Intel's Pentium G4560 processor has been tested by ComputerBase, revealing that it could be the best sub-$100 CPU.

Intel's Pentium G4560 Is The New King of The Budget CPUs Under $100 US

The Intel Pentium G4560 is part of the Kaby Lake family of processors which were launched at CES 2017. The lineup includes several Pentium and Core series processors. The Pentium G4560 is a $64 US processor which is placed in the lineup and may not look like much until we get into the specifications of this part.

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Intel Pentium G4560 Processor Specifications:

The Pentium G4560 is a dual core processor that comes with Hyper-Threading Technology. It has four threads and this is the first time Intel has enabled the technology on Pentium series processors. The CPU comes with clock speeds of 3.50 GHz base frequency but no boost clocks. The chip stores a 3 MB L3 cache and has a TDP of 54W. The processor also packs the latest HD Graphics 610 clocked at 1150 MHz. The chip has a price of 64 USD which is really good.

There are also the Pentium G4600 and G4620 which ship with slightly higher clock speeds and HD Graphics 630 chips. These processors retail for a higher price of $75 US (G4600) and $86 (G4620). Performance wise, all 3 processors should be pretty close to one another but the G4560 performance is really something to see in the tests below.

Intel 7th Generation 'Kaby Lake' Desktop Lineup

SKU Name Cores/Threads Core Clock Boost Clock L3 Cache TDP Socket Price Core i7-7700K 4/8 4.2 GHz 4.5 GHz 8 MB 91W LGA1151 $339 US Core i7-7700 4/8 3.6 GHz 4.2 GHz 8 MB 65W LGA1151 $303 US Core i7-7700T 4/8 2.9 GHz 3.8 GHz 8 MB 35W LGA1151 $303 US Core i5-7600K 4/4 3.8 GHz 4.2 GHz 6 MB 91W LGA1151 $242 US Core i5-7600 4/4 3.5 GHz 4.1 GHz 6 MB 65W LGA1151 $213 US Core i5-7600T 4/4 2.8 GHz 3.7 GHz 6 MB 35W LGA1151 $213 US Core i5-7500 4/4 3.4 GHz 3.8 GHz 6 MB 65W LGA1151 $192 US Core i5-7500T 4/4 2.7 GHz 3.3 GHz 6 MB 35W LGA1151 $192 US Core i5-7400 4/4 3.0 GHz 3.5 GHz 6 MB 65W LGA1151 $182 US Core i5-7400T 4/4 2.4 GHz 3.0 GHz 6 MB 35W LGA1151 $182 US Core i3-7350K 2/4 4.2 GHz N/A 4 MB 60W LGA 1151 $168 US Core i3-7320 2/4 4.1 GHz N/A 4 MB TBD LGA 1151 $149 US Core i3-7300 2/4 4.0 GHz N/A 4 MB 51W LGA1151 $138 US Core i3-7300T 2/4 3.5 GHz N/A 4 MB 35W LGA1151 $138 US Core i3-7100 2/4 3.9 GHz N/A 4 MB 51W LGA 1151 $117 US Core i3-7100T 2/4 3.4 GHz N/A 4 MB 35W LGA 1151 $117 US Pentium G4620 2/4 3.7 GHz N/A 3 MB 51W LGA1151 $86 US Pentium G4600 2/4 3.6 GHz N/A 3 MB 51W LGA 1151 $75 US Pentium G4560 2/4 3.5 GHz N/A 3MB 54W LGA 1151 $64 US Pentium G3950 2/2 3.0 GHz N/A 2 MB 35W LGA1151 $52 US Pentium G3930 2/2 2.9 GHz N/A 2 MB 35W LGA1151 $42 US

Intel Pentium G4560 Performance Benchmarks - Faster Than FX-6300, On Par With i3-6100 Skylake and i5-2500K Sandy Bridge

The full performance review of the Pentium G4560 is published by ComputerBase. Their performance tests are surprising as the $64 US chip is able to not only outperform a 6 core AMD FX-6300 processor but also manages to be on par with the higher priced Core i3-6100 Skylake ($117 US) and the once gaming champ, the Core i5-2500K which sold for around $230 US.







Applications Performance (Windows):

15% faster than $90 FX-6300

21% faster than $60 Pentium G4400

23% faster than $149 A10-7890K

Gaming Performance (1080p):

16% faster than $89 FX-6300

26% faster than $60 Pentium G4400

26% faster than $149 A10-7890K

In gaming benchmarks on 1080p and 720p, the Pentium G4560 single-handedly beats out the Pentium G4400, FX-6300 and A10-7890K while being under 5% slower than the more expensive Core i3-6100 and Core i5-2500K. In general Windows applications and synthetic benchmarks, the difference between the Pentium G4560 and Core i3-6100 is just 3% while the i5-2500K is just 1% faster when average performance is calculated. In the Cinebench R15 benchmark, the Pentium G4560 is faster in multi-threaded performance while the Core i3-6100 ends up a bit faster during single-threaded evaluation.

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Intel Pentium G4560 Multi-GPU and Multi-Tasking Performance:

The performance tests reveal that the Pentium G4560 is very much capable of handling graphics cards from both mainstream and enthusiast tiers such as the Fury X and GTX 980 Ti. The chip can also handle multiple GPUs well with GTX 980 Ti SLI performance in Witcher 3 matching the Core i5-7600K.

During multi-tasking, the performance will be slightly hindered on the Pentium series due to the lower number of cores and the threads being fully utilized by the running applications. In an example, a multi-tasking scenario between Witcher 3 and WinRAR was created where the chip delivered a fine rate of FPS in the game but didn't quite have ideal performance in the Windows application.

Intel Pentium G4560 Temperatures and Power Consumption:

The chip also features interesting numbers in regards to power and temperatures. At idle, the chip consumes just 34W and a slight load on a single core leads to 46W which is lower than the last generation Celeron CPUs. In multi-core load tests, the chip consumes 57W which is lower than G4400 (59W) and on par with the Celeron G1840.







Finally, we have the temperature tests which show that the G4560 reaches 48C at load which is slightly higher than the several Celeron chips operating at 41-42C. These are really impressive numbers for a budget tier chip.

Overall, the Pentium G4560 is definitely a killer chip for budget PC builders. It has great performance across the board and a price which should enable some really decent builds under $300-$500 US.