a overclockable i3 is pretty pointless
id rather see a 100 dollar quad core clocked at ~3Ghz with no turbo
$100 is the price-range of an i3 though, and I'm not sure Intel's interested in making those cheaper to dip into their cheaper Pentium line...I guess we'll have to see if Zen can push that to maaayyyyybe happen anyways...
I agree it'd be cool to see an lower-end i5 unlocked option too...but really something budget-wise like a $100 i3 could be very realistic, but they'd have to really limit the i3 models, and if there were a low-end i5-K and a high-end i5-K I'd think it'd be a lot tougher to sell. Sure it would be lower quality/binned i5, but if its still faster and cheaper than the higher binned i5 stock at the top of the ladder and can OC within a couple-hundred MHz of it's max OC...which could be likely with current and the past several generations of Intel CPU's were they unlocked...it wouldn't make any financial sense at all with how close many CPU models are... at that point they might as well reduce the number of offerings and unlock the entire range! YES PLEASE!
Damn do I miss the days if being able to OC any chip across the range...
That's probably why they only released the G3258, it was fun, but even OC'd could get beaten by an i3 in gaming with multiple threads, or even by run of power and efficiency along with multi-threaded tasks...it was fun but had its limitations and didn't really compete all that much with the rest of the line. Sure it could put up decent numbers if you hit 4.5-5GHz+, but many that hit the 4.2-4.4 or so range really in the end didn't gain a whole lot other than a good time OC-ing and a stop-gap to an i3/5/7 and a $50 sale on a used CPU.
An i3 would be a beefier CPU to start with obviously, HT would help it multithread better, but an i5-K or i7-K would still leave it sitting in the tasks where CPU's matter. But then I'd also imagine some lower-end i5's would have to get cut because that very same i3 would be more competitive with them...I also guess it would come down to those that want to OC to that speed versus just buying a CPU that has that performance and speed outta the box. Granted all I'm doing is speculating here, and my perspective could be skewed... while I'd rather seen an i5, I think an i3 would make more sense and be more likely to actually happen...if they don't just do another Pentium in the end...
