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Intel Pentium G3258 CPU Review: Haswell, Unlocked, For $75

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  • Overclocking
  • CPUs
  • Tom's Hardware Top Picks
  • Processors
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June 16, 2014 11:59:51 PM

It's a momentous occasion. Intel now offers an affordable dual-core Pentium with an unlocked multiplier based on its Haswell architecture. How well does it overclock? Can it beat AMD's potent little Athlon X4 750K? We run both through our benchmark suite.

Intel Pentium G3258 CPU Review: Haswell, Unlocked, For $75 : Read more

More about : intel pentium g3258 cpu review haswell unlocked

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June 17, 2014 12:37:00 AM

Article title says its $75, the picture used says its $3 more than the i3. 75 and it's a deal otherwise no point in paying 3 bucks more for it rather than the i3.
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8
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June 17, 2014 12:38:31 AM

And just like that, the pictures change the price and I look like a fool.
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8
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June 17, 2014 12:43:17 AM

It's always great seeing the full potential of technology but I'd rather see the Pentium on a mobo somebody would really buy and see how overclocking on a budget would be...more realistic.
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14
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June 17, 2014 12:44:16 AM

Having looked, the fool would build a cheap pc with that chip and a z97 board, and the wise man would use the i3 and an h81 board. Similar priced systems..
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13
June 17, 2014 1:13:17 AM

AMD really needs a new model featuring Steamroller cores and a disabled GPU, say, a 770K. It wouldn't change the gaming scores all that much, but various benchmarks would definitely improve. As it is, the G3258 is a nice processor, but it won't go for that $75 to begin with.
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8
June 17, 2014 1:38:07 AM

What if "the fool" who bought that Pentium G and Z97 did so expecting to swap the processor in one year or two for a broadwell, once he got the cash? That would make him a very wise fool indeed... I'd say!

Because of course buying a pentium G and fitting it with a 150USD board and 50USD cooler does not make sens by itself ,but you have a 100% future-compatible system that can be upgraded very very easily...
Score
25
June 17, 2014 1:39:35 AM

Could get a Q9550 for that price on Ebay nice try Intel, but that would kick the crap out of that weak Pentium it's reasonably on par with the i5. Way too damn expensive for what it is in reality.
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-16
June 17, 2014 1:46:09 AM

Hyperthreading is typically considered to be bad for Chess. It increases inefficiencies in search and although you get a larger kilonodes per second which looks nice as a benchmark score, you are actually lowering the strength of the engine. So when I look at Fritz benchmarks on PC sites I take them with a grain of salt.
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1
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June 17, 2014 1:49:04 AM

I'd probably look at something like this for this kind of CPU:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($74.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($30.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Pro3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($90.00 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($75.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($52.92 @ Amazon)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 280 3GB Double Dissipation Video Card ($209.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($44.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $629.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-17 04:48 EDT-0400
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0
June 17, 2014 1:49:31 AM

knowom said:
Could get a Q9550 for that price on Ebay nice try Intel, but that would kick the crap out of that weak Pentium it's reasonably on par with the i5. Way too damn expensive for what it is in reality.


No, sorry. That is not true. Check this article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-bridge-wolfdale...

You should overclock your Q9550 to get performance that barely comes close to an ivy-bridge I3 on games and lightly threaded workloads (and it gets stomped by any i5 on any workload)... I personally have an OC'd QX9650 and am not even close. I believe if I change to that Pentium G, and overclock it as well, that would still be an upgrade...
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16
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June 17, 2014 1:50:03 AM

tea urchin said:
Having looked, the fool would build a cheap pc with that chip and a z97 board, and the wise man would use the i3 and an h81 board. Similar priced systems..


Yeah that would be better unless Intel decides to let o/c on Pentium with other chipsets like H97.

