A friend wants to build a new PC

[Waluigifan]

Hi!
One of my friends wants to build a new PC and needs some help with choosing the right parts. I already gave him some advice but I'm not too tech-savvy...
He would like to emulate GC/Wii games with Dolphin. Other then that, he plays "League of Legends" and wants to use his PC for everyday tasks.
His PC should be powerful enough to emulate most Mario games (like Mario Party, Super Smash Bros., Mario Kart), preferably at full speed and in HD.

Here are some of the parts he has chosen:

Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3P
CPU: AMD FX-6350 6 Core CPU 3,9 GHZ
RAM: Kingston KHX1866C9D3/4G (he wants to buy 2 or 3 of them, resulting in 8 or 12 GB of RAM... but I'm sure 8GB is enough, right?)
Graphics card: Asus R7260X-DC2OC-2GD5 (2GB / 128 Bit)

There is also a question on my side: does it make a difference whether the graphics card is 128 Bit or 256 Bit? How much VRAM (1GB/2GB/3GB/4GB) is recommended for playing most if not all games at 4xIR?

[DJBarry004]

4 GB will be enough for both Dolphin and LoL (I also play that one, it´s pretty good). He´ll need a better CPU for Dolphin (like i3-4130*, i5-4670K* if with high budget).

Yes, it matters if it´s 128 or 256 (it´s related to GPU bandwidth if I remember well). Don´t know about the other one, but I do know that higher GBps bandwidth = more chances for higher IR for little to no drops.

*Those are the recommended CPUs I got from mind right now, there are more CPUs that are also good for Dolphin and, well, I don´t remember them right now.

[yl-smash]

Definitely wouldn't get that cpu if he plans to run Dolphin. Get only 4-8GB RAM and save the extra money to opt for i5 4670k.

[Waluigifan]

@DJBarry004
Thank you very much for your reply!
I also recommended Intel CPU's but he wants to stick with AMD. Are there AMD processors which fare well with Dolphin?
He also wants to build a middle class PC so it should not be too expensive. That's probably why he wants an AMD processor because they seem to be cheaper.

@yl-smash
Thank you! I'll give him that advice.

[KHg8m3r]

CPU:
That CPU will struggle with any games that aren't light to light-medium. AMD has weak single-core performance, which Dolphin needs. The CPU will most likely struggle with the game series you mentioned, depending on what game (ex: Mario kart DD, Smash bros brawl)
Tell him to up his budget some and switch over to Intel. We usually recommend the i5-4670K and a Z87 motherboard. (the i5 will perform better even outside Dolphin)
i5-4670K: http://www.amazon.de/Intel-4670K-Prozessor-Sockel-LGA1150/dp/B00CO8TBOW/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1398116508&sr=8-2&keywords=intel+i5
Z87 mobo: http://www.amazon.de/MSI-7816-001R-Z87-G43-Mainboard-Graphics/dp/B00CXOMGGW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398116552&sr=8-1&keywords=mainboard+1150+z87

GPU:
I don't know AMD graphics cards, so someone else will have to tell you about what is good in Dolphin.

But the IR comes down to the bandwidth, and the r7 260x has 112 GB/sec, which is good, and (I think) will probably get you around 4xIR

edit: the only AMD CPUs that come close to matching Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge CPUs are the most expensive and top of the line FX and A10 CPUs.

[Waluigifan]

Thank you!
Hm, he still insists on the AMD CPU. He said that he hates Intel (this is kinda childish...) and that the CPU is too expensive.

Quote:edit: the only AMD CPUs that come close to matching Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge CPUs are the most expensive and top of the line FX and A10 CPUs.

Is that one okay?

Quote:I don't know AMD graphics cards, so someone else will have to tell you about what is good in Dolphin.

I have one! A 2GB / 256 Bit graphics card is enough to run the games at 4xIR. My AMD CPU sucks though :/

[DJBarry004]

Will do. But don´t expect "demanding" games to get full speed unless it will be overclocked heavily.

(Ask him something like: Is he planning to pay poor Dolphin performance because of sort-of-cheap CPU or paying expensive-but-energy-efficient excellent Dolphin performance?). That´ll leave him thinking for some minutes.

[AnyOldName3]

It's also important to remember that Intel have better CPUs for Dolphin at pretty much every price point, even if they don't hold up so well in certai nother applications and benchmarks. You just can't expect AMD to have as good an offering given that they can't afford to put even 10% (might be 5 or 1, but I'm going with 10 as it's an upper bound and still illustrates the point) of Intel's budget into R+D.

[KHg8m3r]

Look at the passmark (single core) scores. It gives a little bit of an example of just how much better the i5-4670K will handle Dolphin (expect even more of a difference when you overclock)
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-4670K-vs-AMD-A10-7850K

[admin89]

That benchmark score doesn't apply for Dolphin anyway
In Dolphin , Haswell is 30% faster than Ivy Bridge and much much faster than any other CPUs
In other applications , Haswell is only 5% faster than Ivy
An i3 4130 @ 3.4GHz destroys both FX-8350 @ 5.0GHz and A10 7850k @ 4.5GHz in our official Dolphin Benchmark