Final Words & Conclusion
Final Words & Conclusion
By releasing a K model Pentium processor, Intel did something incredibly fun. It is a cheap to purchase low-end SKU (perfect for a net-top or Media/HTPC/NAS server). But by unlocking it you can create a bit of a two headed monster. True you will miss luxurious caches and hyper-threading, but once you start to overclock the fast per core performance will kick in. And all of the sudden with merely two CPU cores you are in the mid-range segment of performance of quad-core processors.
So for me this is all sheer fun, fooling around with a gimmick processor as realistically, few people are going to buy this processor. It is intended for the folks that like to tweak and overclock. And done right, you will gain much performance. The problem of course lies in the fact that this processor needs to be seated onto a Z87 or Z97 motherboard, these mostly start at 100 EURO for something adequate. Then you need to weigh in the costs of a proper cooling solution as well. So before you know it you will have spend 3 to 4 times the money that your processor is worth. But sure, this thing is pure fun, I mean 4800 MHz stable on a relatively simple liquid cooler, come on how can you not like that.
Overclocking
The overall temperatures when properly cooled are excellent, on our H110 cooler at default settings under load we're at 40 Degrees C. I think is respectable. Once you start to overclock (especially with added CPU voltage) things obviously will change fast. With 1.35~1.40 Volts you'll sit in the 70 Degrees C range, once you overclock and need 1.50 Volts, the processor depending on its clock frequency and stress level will reach roughly 80 Degrees C. But cooling is trivial here. Be VERY selective about that. We needed 1.4 volts for roughly 4500 MHz, our 4800 MHz tweak was 100% stable yet needed 1.50 Volts. We did try 4900 and 5000 MHz at 1.55 Volts, but the processor would not remain stable enough hence we settled at 4800 MHz. Hey that is 1600 MHz above stock clocks, pretty kicks ass we say!
What About The IGP?
Quite honestly, would you really care?Well, for gaming you are still looking at very little performance. Now we know that HD 4000 series can do, but with this test had again a driver issue. Regardless of our driver issues, if you flick down and forfeit on image quality and resolution, and things will get better fast. As huge as the overall performance improvement over the last generation IGPs really is, it remains entry-level performance for gaming on low resolution monitors though.
The integrated GPU is tagged as Intel HD Graphics. It comes with 10 execution units, where the common Intel HD 4600 IGPs on the Core i7 series have 20 execution units. So that's the same unit yet cut in half. Worthy of mentioning is that normally Pentium processors typically do not have Quick Sync functionality, the G3258 Anniversary Edition however has this functionality enabled. Anyway, for mobile platforms the embedded GPU will be pretty good. We also need to separate gaming from the graphics core, realize that it is a multipurpose graphics processor. You'll have no issues with Blu-ray playback, heck it can even deal with 3D TV, post-process your media files and help out with video en/trans and decoding. The GPU is compatible with HDMI 1.4 and Display Port 1.2 next to the regular DSUB and DVI connectors of course.
Power Consumption
No problem there, depending on your PC (SSDs/HDDs/Opticals/Cooing) and your dedicated graphics card and motherboard at idle you should be at the 50 Watt Range, and with the CPu under load... maybe 70-80 Watts. So that's all fine really. Lovely for a HTPC or NAS sever actually. Overclocked with added CPU voltage the dynamics wwill change, its still not bad though. At 1.50 Volts / 4800 MHz the PC with the CPU stressed consumed roughly 125 Watts.
Let's Talk Money
A Pentium G3258 will cost you roughly 60 EUR, say 70 USD. This is Intel's top K model Pentium dual-core product. Intel does not have any substantial competition within this market segment, this price is and will stay at that level. It is a great processor for the money and also, the only one in its range being the K model. The downside is of course that the processor might be cheap, but the infrastructure needed (motherboard /cooling) easily will increase the overall needed budget.
Final Words
I really like the Pentium G3258, we like to congratulate Intel with the 20th Anniversary. The Pentium G3258 is a fun product to fool around with, just for fun alone. Overall I was impressed how well these little critters run on a full blown PC. The overclocking results did put a smile on my face alright. It was that good old tweaking feeling. Interestingly, the two cores overclocked towards 4800 brought in a hell-of-a-lot CPU performance per core. AMD's mid-range processors and APUs need four cores to do the same.
That said, even overclocked you should not be looking at this processor for a gaming rig. Overclocked it will get you very decent game performance, but two cores is not something we recommend for mainstream and better gaming, especially with minimum framerates in mid. For a low level to mid-range system however this remains aa fun processor to work with. No Pentium G3258 is really intended for low-level net-PCs and small server functionality like a NAS or HTPC. At 60 EURO the processor is a heck of a lot of fun if you like to tweak a little though. As such definitely recommended. And we do hope to see Intel release a few more SKUs like shown today in the future. It's all about the fun factor, and the fun factor is high with this one.
Thanks go out to Azerty.nl for supplying this processor.
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