Leaked BIOS Enables Pentium Anniversary Edition OC on Some MSI H97 Boards
MSI H97 PC MATE ATX LGA1150 Motherboard $88.99

So if this happens and intel decide to let even lower mobo chipsets to do o/c only for pentiums it would be nice to pair $60 mobo, $75 CPU and a $25-30 CM 212 EVO or plus, to a total of ~$160 for a o/c ready system.
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5
June 17, 2014 2:11:22 AM

Smallfilou - I totally agree with you. Some people tend to forget that when you're working on a budget you need to make choices. The smart choice is to get a decent mobo now that Intel has finally provided the right CPU for enthusiasts. I honestly think this is exceptional value for money. A decent mobo is very important in any event. I don't get why anyone would hate on this Pentium...it looks like a gem of a performer when o/c'd.
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4
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June 17, 2014 2:15:51 AM

I'd probably look at something like this for this kind of CPU:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($74.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($30.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Pro3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($90.00 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($75.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($52.92 @ Amazon)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 280 3GB Double Dissipation Video Card ($209.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($44.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $629.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-17 04:48 EDT-0400
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-9
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June 17, 2014 3:01:27 AM

Nice chip ^^^to badyou need a "Z" Mobo, those extra 30$ could go into a more potent GPU :) 
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-4
June 17, 2014 3:09:32 AM

Quote:
Having looked, the fool would build a cheap pc with that chip and a z97 board, and the wise man would use the i3 and an h81 board. Similar priced systems..

As you say, the price difference is negligible. The performance difference is also fairly small, and both platforms leave lots of headroom for future upgrades. I am under the impression that any motherboard that can house this new Pentium can also run a blazing-fast i7. The article, unfortunately, doesn't mention that the AMD solution can't even run a FX chip. For someone looking to just get into an inexpensive PC with an eye towards future upgrades, the Intel solution is dramatically more attractive.
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6
June 17, 2014 3:27:32 AM

Your dad's Pentium was never like this!
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2
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June 17, 2014 3:28:56 AM

Wow this was unexpected.

Compelling CPU, unfortunately your still stuck with buying a mildly overpriced Z-series board.
Now if this CPU had Iris or Iris Pro, then it would be MUCH MUCH more compelling.

Anyway I can see this being a good buy for an enthusiast that isn't quite making it to get an I5 or I7 at their price point but needs a machine performing decently NOW and wants to overclock, he can then upgrade to and I7 or I5 at a later date.

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-1
June 17, 2014 3:35:13 AM

Quote:
Quote:
Having looked, the fool would build a cheap pc with that chip and a z97 board, and the wise man would use the i3 and an h81 board. Similar priced systems..

As you say, the price difference is negligible. The performance difference is also fairly small, and both platforms leave lots of headroom for future upgrades. I am under the impression that any motherboard that can house this new Pentium can also run a blazing-fast i7. The article, unfortunately, doesn't mention that the AMD solution can't even run a FX chip. For someone looking to just get into an inexpensive PC with an eye towards future upgrades, the Intel solution is dramatically more attractive.

The point is rather moot as you probably wouldn't upgrade from a Kaveri-based APU to a Piledriver-based CPU, and FX in its current form is dead anyway.
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1
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June 17, 2014 4:01:51 AM

knowom writes:
> Could get a Q9550 for that price on Ebay ...

An i7 870 on P55 would be a better buy than a Q9550. 870s dropped below
50 UKP on ebay UK this week. Never mind S775, my 870/P55 setup was faster
than a friend's X58/930 system for gaming (lower latency with P55, and some
boards do have x16/x16 CF/SLI).

Ian.

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4
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June 17, 2014 4:12:13 AM

I'll need to go over the charts some more, but it looks to me like i3+H87 (or H81) is going to beat G3258+cooler+Z97.

I would expect a round of price drops from AMD over this; otherwise they're done in the gaming market.
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3
June 17, 2014 4:43:41 AM

I would've loved to see an i5-4570 in this review to compare to the 4690k, but I understand that you can only put in so much.

