Hello, I'm currently on an HP envy laptop with the A10-4600m APU. Im gathering up for a desktop build and thanks to Logan I am pretty set on an ASUS Z97 mobo. I'm looking at about a $750 build including Win 8 and as i would love to get a Haswell i5 right away it won't fit into the budget. Right now i am able to play most games on my laptop at low settings 25-40 fps depending on the game and that's just the APU chugging along all by itself. So with my new build im thinking about starting with the Pentium G3258, according to my research the Pentium beats my APU hands down. So what I'm thinking is gettting the Z97 mobo, an R9 270/280, 8gb 1600 ram and all other necessities, but instead of getting an i5 right away, i'll start off with the Pentium and upgrade when i can afford it. I'm thinking this would be way better than my current setup for the time being and with the 1150 socket it should give me plenty of time to catch up with future upgrades.
What do you guys think?
Oh and by the way this used to be my PS4 fund, until a stumbled across tek syndicate
If your just gaming the Pentium will be just fine, especially if you overclock it.
DO NOT OVERCLOCK IF YOU DON'T ALREADY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING. You arent going to get much from an overclocked pentium anyway. You have no idea how many motherboards and cpu's my local pc replair shops replace because some idiot set the frequency, pll , multiplier, fsb, voltage, etc to something different and fried $300 worth of hardware. For $750 you can get much much much better than a crappy pentium. People shop for suggested items too much and don't realize that ram is ram, an r9 270 from xfx or gigabyte is still an r9 270. Come here a day before you are ready to order parts so we can help you pick out the best parts for the price. I'm going to go ahead and put together something decent as an example. And yes you can get a haswell i5 for that price infact for under that price.
When you get down to it the Reference designs are pretty much the same the coolers on video cards are the only thing really different, it's all about your preference if you want low temps or low noise or just based on looks If you want I can give you a list that I built on amazon that is around $750 and in my opinion the best you will get for that money
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/jYcVmG look at this and ask your self if overclocking and risking loosing everything is worth it. this cant overclock but:
3.3ghz haswell i5
8gb 1600mhz ram
r9 280
asrock motherboard
1tb harddrive
600w 80+ psu
AND ITS NOT EVEN $700
Dude, sure your build is better, but overclocking IS DEAD EASY, anybody can do it. All you have to do is research for your specific parts for a while before trying anything (check forums or ask others) and then try to follow a respectable guide. After you know the basics you tweak the settings to suit your build. Big deal.
And with current intel motherboards it's so easy you don't even have to do that when you can just up the multiplier by 5, leave voltage on auto and memory timings on auto. But then again 500mhz is not that much and to make this G3258 viable you have to overclock it substantially. For gaming, in the end, Prince Vultan's build is better.
If you OC it substantially and upgraded later on to an i7 then it's quite a deal at the moment, considering the small price and performance at 4.6ghz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gzReaFZUIE
I built a list of parts from amazon the lowest prices I could find and I even included Win 8.1 if you do use this to build your PC please use my link I get a small Kickback but This is the best pc for 750(756) you could every want.
http://www.amazon.com/lm/RPUP5OZGUJCTF/?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&linkCode=ur2&lm_bb=&tag=jaydstor03-20&linkId=TQYVSI663RPTXWS3
With your Budget getting a z97 mobo will be pretty hard those are like $100 for a sucky mobo
Prince Vultan, The word of bullshit.
Please stop scare mongering members because you cant bring yourself to modify a few peramitors within safe levels that has been discovered by professional overclockers. Unless you are a complete fucking idiot when it comes to overclocking, failing to check even the most basic how tos done by many intelligent members of the tech community. Current CPU's are resiliant enough that as long as you dont try to pump 2v of power through the vcore, its hard to kill them. Yes it is easy to kill a cpu if you try but if you have a basic idea on what you are doing, You are unlikely to kill your CPU.
