Best dolphin laptop for <$600

[BFCE]

I just want what is commonly used as the quickest dolphin machine for <600. All I'm going to be using this machine for is maintaining my minecraft mod away from home, and playing dolphin. And since minecraft has very similar properties to dolphin (all it cares about it IPC and clock speed, the video card is obsolete as long as your not running enhancements) and is less demanding, then if it can run dolphin, it sure as hell can run minecraft.


So yeah. A laptop geared entirely for dolphin. And I know a desktop is better performance wise than a desktop. I've already got one. Thanks guys

[admin89]

There is no such thing . Just give up , get a job and save more money until you're ready
Only gaming laptop are able to handle Dolphin , multi-media / business laptops do not have sufficient cooling unit to handle intensive tasks such as video encoding and Dolphin . Dolphin is emulator , not a pc game which is designed for your PC . Running Dolphin will push your laptop to its limit and in most case , overheating will happen
A laptop can not handle Prime95 torture test will not handle Dolphin
The cheapest gaming laptop is the Dell 7559 ($800) . Lower than that value is crap
You can also buy a used laptop though if luck doesn't smile on you ...

[BFCE]

There is no such thing . Just give up , get a job and save more money until you're ready
Only gaming laptop are able to handle Dolphin , multi-media / business laptops do not have sufficient cooling unit to handle intensive tasks such as video encoding and Dolphin . Dolphin is emulator , not a pc game which is designed for your PC . Running Dolphin will push your laptop to its limit and in most case , overheating will happen
A laptop can not handle Prime95 torture test will not handle Dolphin
The cheapest gaming laptop is the Dell 7559 ($800) . Lower than that value is crap  
You can also buy a used laptop though if luck doesn't smile on you ...

You sure bout that? You can get good i5 or even i7 laptops at this price. And my old pentium B950 $300 laptop runs pikmin 2 just fine. I think your over estimating just how intense dolphin actually is if your running no enhancements

[BFCE]

There is no such thing . Just give up , get a job and save more money until you're ready
Only gaming laptop are able to handle Dolphin , multi-media / business laptops do not have sufficient cooling unit to handle intensive tasks such as video encoding and Dolphin . Dolphin is emulator , not a pc game which is designed for your PC . Running Dolphin will push your laptop to its limit and in most case , overheating will happen
A laptop can not handle Prime95 torture test will not handle Dolphin
The cheapest gaming laptop is the Dell 7559 ($800) . Lower than that value is crap  
You can also buy a used laptop though if luck doesn't smile on you ...

Here's an example of what I'm talking about http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K6ZI...MN7XOWQQID
I just wanted to know what is the BEST bang for the buck

[admin89]

You sure bout that? You can get good i5 or even i7 laptops at this price. And my old pentium B950 $300 laptop runs pikmin 2 just fine. I think your over estimating just how intense dolphin actually is if your running no enhancements

I bought 3 multi-media laptop before . All of them run into overheating issue
The first one is i5 480M with discrete GPU Nvidia GT 540M . Since it has only 1 heatsink for both CPU and GPU , overheating is normal
I fixed it by disassembling the whole laptop , replacing thermal compound and adding more fan
I thought a discrete GPU would be too much for a cheap multi-media laptop . The second time , I aimed for a laptop that has no discrete GPU
I bought one for myself : i5 4300M (2.6->3.3GHz) + HD 4600 and one for my sister i5 560M + Intel HD .Surprise Surprise , both of them are not different from my first laptop . I fixed them by replacing the thermal compound though
So what is the problem ? The OEM thermal compound is crap , even MacBook pro's thermal compound is also crap
If you're confident in disassembling laptop then go ahead and buy this one
I've been here since the beginning of the project . I've seen so many overheating laptop already , even gaming laptop are not exceptional ...
When your laptop overheats , your CPU will throttle down and turbo boost will be disabled .
Replacing thermal compound is the only way to fix overheating issue . Even so it did not work on thin laptop such as MacBook Air which has terrible cooling unit

And my old pentium B950 $300 laptop runs pikmin 2 just fine.

but most games don't run well , right ?

I think your over estimating just how intense dolphin actually is if your running no enhancements

Just take a look at Dolphin CPU Benchmark (absolutely zero enhancement )
All low-end CPUs are slower than the real Wii . ULV is low end , as you can see i5 4200U is slower than the Real Wii and the Lenovo i7-4510U you posted is just slightly faster than i5 4200U
If your CPU is not faster than the Wii , How can you hope it could run most games well ?

