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Power Consumption And Efficiency

Intel Pentium G3258 CPU Review: Haswell, Unlocked, For £55
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The following chart reflects power consumption throughout our benchmark suite, which gets logged every two seconds. The long, straight section at the end represents 30 minutes of idle time inserted by our automated script to better reflect actual use when we calculate averages.

Our comparison is principally between Intel’s Pentium G3258 and AMD’s Athlon X4 750K. We’ve seen how both CPUs size up in the performance metrics, and now we get a better idea of how much power they pull down along the way.

All four configurations spike into similar territory. Three settle around the same idle power, while one (the stock Pentium G3258) idles quite a bit higher. Interestingly, this is the same behavior observed from Intel’s Core i7-4790K on MSI’s Z97 Gaming 7. Since the Core i7-4770K was fine, I’m inclined to believe there’s some firmware work to do for Intel’s newest multiplier-unlocked models.

That long stretch in the middle, which is our Visual Studio test, best represents a CPU-heavy task with no graphics intervention. It shows the stock Pentium using the least power, followed by the overclocked Pentium, the stock Athlon, and the overclocked Athlon, just as each CPU’s TDP would indicate.

Based on the length of the lines, we also see that the stock Pentium G3258 is the slowest entry, followed by the stock Athlon X4 750K. You can’t really see it behind the other lines, but the overclocked Pentium wraps up first.

When you average out power consumption across the entire line graph, you get the above chart. The stock Pentium G3258 should probably be quite a bit lower. However, because there appears to be an issue with it idling at stock clock rates, 30 minutes is spent more than 20 W too high.

At any rate, the overclocked Pentium certainly uses more power in its quest, due to the higher voltage and clock rate. But we also know it finishes the tasks we throw at it faster. Meanwhile, overclocking AMD’s Athlon X4 750K doesn’t have a profound impact on average power use at all. That likely indicates good things for efficiency.

A glance at the line graph gave us this same information, but we more clearly see the finishing order of our entire suite. Intel’s Pentium G3258 starts as the slowest contender and, through overclocking, ends up fastest.

Multiplying power consumption and run duration gives us a Wh rating for each system.

Intel’s Pentium G3258 starts off using little power. However, mediocre performance and a poor idle combine to delivery lackluster efficiency. Only the stock Athlon X4 750K is worse. Its performance is better than the Pentium’s, but a 100 W TDP hurts the equation.

Overclocking to 4.3 GHz helps the Athlon improve its performance even more without affecting power consumption much. But the Pentium can’t be stopped. Average power use jumps 10 W (12%), while the benchmark suite finishes 23% quicker. The result is a first-place finish in efficiency.

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  • 0 Hide
    tea urchin , 17 June 2014 08:14
    Been waiting reviews for a 'sister' build. Thanks.
  • -1 Hide
    Plusthinking Iq , 17 June 2014 12:10
    this beat every amd up to amd 8350, and still you need to oc the 8350 to get better fps in some games. this pretty much leaves amd dead in the water in gaming cpu's
  • 4 Hide
    Blahman11 , 17 June 2014 13:21
    This is a very good CPU for the price, AMD should be worried, and in fact everyone should. This CPU is pretty much removing for AMD one of their last areas in which AMD did well- cheap overclockable CPUs. AMD need to respond to this, perhaps make a GPU disabled kaveri chip that overclocks better than the 7850k does? If AMD don't respond then we lose the last competitor to intel, and everyone knows what that would mean for the market.
  • 3 Hide
    jaslion , 17 June 2014 19:30
    well here in belgium and fx 6300 is 100€ straight and this pentium 75€ so i would go for the fx 6300 personnally
  • 3 Hide
    ivyanev , 19 June 2014 09:30
    correct me if i am wrong but overclocking this processor requires z motherboard, and a pontent cooler. These two combined will add up to more than the difference with the i3. What you end up is hot, overclocked processor that is inferior in almost all benchmarks for no less money. The only logic I can see is to buy this now and after a couple of years upgrade to i7 and overclock it also.
  • -5 Hide
    Plusthinking Iq , 19 June 2014 10:10
    stock cooler should not be used anyways, so your wrong ivyanev.
    dont buy a pc so cheap you cant cool it or have a good motherboard.
  • -2 Hide
    Defconluke , 22 June 2014 09:19
    Minimum of £80 for a low end Z97 motherboard + £55 for the unlocked Pentium with an overclock that is not guaranteed.

    When the i3 is £90 and can be put in a cheap (£40) H81 motherboard without needing the effort of finding a stable overclock it seems a bit risky to go for the Pentium.

    However, if a later upgrade to an i5K or i7K is planned (or you need the Z series chipset features) then the Pentium is a good way to start saving towards that upgrade while not compromising on the expense of an i3 or drop in performance of a regular Pentium.
  • 2 Hide
    d1vine , 29 June 2014 10:05
    You dont need an Z series to OC this monster.You need just an "solid" Asus h81/b85/h97 mobo(with al least one heatshrink on the VRM).Asus announced that they will unlock overclocking on their h81/b85/h97 mobos.Plus you don't need a serious cooler,
    Zalman CNPS10X Performa(~35$) or
    Thermalright True Spirit 120i(~45$) should be enough to keep it under 80 degrees.

    SOURCE:http://www.tomshardware.com/news/asus-overclocking-h87-h97-b85,27076.html
  • 1 Hide
    TesseractOrion , 8 July 2014 17:10
    Is there a slight anomaly in the Tomb Raider graphs? The OC G3258 appears a lot slower than the normal one...
  • 0 Hide
    Pegasu5 , 16 July 2014 14:54
    4.6Ghz on a H81M-Plus here: http://www.ukgamingcomputers.co.uk/overclocking-pentium-g3258-on-h81-b75-h87-h97-chipsets-a-60.html
  • 0 Hide
    jukkie , 20 July 2014 04:35
    Well, I have my G3258 running at 4.3Ghz at 1.33v on a £30 MSI H81 mobo, coupled with a £15 Freezer 7 pro heatsink/fan. That's only £85 in total for quite a fair amount of performance.

    Anything above 4.3Ghz wasn't stable, even with the voltage up to 1.34v (not prepared to try higher than that as temps were too high). This was likely down to the cheap mobo, but I'm not going to complain about that, as it's still a nice overclock for the money.