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nanoflower
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Microcenter deal Pentium G3258+MSI MB for $100

Fri Jul 04, 2014 5:10 pm

I don't know how long this deal is going to exist since Microcenter isn't advertising it. For now you can pick up a Pentium G3258 and MSI Z97 PC Mate MB for $100 ($60 for the CPU, $40 for the MB.)


As far as I know it's the only MB where Microcenter will take off money if you bundle it with the Pentium processor (like they do with the I3/I5/I7 processors.) Given the results people are getting (over 4GHz overclocks and gaming results often close to standard I5 results with OCed G3258) it's worth considering.
 
Coran Fixx
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Re: Microcenter deal Pentium G3258+MSI MB for $100

Fri Jul 04, 2014 5:20 pm

Well double fudge. I had my sister in law pick this processor up since I live too far away, I may have to see if shell go back. Which Microcenter did you go to? The one closest to me is in Overland Park.
 
nanoflower
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Re: Microcenter deal Pentium G3258+MSI MB for $100

Fri Jul 04, 2014 6:12 pm

As far as I know all the Microcenters have this deal. Yes, it appears to be at all Microcenters as I have it in my cart and just changed the store location to Chicago, Brooklyn, Atlanta and Detroit and they all showed the same deal. (Prices changed a bit due to taxes and local prices but they were all around $100 for the bundle.) So the only issue seems to be that some stores are out of the Pentium G3258s so they can't offer the deal.
 
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Re: Microcenter deal Pentium G3258+MSI MB for $100

Fri Jul 04, 2014 6:20 pm

Thats $100 including taxes? that's like £60 which is about the price of the G3258 by itself over here....

Microcenter sounds awesome. We have PC World where you can buy USB things and Apple accessories for 300% of their online price.
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nanoflower
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Re: Microcenter deal Pentium G3258+MSI MB for $100

Fri Jul 04, 2014 7:13 pm

With taxes it is $106. Still a good price. ;)

Microcenter is great since they always try to beat Newegg. Plus there's a Fry's only a few miles away from the Microcenter which also helps keep prices low. (Frys is similar as it sells mostly computer gear at reasonable prices though they've added on other stuff over the years so it is getting more like Best Buy with home appliances in addition to the computer gear.)
 
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Re: Microcenter deal Pentium G3258+MSI MB for $100

Fri Jul 04, 2014 11:04 pm

Microcenter is awesome.

It is a great deal for a fun dual core toy to play with. But since it has only 2mb of L2 cach and only 2 cores without Hyperthreading it is severely handicapped in most newer high threaded games compared to a i5 quad core w/o HT Pentium AV edition blazing away at 4.5ghz+. Do not get me wrong for the money your getting a lot of speed if it can OC good. I would love to have one to just play with...but I am pinching pennies at the moment :)

I have read the reviews on the OC'ed Pentium AV Edition and even the i3 dual cores with 3mb L2 cach and HT are beating it in most gaming situations let alone a i5 true quad core. Almost all games these days want over 2 threads to work with and the benchmarks show that clearly. Just think of the games coming out in the future with the consoles sporting so many threads the new Pentiums 2 threads just will not be able to keep up with the games requests for action for this and that along with dat and.....you should understand what i am getting at.

Man I wish they gave it at least Hyperthreading since it is the 20th AV edition of the pentium and heck of a lot of them supported HT over the years. That would have made this really great $100 combo deal a Super OMG deal :) Since it could juggle 4 threads at once.
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nanoflower
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Re: Microcenter deal Pentium G3258+MSI MB for $100

Sat Jul 05, 2014 3:11 am

oh I agree it's not the perfect solution. However for someone looking to play older games or for a second system it's a good solution even if you don't overclock as the CPU has good performance (for 2 cores) and the PC Mate motherboard provides most of the features that people want. It doesn't provide some of the extras that you can get with other motherboards (for about $30-50 more) like M2 or Sata Express, but how many need that out of the box?

BTW, I just found that Tiger Express is running a similar sort of deal with the G3258, MSI PC Mate, 8 GB of DDR3 RAM and two case fans for $279 with a $50 mail in rebate for a final price of $229. It's not as good as the Microcenter deal and it does require a mail in rebate, but it is something anyone could mail order.
 
Coran Fixx
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Re: Microcenter deal Pentium G3258+MSI MB for $100

Sat Jul 05, 2014 5:44 am

Shows no discount in the cart now. Maybe a July 4th deal only.
 
vargis14
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Re: Microcenter deal Pentium G3258+MSI MB for $100

Sat Jul 05, 2014 8:56 am

I have to say I slightly underestimated the Pentium AV edition when OC'ed! I just read a couple more reviews and the Pentium AV edition running at 4.7-4.8ghz is a killer deal for $100.....the only thing is they are using a lot better motherboards H100i coolers and pumping 1.5v through the chips increasing the power draw by 70+watts.

I think the MSI z97 Mate MB with only 4 CPU power phases probably will not get near 4.8ghz like the reviews.