I'd also like to see a review like this with a GPU that a person who buys a G3258 is more likely to buy, to see how much of a difference the higher-priced CPUs would actually make, if any. It'd be nice to find out what the threshold is for the difference.
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-1
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June 17, 2014 4:49:19 AM

apocalypseap said:
I would've loved to see an i5-4570 in this review to compare to the 4690k, but I understand that you can only put in so much.

I'd also like to see a review like this with a GPU that a person who buys a G3258 is more likely to buy, to see how much of a difference the higher-priced CPUs would actually make, if any. It'd be nice to find out what the threshold is for the difference.
Well, its written in the end of the article.
Soon™
Quote:
Although the Pentium gets kicked around in a few of our benchmarks, it does beat the Athlon in every game we test—sometimes by a lot. As a value-oriented gaming processor, this thing is just awesome. I’d love to see what Paul Henningsen could do with it in our System Builder Marathon, where he'd pick a more suitable graphics complement than the Titan I used to alleviate graphics bottlenecks.
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2
June 17, 2014 5:12:30 AM

Intel is bonkers... everyone expected unlocked i3...nevermind...
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-3
June 17, 2014 5:36:08 AM

I would like a comparison of more amd processors, or at least a stock 6300. For the price of z97 and heatsink, you can probably get a fx 6300 with a 970 chip-set motherboard.
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2
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June 17, 2014 6:01:32 AM

nice review. it shows that the pentium a.e. is a serious contender for cheap, budget gaming pcs with cheap z series motherboards (asrock, msi and gigabyte have some).
edit: oh, and for mini itx gaming too (pentium a.e., gigabyte z97 itx with gtx 750ti and such).
i am looking forward to the next sbms for some interesting builds.

it kiiiiinda looks like intel released the pentium a.e. after they were absolutely certain that the pentium won't outperform the quad core cpus even after o.c., especially in multithreaded benches.
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June 17, 2014 6:10:39 AM

Pk+z97 now i5k next year is indeed a strong proposition for a budget-oriented build. Can this kill i3 budget gaming builds?
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1
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June 17, 2014 6:33:40 AM

Before determining if this will be good in a [multipurpose] HTPC, one piece of data is missing, and that is heat.
Even a little Sempron is enough for HTPC-only duties, so it's got to be in a PC that will do more. This Pentium clearly needs to be overclocked to do well there, particularly long-term, but does that make it hot? Especially with the "glitch" causing higher-than-expected idle power usage, can it be cooled with minimal and silent fans? This may be a great budget [m]ATX chip, but it might not be suitable for the smaller, thermally-limited mini-ITX enclosures. I'm a little surprised temp numbers weren't included in this review...
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1
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June 17, 2014 6:37:11 AM

Before we get our hopes up about the upcoming (this month!) SBM, remember this chip was probably not available when they were spec'ed.
If that is the case, I will be ruthlessly deleting any answers in their discussions that say this chip "should have" been used.
In September though? I hope we see it!
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0
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June 17, 2014 6:41:46 AM

Onus said:
Before we get our hopes up about the upcoming (this month!) SBM, remember this chip was probably not available when they were spec'ed.
If that is the case, I will be ruthlessly deleting any answers in their discussions that say this chip "should have" been used.
In September though? I hope we see it!

:( 
i thought parts would be ordered early next month and then sbm would go live in august. i'll be witing till q4, then...
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0
June 17, 2014 6:41:56 AM

Good chip to get into a z97 as cheap as possible with decent power, but was shocked to see you don't turn on CUDA in adobe. It's a check box. You're running a titan, at least check the box on ONE chip to show the difference. Why the hate on this site for cuda? Please re-run the adobe stuff with the CUDA checkbox filled. Why anyone would run OpenCL with an nvidia card baffles me. They hate OpenCL and will continue to if cuda is faster in everything. You are absolutely retarded if you buy an NV card and ignore cuda. Why not simulate real life in at least ONE test. :(  It requires nothing more than a checkmark to get this done. NV co-developed the MPE for cuda so why would you avoid it? Not sure how much of your test would be accelerated (depends on what it's doing) but surely some of it would be. Surely the readers would want to see what happens when you turn on cuda right? 65% of your users HAVE CUDA if they own discrete.