Yes Logan killed his unicorn 4770k but here I am with a 4770k wher stock voltage is 1v, Recommended max on air is 1.3 and im pumping it with 1.6 without a problem. Yes 1 in maybe 20 will die at that voltage but there are no guarantees just like chucking a turbo on a car and expecting it to hit 500HP. Yes a 2JZ is a strong engine that has seen 1600HP but there are plenty of people who have boosted to just 400HP and seen a blown engine. There is always a risk with anything you do but the chances are good that you wont have problems if you dont push it and you spend a day researching before you jump into the pool.
OP, That pentium may be a great card for the money but in all honesty, Its still a pentium, even a cheap i3 beats it out. May I recommend an fx 6300 AMD Build? Overclocking is different between AMD but its a far superior CPU to the Pentium. It will last longer and be less likely to cause bottlenecks on the GPU.
In all honesty, i would recommend just putting extra money into the system any way you can and get a 4690k or an 8350, A Pentium is not going to do what you want it to do for long. But if this is all you can afford, An fx 6300 would do better than an overclocked Pentium and it can overclock itself and all in all its not a bad CPU. Of cause you need to find a different Mobo to fit the socket.
dont let people scare you about overclocking, im typing this on a pc with an overclocked core i7 and its been running that way for the last 6 years. just do a little bit of research before hand and take baby steps. overclocking is a hole lot easier then it was.
The problem is you'd need a gtx 760 or r9 270 for a proper gaming rig. Say no to windows :)
Just saying he did point out that the Pentium was temporary, and i would like to point out in games well overclocked to 4Ghz it keeps up with an i3 no problem(even the ones with 4MB of cache).
for $750 why wouldn't you get a z97? only boreds you can overclock that Pentium on right now. maybe a z87, but thats only going to cause a head ache for some one that has never built a pc before.
I missed the temporary comment, If thats the case, Go for the Pentium. And just because when overclocked it can keep up with an i3 (Which is not a good choice in the first place for a gaming rig) It is a different architecture and has different characteristics compared to the i3. Not to mention it would be running a stock cooler as the cost of putting a good cooler on it just to overclock it would not outway the cost of buying an i5 up right.
Thanks everybody. I won't be buying anything for about a month or two cause i'm deployed right right now. I know I initially said a $750 build but anything less is just more money in my pocket. I really didn't think i could get what i wanted without spending that much, but with everybody's insight i managed to bring down my current build down to $667 including OS. I'm going to keep comparing prices and looking for deals until the day i purchase.
A couple of you did notice i said temporary on the Pentium, Cause i love the fact i could start off with a 70$ CPU and get a $200+ one later with this socket, Oh and anon i was first looking at an FX-6300 but after a lot of thought decided to go with an intel build.
Thanks again everybody, I'll definitely be posting again when I'm about purchase
I'd highly advise you to go with the AMD Fx 8320 and a good AM3+ motherboard. The 8320 can be overclocked to hell, has 4x the cores of the pentium and will unlock visual features that the pentium lacks. I say that because the benchmarks your seeing online are mainly battlefield or cryris and those games are deceptive when it comes to low core counts. A lot of people recommend the I3 instead of an Fx 6300/8320. Well the problem with the I3 and pentium is their very low core counts. Well whats the problem is what you'd say after looking at a Bf4 benchmark. It looks like it's keeping up perfectly with the I7's when overclocked. Well the frostbite engine used in Bf4 disables visual features in Bf4 or other frostbite 2 &3 games when it sees an I3 or pentium. So really the fps is the same because the pentium can keep up with it's lowered visual settings, but your getting a nerfed experience because of it. This isn't stuff that can just be turned back on in settings. It's turned off by frostbite and cannot be turned back on. Well then that's why I say 8320. It's $20-40 more depending on the current sale, and the sales on them are basically nonstop. The 8320 is better performing especially when overclocked, and AM3+ motherboards are cheaper then any Asus z97. Look at the Asus 990fx pro 2.0. You could overclock the hell out of the fx 8320 with it, and $20 cheaper then the first good Asus z97 board (using z97-a for that comparison).