Benchmarks: Core
Solid single-threaded performance has always been a hallmark of the Intel Core architecture. The Pentium Anniversary Edition G3258 is no slouch when run at out-of-the-box frequencies but overclocking it to an all-core 4.4GHz means it beats the Core i7-4770K. The HEXUS PiFast test is usually a good indicator of how well a chip will do in gaming scenarios where the CPU is the bottleneck, so watch out for those benchmarks a little later on.
Haswell-based Pentiums have two cores and are able to process two threads. Base performance is reasonable, if not brilliant, but increasing the frequency to 4.4GHz puts the processor in the same performance realms as AMD's finest APU and Intel's dual-core, quad-threaded Core i3-4330, which costs about £40 more.
We see the same sort of pattern in wPrime, where overclocking the Pentium Anniversary Edition buys you about £30 more CPU performance. AMD's budget Athlon 5350, costing £10 less, is comfortably behind the G3258 in these tests.
Having run these benchmarks for a while now - more than 10 years in the case of PiFast - we can say that the Pentium G3258 has enough oomph for it to be a good workhorse processor for entry-level and mainstream systems. The overclocked chip, meanwhile, provides basic Core-like performance for a much smaller outlay.