Edit: One more thing that might be interesting to users of adobe; Does turning on cuda make your junk cpu suddenly quite the king? IF you turn it on for the pentium does it vault it to the front?

https://forums.adobe.com/message/5081640
Harm Millard saying it can speed up by a factor or 12 in Premiere.
"the average gain from using a CUDA capable video card over software is around a factor 12 for rendering."

Clearly not getting much from OpenCL in this article over software/cpu mode right? Cuda should be tested.
http://ppbm5.com/Test.html
"A CUDA/MPE card makes a huge difference in performance and improves quality of the output over software MPE. "

It's in Photoshop also, so check the dang box and allow us to see OpenCL vs. CPU vs. CUDA. What is that 3secs to check a box? A few more minutes to put it in the chart as a third bar? I'm confused. This site always claims it's difficult to test OpenCL vs. Cuda, but yet here you can with a simple box and you're using titan. Baffling.
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4
June 17, 2014 7:03:03 AM

Really though, what is the point of a "budget" system if you are forced to buy a cooler and a damn expensive mobo just to get the same performance as an i3? Hell you would think that its better to just buy the i5, stick with the integrated graphics and then buy the GPU later when you wanna play all the new crazy games. Unless this thing can get decent overclocks with stock fan and a cheap mobo there is really no point in getting this. But I do think its better over the 750K now since the benchmarks show the stock pentium to be as fast as an overclocked 750K.
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0
June 17, 2014 7:37:34 AM

Wow the 4690K is 3 times more and only outperforms by 8fps in arma3. This could be a bad sales pitch for Intel. Granted it beats the amd but at the price point of the mobo the review should have had an fx-4300. Still would have about the same results but the article should have focus on the 2 choice a customer would make. Hope we see this cpu up against the fx-4300 in the next review.
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1
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June 17, 2014 7:42:14 AM

Actually some non Z87/Z97 Asrock boards do offer an overclocking feature. Taken from the H81M-DGS R2.0 manual.

Quote:
Non-Z OC
Non-Z OC allows users with a K-Series Haswell processor to overclock their non
Z87 chipset motherboards.
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June 17, 2014 7:47:49 AM

logainofhades said:
Actually some non Z87/Z97 Asrock boards do offer an overclocking feature. Taken from the H81M-DGS R2.0 manual.

Quote:
Non-Z OC
Non-Z OC allows users with a K-Series Haswell processor to overclock their non
Z87 chipset motherboards.


Only older revisions during that period before the Intel lockup.
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June 17, 2014 7:49:40 AM

That is a brand new board. Even the H97 pro4 has this feature. ;) 

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June 17, 2014 8:02:07 AM

logainofhades said:
That is a brand new board. Even the H97 pro4 has this feature. ;) 



Well damn, would you look at that> :)  Nicely spotted.
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0
June 17, 2014 8:11:56 AM

Really though, what is the point of a "budget" system if you are forced to buy a cooler and a damn expensive mobo just to get the same performance as an i3? Hell you would think that its better to just buy the i5, stick with the integrated graphics and then buy the GPU later when you wanna play all the new crazy games. Unless this thing can get decent overclocks with stock fan and a cheap mobo there is really no point in getting this. But I do think its better over the 750K now since the benchmarks show the stock pentium to be as fast as an overclocked 750K.
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June 17, 2014 8:13:18 AM

Novuake said:
logainofhades said:
That is a brand new board. Even the H97 pro4 has this feature. ;) 



Well damn, would you look at that> :)  Nicely spotted.


