Benchmarks: Arma 3, Sleeping Dogs, Battlefield 4, Battlefield Hardline
For whatever reason the Athlon X4 860K really struggles in Arma 3 and despite a 4.4GHz overclock the chip managed just 18.3fps. In comparison, the Pentium G3258 delivered 24fps out of the box and 27fps once overclocked, making it 48% faster in overclocked trim.
The deficit isn't quite as bad when using the GTX 960, though the overclocked Pentium was still 22% faster than the overclocked Athlon. For those wondering, the latter saw an average of 80% utilization in the Arma 3 Altis benchmark and 95% at the default operating frequency. The Stratis benchmark, which we didn't include, only saw half the X4 860K being utilized.
The Sleeping Dogs performance when using the Radeon R9 285 was virtually identical when using the G3258 and X4 860K. Both delivered 46fps once overclocked, though the G3258 managed this even at its standard 3.2GHz clock speed.
We found similar results when using the GTX 960, though this time the G3258 was 2% faster than the X4 860K once overclocked, which is only a single frame.
The Pentium extracted the maximum performance from the R9 285 at just 3.2GHz, allowing for 56fps, 3% faster than the overclocked Athlon's 54.5fps at 4.4GHz.
When using the GTX 960, the Pentium G3258 was again able to max out the GPU at its default operating frequency of just 3.2GHz. This meant that the G3258 prior to any overclocking was 5% faster than the Athlon X4 860K, which was clocked at 4.4GHz.
For the first time in this article, the Athlon X4 860K has come out on top, beating the Pentium G3258 in Battlefield Hardline when armed with the R9 285. The G3258 was 5% slower than the X4 860K when comparing the overclocking results, though both CPUs did allow the R9 285 to exceed 60fps.
Interestingly, with the GTX 960 installed, the G3258 is 2fps or 2% faster the Athlon X4 860K when comparing the overclocked 4.4GHz results.