Intel Pentium Anniversary Edition Review & Overclocking Build Guide

ATX System Build Photos

With over a grand worth of gear it's time to put it all together. We recognize that the Corsair Graphite Series 760T is a bit overkill for this build. Although it is easily one of the nicest cases we have ever seen, its $180 price tag places it out of reach for most budget users so we have called in a cheaper alternative, the Silverstone Redline RL01 which costs a more budget friendly $50. Before we jump to the cheaper and less exciting option let's just see how it all looks in the Graphite Series 760T.

Above you can see all the kit ready to go inside the Graphite Series 760T. The case can handle considerably more storage but as a starting point, we will stick with the Corsair Force LS 120GB SSD and WD Black 4TB HDD.

Our budget build doesn't exactly fill the Corsair Graphite Series 760T. You could fit a pair of those Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti Black graphics cards back to back. Still it all looks very neat and tidy with loads of room for expansion down the road.

With the door cover on we can just see the hardware behind the tinted Perspex, which gives a very cool effect, especially once everything is lit up.

Before running our more in-depth Pentium G3258 testing with the Radeon R9 280X here are some results using the GeForce GTX 750 Ti Black and all the other hardware featured in this build. As you can see this budget gaming system will allow gamers to enjoy titles such as Tomb Raider at 30fps using maximum detail settings at 1920x1200.

The Intel Pentium G3258 isn't the hottest item at the default 3.2GHz and with the Corsair Hydro Series H100i liquid cooler on the job temperatures never exceeded 46 degrees, which isn't even warm for a CPU.

Now at our target overclock of 4.4GHz the Pentium G3258 pumps out considerably more heat, hitting 71 degrees under full load. Despite the massive increase in CPU temperature the GPU temperature remains unchanged and that is largely due to the Hydro Series H100i cooler, as it sees little heat dispersed within the case.

Realizing just how absurd our budget build looked in the gorgeous Corsair Graphite Series 760T we called in a more affordable reinforcement. Answering the request was Silverstone with its very affordable yet not unattractive Redline RL01. The case might only come with a single fan, but for $50 it's painted inside and out, can hold plenty of hardware and isn't unattractive. Oh, and it also features a small window so you can show off your heavily overclocked Anniversary Edition Pentium processor.

As you can see, while the hardware still fits with room to spare it's much snugger compared to the massive Graphite Series 760T. Although the Corsair Hydro Series H100i radiator does fit in the top of the case, the fans did hit the motherboard requiring some modification here. Still, with room for two or more graphics cards up to 280mm long and a CPU cooler as tall as 155mm, the Redline RL01 surprises.

The Redline RL01 reduces the build cost to almost $1000 and if you opt for a cheaper 8GB DDR3 kit then the price will fall under $1K. What kind of impact does using the cheaper Redline RL01 over the Graphite Series 760T have on cooling performance?

To test the Silverstone Redline RL01 we skipped straight to the 4.4GHz overclock. At idle we saw almost no difference in performance between the Graphite Series 760T and the Redline RL01. Under full load the Intel Pentium G3258 was just a degree hotter, though this is probably more of a testament to the efficiency of the Hydro Series H100i.

The Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti Black did increase in temperature by 3 degrees as there is likely less air flowing over this area of the case compared to the Graphite Series 760T. Still, for single GPU setups this slight increase in temperature isn't going to be an issue.