Yea, I almost want to get a pentium 3258 and that H81 board just to try it out. :lol: 
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0
June 17, 2014 8:18:27 AM

Pentium processors are a throwback for me.
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0
June 17, 2014 8:27:38 AM

Why no fx 6300 ?
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0
June 17, 2014 8:32:10 AM

I mean that it is about 30 dollars cheaper than the i3 , has a tdp of 95w (5 less than the 750k) , features 6 cores and last has a clock rate of 3.5gz?
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June 17, 2014 8:34:16 AM

A 9550 being reasonably on par with an i5 ? A haswell i5? I dont think so.
Its cpu mark is 4071 verses my humble i5 4430's score of 6330.
And that doesnt include the other improvements for gaming that result in every i5 since sandy bridge still being a tier 1 gaming cpu.
A new i3 would rinse it in games.
But anyway. The wise fool who built a z97 pent 3528 machine so he could upgrade in a year or two 'when he got the cash',must be a very young wise fool. Better to build the best you can afford now and worry about it nearer the time. 2 years changes everything in a persons life and if they cannot organize the cost of a fresh board over two years they really arent that wise a fool after all. Buying the cheaper board and going with the best used cpu available in a couple of years would also be a much better overall option.
Score
0
June 17, 2014 8:49:23 AM

I have to say I find it amusing and a bit absurd that writers, and perhaps intel itself, are referencing the Celeron 300A when discussing this chip. The 300A was basically a mistake that I'm sure Intel wished had never happened. It could fairly easily be overclocked to tie and in some cases beat their flagship 450mhz Pentium II, a chip that cost about $500 more.

This Pentium is so crippled that when overclocked it can barely beat the chip one tier above it, which only costs about $50-65 more. It cannot come close to even their mid-level performance chips, let alone the top end. Once you factor in the additional cost of the hardware required to obtain decent overclocking results it's arguably better to just buy and run a stock i3.

Now, one could say it's like the 300A in that you get a very significant % increase in performance from stock. But there is a big difference between bumping a relatively cheap mid-level budget chip to become the fastest mainstream chip on the planet and bumping a bottom rung budget chip to a mid-ranged budget chip.
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0
June 17, 2014 9:00:53 AM

A 75 dollar CPU paired up with a 1 thousand dollar graphic card. Yup thats clearly aimed at the people building a budget system.
Score
-5
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June 17, 2014 9:01:40 AM

StormyIV said:
A 75 dollar CPU paired up with a 1 thousand dollar graphic card. Yup thats clearly aimed at the people building a budget system.


Its done for a reason. Isolating performance bottlenecks. Hodor...
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9
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June 17, 2014 9:11:33 AM

It is a marketing ploy aimed at shifting Z boards, not processors. Earlier famous clocking chips could be cranked up on any board with a non brand name bios to some degree or other. Notably the Q6600 by 25% at stock volts on a £40 mATX board. This new cpu is barely fit for purpose.
If they wanted to shift these chips they would have set the stock clock at 4 gig to make sense with cheap boards.
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June 17, 2014 9:16:24 AM

tea urchin said:
It is a marketing ploy aimed at shifting Z boards, not processors. Earlier famous clocking chips could be cranked up on any board with a non brand name bios to some degree or other. Notably the Q6600 by 25% at stock volts on a £40 mATX board. This new cpu is barely fit for purpose.
If they wanted to shift these chips they would have set the stock clock at 4 gig to make sense with cheap boards.


I can see you didn't see my earlier post about Asrock implementing overclocking on non Z chipsets. ;) 
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0
June 17, 2014 9:28:10 AM

Looks like the cannons have officially arrived. To bad u need a Z series to use it. I bet AMD was s****** bricks for sometime ahaha.
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-1
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June 17, 2014 9:34:19 AM

Mr Logain, Will Asrock be able to sell a motherboard for £40 that can overclock this cpu?
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0
!