Intel Pentium K Anniversary

For several years the enthusiast community has repeatedly requested that Intel release an unlocked and fully-overclockable processor at an affordable price point. Typically, Intel's overclockable processors have been limited to the premium Core i5 and i7 product ranges meaning they start from at least $200 - the renowned i5 2500K debuted at $216, if you remember.

Intel has finally answered that call with the Pentium G3258. This new Pentium-series CPU is imbued with the title 'Anniversary Edition' to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the first Pentium processor. On paper its specifications are basic at best; two cores without hyper-threading running at a clock speed of 3.2GHz. There's no turbo boost support, either. There is, of course, one saving grace - a fully-unlocked multiplier.

At $72 MSRP the G3258 slots in between the Pentium G3220, the previous Pentium of choice for most budget buyers, and the Pentium G3450. Factor in overclocking and it's a whole different ball game with most reviews suggesting a guaranteed overclock to 4,200MHz. For the more adventurous 4,400MHz and beyond is possible with 1.3V and some 'more exotic-than-stock' cooling, where a heatsink such as a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO fits the bill perfectly.

Better than it looks on paper

The reduced core count combined with the omission of turbo boost and hyper-threading results in a modest TDP of just 53W. Even this likely overstates the actual power consumption by a significant degree since power consumption is intimately linked to core count and frequency, both of which are comparatively low out of the box.

Too good to pass up?

Enthusiasts looking to squeeze every last drop of performance out of their budget will be no stranger to Intel's Pentium offerings. The locked-down Pentium G3220 has proven an intensely popular offering in the many months preceding the Pentium G3258's launch. Now an extra ten pounds can take that entry-level system to the next stage because of the excellent overclocking potential.

Buyers needn't even risk purchasing a non-Z motherboard, like a H81 or B85 chipset-based solution, to try and save some money as motherboard vendors have aggressively cut Z97 prices to as low as £65. The option to go for a slightly cheaper non-Z motherboard is still open, and is a path worth investigating given that nearly all vendors have issued BIOS updates for their motherboards that support non-Z overclocking.

Pairing the Intel Pentium G3258 up with an affordable LGA 1150 motherboard of choice, 8GB of RAM and a decent sweet-spot graphics card gives the consumer an impressive level of performance for a modest budget. Such a solution is dependent on using an overclock to enhance overall performance, but given how simple overclocking is on Intel's LGA 1150 platform, it should not act as a deterrent to even the novice user.

As always, Scan is selling this processor as soon as it becomes available from Intel, which is likely in the last week of June 2014.