[BFCE]

I bought 3 multi-media laptop before . All of them run into overheating issue
The first one is i5 480M with discrete GPU Nvidia GT 540M . Since it has only 1 heatsink for both CPU and GPU , overheating is normal
I fixed it by disassembling the whole laptop , replacing thermal compound and adding more fan
I thought a discrete GPU would be too much for a cheap multi-media laptop . The second time , I aimed for a laptop that has no discrete GPU
I bought one for myself : i5 4300M (2.6->3.3GHz) + HD 4600 and one for my sister i5 560M + Intel HD .Surprise Surprise  , both of them are not different from my first laptop . I fixed them by replacing the thermal compound though
So what is the problem ? The OEM thermal compound is crap , even MacBook pro's thermal compound is also crap
If you're confident in disassembling  laptop then go ahead and buy this one
I've been here since the beginning of the project . I've seen so many overheating laptop already , even gaming laptop are not exceptional ...
When your laptop overheats , your CPU will throttle down and turbo boost will be disabled .
Replacing thermal compound is the only way to fix overheating issue . Even so it did not work on thin laptop such as MacBook Air which has terrible cooling unit
but most games don't run well , right ?
Just take a look at Dolphin CPU Benchmark (absolutely zero enhancement )
All low-end CPUs are slower than the real Wii . ULV is low end , as you can see i5 4200U is slower than the Real Wii and the Lenovo i7-4510U you posted is just slightly faster than i5 4200U
If your CPU is not faster than the Wii , How can you hope it could run most games well ?

I don't plan on playing wii games. Just mario sunshine and pikmin 2. Those games can run almost full speed on a $200 tablet, so I don't think I'll have issues on a $600 laptop. And that pentium ran really well. I downloaded this software that disables thermal throttling and used one of those laptop coolers (it's called ThrottleStop) . It sat around 70C on either core and could run minecraft with enhancements, pikmin 2 at 768p without slowdown, ran CSGO more or less maxed out. For a cheap $300 that I bought in like 2013 you'd think that 3 years later and double the budget you'd get something that could run smoothly.

[Helios]

You're not going to get a "best Dolphin laptop" for $600. $800 is the cheapest I've seen a decent system.

You get a 600 laptop it's going to both run like crap and overheat.

[BFCE]

Here. Just to prove you were wrong. https://youtu.be/NZJ1WFGQWNM
A few minutes of temperatures game play with custom textures etc at all the laptops closest native res. If I recall from the video they didn't even go above 40 C but that'd just top of my head. You can also hear acoustics.

Edit :

Specs are a I5 6500U @ 2.8GHz (if I recall a dual core with Hyper-Threading), no GPU, just Intel HD 520, and 8GB of ram (DDR4 I think)
The system has a really solid build, great speakers (mic didn't do it any good) and a "bad-at-best" screen. The machine was $400 at staples new.

[leolam]

Specs are a I5 6500U @ 2.8GHz (if I recall a dual core with Hyper-Threading), no GPU, just Intel HD 520, and 8GB of ram (DDR4 I think)

…you call that best laptop for Dolphin? Ultra-low voltage CPU (though at least it's Skylake), no dedicated GPU… It's not terrible and should play lightweight to medium games at full speed but it's definitely not the best for Dolphin.

And the only reason you are not getting high temperatures, is because it's an ULV CPU and it's probably throttling.

[OldWornSynchros]

~$600 seems to be the minimum for laptops hardware for running dolphin at 1080p for most games, IME. Assuming you buy a used laptop.

Needless to say, focus on getting the best CPU and GPU for your budget. 8GB RAM should be enough, and shouldn't be your main concern at the $600 price point. A SSD is also not a necessity.

For $600, off the top of my head, I've seen used laptops with i7-47XXhq and 860m on eBay.

I personally purchased an Acer with a 4710hq, 860m, 16GB RAM, and a 256gb SSD for $600 on eBay. Admittedly it weighs 5lbs, but it still runs Metroid Prime / Smash Bros Melee / Smash Bros Brawl / Paper Mario TTYD / F Zero GX / Metroid Prime 2 Echoes, all at 1080p/60Hz. Usually can't handle any anti-aliasing without occasional FPS drops.

So yes, it is possible if you shop smart! Might have to settle for a somewhat bulky laptop though, and most games will be capped at 3x native resolution with no AA.

EDIT: clarity and grammar (on mobile)