
Presumably, ABBYY’s FineReader 11 makes extensive use of AMD’s integer units, as the Athlon X4 750K in its stock form bests Intel’s Pentium G3258. And even though we’re not able to get as-aggressive of an overclock out of it, the Athlon scores a second-place finish, just ahead of the Core i3-4330.
As if to illustrate how well-threaded this task is, Intel’s quad-core Core i5 puts the rest of the field to shame, finishing 37% faster than the well-tuned Athlon. And that’s at its stock clock rate. Then again, the -4690K is a $240 processor, 200% pricier than AMD’s X4 750K. This isn’t a bad showing from the budget chips.

The Pentium and Athlon enjoy big gains from overclocking, but can’t catch the Hyper-Threaded Core i3 or quad-core i5 in our Chrome compilation workload.

Intel’s Pentium G3258 takes a last-place finish and turns it into second place with some heavy overclocking. The Athlon fares better than the Pentium at its stock clock rate, and then falls in behind the tuned dual-core chip when we crank clock rates up.

The same situation shakes out in our HandBrake benchmark, only this time, the overclocked Athlon edges out Intel’s $140 Core i3 to finish third.

Parallelization goes out the window in our LAME workload. A 4.6 GHz Haswell core easily rules this test, trumping the Core i5’s 3.9 GHz maximum Turbo Boost setting. Of course, the K-series CPU can also be readily overclocked, so expect a similar ceiling from that processor.
Unfortunately, AMD gives up a ton of single-core performance due to issues with IPC. A 900 MHz overclock helps the Athlon X4 750K. But even at 4.3 GHz, it can’t catch Intel’s Pentium G3258 at 3.2 GHz.

The same thing happens in iTunes. We won’t dwell on it.
- An Enthusiast-Oriented Pentium CPU?
- Overclocking Pentium G3258 And Athlon X4 750K
- How We Tested Intel’s Pentium G3258 And AMD’s Athlon X4 750K
- Results: Arma 3
- Results: Battlefield 4
- Results: Grid 2
- Results: Metro: Last Light
- Results: Thief
- Results: Tomb Raider
- Results: World of Warcraft
- Results: Synthetics
- Results: Content Creation
- Results: Adobe CC
- Results: Productivity And Media Encoding
- Results: Compression Apps
- Power Consumption And Efficiency
- Haswell, Unlocked, For $75
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...
No, sorry. That is not true. Check this article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-bridge-wolfdale-yorkfield-comparison,3487-10.html
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...
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...
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
No, sorry. That is not true. Check this article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ivy-bridge-wolfdale-yorkfield-comparison,3487-10.html
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...
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.
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
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.
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.
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.[/quote]
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.
> 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.
I would expect a round of price drops from AMD over this; otherwise they're done in the gaming market.