukeSykpe

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At the moment 120 euros for a CPU motherboard and potentially case if I can squeeze that in but that can go up to 160 in the near future but not much higher for a while.
 
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LukeSykpe

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I live in Greece and ordering from for example amazon.de adds a quite substantial Fee which might be a problem on the tight budget. About the i3 solution my problem with that is that it is not overclockable at least not in any meaningful way as it is locked - and I do plan overclock. Which is mainly why I am divided between the three chips mentioned. More at least in the Greek shops it's in the same price range as the FX which would be comparing a dual core to a six core and I'd rather have the 6.


Edit: Also darkbreeze my apologies for the negative vote on your post. I did it by accident since I'm working on a touch screen and don't know how to fix it.
 
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LukeSykpe

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There are several Greek online vendors that will ship to me for free but I highly doubt something like that is the case for anybody based outside the country. Besides prices are more or less similar enough from what I've seen up until now.
 
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Darkbreeze

Darkbreeze

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My biggest concern is available in your region. It's almost impossible to make recommendations based on what's available here in the US, in the UK, in Canada or in Australia, and other areas, when I know usually smaller countries or markets don't have the same availability on hardware, especially newer hardware.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by it being the case for somebody outside the country. I thought this was you we were looking for hardware for, not somebody else. Since you ARE in Greece, it makes sense to look at vendors there. However, regardless, I think you'd be a lot better of with an i3 than with an X4 or G3258. The X4 is weak. There is no other way to put it. It works, but it's weak. It has a low IPC. The G3258 has strong cores, but only two of them, and no hyperthreading. Games that rely on more than two cores or many threads will be affected. Games that REQUIRE a quad core, will usually not run on a G3258. They will however run on an i3 as it sees the two hyperthreads as independent cores, and it's performance is similar, but not quite equal, to a quad core i5 when it comes to gaming, and is significantly better than a dual core G3258.

The new Skylake i3's can also be overclocked on some motherboards using the BCLK settings in the BIOS, so they are a budget gamers dream. Even a Haswell Refresh i3 would be better than either of those other choices though if the price is not outrageous in your market.
 
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LukeSykpe

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Jan 2, 2016
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Oh sorry my bad I meant a vendor based within a country. The PC I'm upgrading is my own and yes I do live in Greece. As for parts of the market is pretty good here so I can find almost anything so just make suggestions and don't worry about that. Would an i3 4170 or other 41xx model be good? I can get that for the FX's price. I could go for a 32xx and actually fit it into my current motherboard but I am looking to replace it since it's been acting weird lately and the price for them is the exact same.
 
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dudeman509

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The i3-4170 would be a great option for Fallout 4.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/fallout-4-pc-benchmarks-vsync,30527.html
 
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LukeSykpe

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Alright then that sounds great. Just a little theoretical question though. What is the highest end graphics card I could sustain with that CPU? Would it be good for anything above my r9 270x?
 
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Darkbreeze

Darkbreeze

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To be honest, with a Haswell, Haswell refresh or Skylake i3, you can probably run most games on almost any GPU card you care to use, with a varying amount of bottleneck, if any, depending on how CPU dependent the game is. If it's a game that's almost entirely GPU bound, you won't even notice a difference, much, between an i3 and an i5 or i7 in most facets of the game. Certainly it will perform better than a G3258 or X4, or even most FX chips for that matter.

As seen here through pretty extensive testing, when used with a GTX 980, the i3-4360 put up tremendous numbers in both applications and games, whipping an FX-8320E overclocked to 4.6Ghz in almost every title, and staying very close to an i5, even beating it in a few cases.

http://www.techspot.com/review/943-best-value-desktop-cpu/page6.html

I'd feel ok using it with any card you can actually afford. You can always make a few adjustments, and with the quality settings turned up as high as your card can sustain good performance with, any bottleneck that MIGHT be there can be somewhat mitigated as well. You can tweak things to work very well when necessary. As said before, there will be some CPU intensive games that might play better on higher end hardware, but for the most part, you'll be fine. Better than with those other chips for certain.
 
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Solution
DonkeyOatie

DonkeyOatie

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Sep 16, 2014
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Based on what you have said so far, the best i3 you can afford would be your most cost effective option.

An 13 3250 will run in your existing motherboard. Anything else will require a new motherboard as well, and a re-key or replacement of your Operating System.
Up to the Haswell i3 4170, you will still be able to use your existing DDR3 memory.
Although there are some Skylake boards that use DDR3, I would want a DDR4 board for Skylake and hope for decent BCLK overclocking of my i3. This option though, will be comparatively expensive, and it might be best to go with the i3 3250 for a year or so, to let the prices level to sensible and sustainable levels.
 
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Darkbreeze

Darkbreeze

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Actually, while I agree with most of what you say, and depending of course on your market, the Skylake i3 platform is not really any, or at least not much, more expensive than other options. For smaller markets or countries with limited infrastructure, perhaps, but in general, not really if the hardware is available.

For two hundred bucks, I'd call this a massive upgrade from G620. Even an FX platform upgrade will be similar, or possibly more expensive depending on availability and what you go with. You'd need to get at least an FX-6300, plus a board worth overclocking on, which will be more expensive, plus a good CPU cooler and possibly also different memory, to make the FX even stand a chance of being comparable.


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($125.33 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus H110M-A Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($51.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $222.30
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-03 15:29 EST-0500
 
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DonkeyOatie

DonkeyOatie

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Sep 16, 2014
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The OP mentioned 75 Euros. There's not much that can be done for that.

I'd spend a bit more, Darkbreeze. and get a Z170 non-K unlocked board and see just how far the tail can be twisted on the i3. Near i5 benchmark performance has been reported at BCLK of 127Mhz.
 
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DonkeyOatie

DonkeyOatie

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Looks interesting.

http://www.techspot.com/review/1108-intel-locked-skylake-cpu-bclk-overclocking/
 
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