Hi, I am going to be building a group of low power workstation PCs for a small business in a few months. I was going to use the Intel Pentium G3258 as the CPU along with windows 10, however I have also read some articles saying there can be issues with this CPU on windows 10. Is this true and is it still a problem?
Thanks Ed
Only if you intend on OCing, will Windows 10 have issues, since Intel released code to disable the overclock on that CPU (so you have to get a more expensive CPU to OC). If you OC on Windows, you'll get a boot loop and a SAFE_OS error.
If you're not OCing, you'll be perfectly fine.
Great thanks, these machines will be glorified type writers for the next 10 years so I don't need to worry about over clocking.
So, these are just basic word processing machines? You could easily save a fair bit of cash on them going with something lesser.
I have a G3258 and I couldn't get Windows 10 installed at all. So now it is just sitting here filtering dust. No overclock at all.
Well, they are going to be running a few low power applications, but I want joking when I said 10 years, so I want something that is still going to be worth a damn after that long, plus. The money saved for going for something weaker like a celeron isn't really worth the performance loss
May I ask, have you updated your mobo bios? And also, what motherboard are you using? Because I have heard that there were some bricking incidents however other sources say manufacturers fixed most issues with a bios update.
I have an ASRock E3C226D2I motherboard. I haven't updated it in a while. I shall do that soon.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157466
I suppose, but do they have to run windows 10? If the tasks are really basic you could just run Ubuntu or something which is relatively easy to use.
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I wish I could just put Linux on them, it would reduce the cost by 1/3. However these are to be used by people who are far from computer savvy, until recently they were using cp machines on 513mb of ddr1 ram. I think the change over to limits would confuse them too much
Plus, they must use some software which I don't belive had a Linux version.
If you would like, I could dig it out and update the bios like you said and then attempt to install Windows 10 on it.
Then I'd let you know in the next couple hours.
I would appreciate that, however I wouldn't wan to bother you with it. But there is no hurry, I'm in the UK and its already 2:44am, I will probably be asleep soon enough.
Alrighty, I'll let you know!
Thank you, much appreciated.
I noticed on the ASUS website that there are no drivers directly for windows 10, and that its a server board maybe the server chipset does not play nice with win 10 and the Pentium. Which would be a real shame and a little weird however if the problem really has been fixed for most mobos, I guess I can understand why they are slow/ not mothering for a server board. This is of course assuming there are fixes for other boards.
why not just use a i3 6100? would be slightly more expensive, but would the integrated graphics can be seriously overclocked even with stock coolers. get better performance and the igpu would be good enough to not need a gpu since they wont be gaming. would have no problem finding replacement parts if something breaks and support issues for the long haul.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/rs9R23 + whatever you want for storage needs.
BTW, I am in the UK so pricing for you might be different, but the i3 costs about 2 times as much for only a slight improvement in performance. Performance that these computers don't need. Frankly, for their uses the integrated graphics on the Pentium are overkill anyway
I updated the bios. I installed Windows 10 and updated it just fine. No video drivers for it like you said, but now we know that Windows 10 works with the G3258. So that's good news.
Amd's APUs are another option to consider. Maybe even a Chromebase ChromeOS all-in-one.
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Thanks, thats really reassuring. Doing further research I found several motherboards with BIOS updates that included microcode updates to support AE pentium on win 10. But its really good to know these updates seem to work. Thanks a lot for doing that for me. I hope you are able to use that machine now as well.
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I built my nephew a PC for xmas using the same pentium and an ASRock Z97 anniversary mobo. It runs Win 10 from day one and is overclocked with no issues.
May I ask what the AMD chips run you over there? You could setup the PC's with 860K's that will work just fine for what you need, or even look into the AMD APU's as well.
We could use some more info from you such as budget per machine etc. And what parts need to be purchased vs what would already be on hand.
I can't give the exact current part list because I it's on my pc but the home Internet is down sadly. However a basic layout is:
Pentium AE
Cheap Gigabyte MOBO
4gb ram (I might change this to 8 depending if they want to spend the little extra)
120gb kingston SSD
A cheap but reliable PSU
The cheapest case I can find on ebuyer
Plus peripherals:
Cheap 1080p monitor
Keyboard/ mouse
Speakers
Headset
This set up times 4. There is an ssd because the main storage will be on a NAS for them all and they want the machines to be nice and fast.
I'm mostly looking at the AE because I have little experience with cheap AMD chips and I know the AE is reliable, fast and will still be great in 10 for them (I'm not kidding with 10 years, they have just stopped using 10 yo celerons)
Although I wouldn't say no to criticism of my build, I have built many before and not too worried about that aspect, however while doing backgroundresearch on the chip I found threads on Windows issues.