I would love to see a review of the MSI Z97 mate MB combined with the Pentium AE CPU and a $30 Coolermaster 212 EVO tower cooler to see what the CPU can do with a low end MB and inexpensive but decent cooler to really see how it performs without a $200 MB and a $120 cooler to get a idea how only spending $130 can perform... Someone go buy one from Microcenter please and get a 212 EVO while you are at it.
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Re: Microcenter deal Pentium G3258+MSI MB for $100

Sat Jul 05, 2014 10:12 am

With an appropriate level of discrete graphics card (say ~$150), the G3258 can compete well with much costlier CPUs in gaming. The exceptions might be the few heavily threaded game types like certain RTSes or Simulations. It makes for a very good budget gaming system, when talking this level of CPU every dollar counts so even stepping up to an i3 adds a significant percentage to system price. (Also, i3's major difference is HT which isn't anything like adding a full core.)
 
nanoflower
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Re: Microcenter deal Pentium G3258+MSI MB for $100

Sat Jul 05, 2014 10:45 am

The discount is definitely still in effect for me. Just picked up :
MSI Z97 PC Mate $40.00
Pentium G3258 $59.99
Ballistix PC-1600 8GB $64.98
Toshiba 3TB $99

for a grand total with tax of $280.87


I didn't expect the extra $10 off the memory but they had a coupon they gave me for that. As for your issue it's possible they ran out of the G3258s. I noticed last night when I was checking those stores across the nation that a number were out and even at my local Microcenter I picked up the last one. They had easily 20 more of the PC Mate MBs so maybe they will be keep the deal going when they get in more Pentiums. Only way to know is to check back with the site (and add the MB/CPU to your cart to see the final price) or call the local store.

At this price it was well worth since the MB seems to be decent and has all of the features I need. So even if I replace the CPU within a year I'm still ahead as my total cost won't be much more than if I bought the 4690K and the same MB or one of the other MBs in their bundles.
 
Coran Fixx
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Re: Microcenter deal Pentium G3258+MSI MB for $100

Sat Jul 05, 2014 8:47 pm

Nah, I must have caught it between website refreshes. When I went back to the website to get the local phone number the $99 deal was advertised on the front page. I just got home with it. I should be able to give some overclocking with the stock cooler results since My corsair cooler doesn't get here till Wednesday.
 
nanoflower
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Re: Microcenter deal Pentium G3258+MSI MB for $100

Sun Jul 06, 2014 7:41 am

I can give some basic OC results this morning but not full results because my GPU fan won't spin up so I can't push it in the GPU benchmarks.

With the Pentium G3258 at stock speeds (3.2GHz) GeekBench 3.0 Tryout reports
single score 2839
multi score 5037
AES single 210
AES multi 418
twofish single 2682
twofish multi 5327
sha1 single 3371
sha1 multi 6726
sha2 single 3406
sha2 multi 6787

with the Pentium G3258 at 4.3GHz (using MSI OCGenie) GeekBench 3.0 Tryout reports
single score 3224
multi score 6362
AES single 282
AES multi 566
twofish single 3599
twofish multi 7199
sha1 single 4577
sha1 multi 9058
sha2 single 4565
sha2 multi 9061

so just with those scores you can see a decent boost in performance but not something amazing. I do want to try and OC the CPU a bit more but first I have to figure out my GPU fan issue.

Oh I should add that is at a bus speed of 100MHz with a multiplier of 43 for the 4300 MHz speed. According to CPU-Z it's at 0.944 volts (which must be wrong) while MSI Command Center shows the CPU core voltage at 1.25.. The temps while running Intel Burn Test tend to stick around 85C with momentary drops to 75c and rises to 93C. Ah... looks like temp protection may be kicking in during those peak temps as I see in CPU-Z the core speed dropping to 4/4.1 GHz and then rising back to 4.3GHz. While running Geekbench the temps stick around 60C and then drops down to 35c when idle.

This is with the Cooler master Gemini S524 CPU cooler so a better cooler could give better results.
 
Coran Fixx
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Re: Microcenter deal Pentium G3258+MSI MB for $100

Sun Jul 06, 2014 11:37 am

Well I was thinking that I must be suffering from some learning disability because I could not get my cpu to overclock at all. The bios was not let me have access to change the oc settings and oc genie was doing nothing at all.

My bios was at 4.0
MSI website said 4.2 was available and Live update said 4.3 was available. I clicked the download and install button (which is a lie, I had to install manually)

at ver 4.3, OC Genie works setting my Overclock at 4.3 at 1.249v. Seemingly stable with stock cooler. I am trying to sort out my Win7 update shenanigans so haven't tried burn in yet but has turned in 9.197 SuperPi 1M.

CPU-Z shows it as a G3240 with a specification of G3258, correctly shows 1.249 Core voltage.

PC Mate is a decent motherboard, I don't care for the fact it is full size and that it doesn't have an M2 slot.

Edit: Forgot to mention that my cpu is idling around 40c and is in the always on postion (at 4.3 not ramping up or down). Also XMP memory function is working great with my Corsair ram.

Edit 2: Geekbench scores about the same, passed an hour of xtu stresstesting with max temp of 77C (must not be a real stressful stress test), benchmark for xtu : 311
Heaven Benchmark 4.0 (1280x1024, default settings): Score: 229 FPS: 9.1
 
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Re: Microcenter deal Pentium G3258+MSI MB for $100

Fri Jul 11, 2014 10:12 am

In case anyone "missed" this deal, my local MC just restocked the Pentiums and now has '25+' on hand of the CPU and board. The bundle pricing is STILL in effect.

I just got my setup running yesterday, used OC Genie as a start, it gave me the standard 1.25V and 4.3GHz. I've been using XTU, running the stress test for an hour, then bumping the CPU mult 1X each time. At 4.6GHz so far and still cruising upwards.
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