Building a Sandy Bridge system for Dolphin (i3 vs i5, HD 3200 vs GPU)

[Hes]

Hello everyone,

So I've been reading the forums and wiki a lot about different builds people use for Dolphin. The consensus seems to be that the latest Sandy Bridge CPUs are the best choice if you want to run games at 100%.

I've been configuring some builds and I am wondering what would be the cheapest way to achieve 100% gameplay speed. For the sake of the argument, let us assume 1x IR and no other graphical improvements.

Option 1: i3 2125/H61 board/use integrated Intel HD 3000
Option 2: i3 2120/H61 board/ATi HD6770
Option 3: i5 2500k/Z68 board/use intel HD 3000
Option 4: i5 2500k/P67 or Z68 board/ATi HD6770

For the sake of this question, HDD, PSU, case etc. is all taken care of.

I suppose the question can be divided into two parts:
1) is an i3 2120/2125 at 3.3GHz fast enough to run most Wii games fluently?
2) would I get away with using the intel HD3000 using the most basic graphic settings?

Option 1 and 3 are interesting, because I could buy a system and upgrade to a GPU later when more funds are available, yet still run Dolphin in the meantime.

I believe there are some people with a i5 2500k out here, have any of you tested Dolphin using only the Intel HD 3000?

Cheers!

[LordVador]

Go for option 4.
i5 2500K + GTX560 Ti is a good deal too

[Zee530]

Go for option 4.
i5 2500K + GTX560 Ti is a good deal too

^^ Seconded, if you want to play in HD the intel may bottleneck you, cause having an i5 2500k and still playing with 1x IR sounds like something from a horror movie

[NaturalViolence]

Apparently neither of your fully read the post.

1) is an i3 2120/2125 at 3.3GHz fast enough to run most Wii games fluently?

For MOST, yes, probably. But there are a lot of games that will still require overclocking to run well (SMG, SMG2, etc.).

2) would I get away with using the intel HD3000 using the most basic graphic settings?

Yes, the HD 3000 is good enough for the bare minimum settings but BARELY.

Option 3 + an overclock would be my pick if you want to upgrade the graphics card later, although I don't understand why you would want to do that. Why do you want to wait?

[Hes]

Go for option 4.
i5 2500K + GTX560 Ti is a good deal too

^^ Seconded, if you want to play in HD the intel may bottleneck you, cause having an i5 2500k and still playing with 1x IR sounds like something from a horror movie

Thanks for the replies, guys, but I know which is the best. The matter at hand is if the other options would work good enough.

Apparently neither of your fully read the post.

1) is an i3 2120/2125 at 3.3GHz fast enough to run most Wii games fluently?

For MOST, yes, probably. But there are a lot of games that will still require overclocking to run well (SMG, SMG2, etc.).

2) would I get away with using the intel HD3000 using the most basic graphic settings?

Yes, the HD 3000 is good enough for the bare minimum settings but BARELY.

Option 3 + an overclock would be my pick if you want to upgrade the graphics card later, although I don't understand why you would want to do that. Why do you want to wait?

Thanks for the reply. I suppose the idea behind this question is to create the most cost efficient system for Dolphin. So if cost can be saved on a GPU, that makes sense.

Too bad that the i2500k OC'ed seems unavoidable for best results, but alas. I guess the i3 232x would still be a capable CPU nonetheless, and perhaps SMG/SMG2 will benefit more from future Dolphin updates rather than throwing pure CPU power at it.

Thankfully I am wondering about this mostly just for the heck of it, and I am in no hurry to build a system. Therefor I wonder how Ivy Bridge's increased IGP performance will impact Dolphin. Perhaps then it will be (more) feasible to do without a dedicated GPU at all.


I am still interested in people with a i5 2500k or i3 2325 who have ran Dolphin with the HD 3000.

---

Sorry for the double post, but this is interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Alnxz8zjrJ0

The AMD A8-3850 seems to handle it pretty well with the IGP. Though I suppose going with a Sandy Bridge CPU would still make more sense, since the AMD CPU would become the bottleneck much faster.

[Garteal]

The AMD A8-3850 has an integrated Radeon HD 6550D which is better than the Intel HD 3000.
If you plan to get a dedicated GPU later, pick option 3. You should be -just- fine if you play on the lowest graphical settings possible.

You don't really have to OC, it's fast enough at its stock clocks.

[Hes]

The AMD A8-3850 has an integrated Radeon HD 6550D which is better than the Intel HD 3000.
If you plan to get a dedicated GPU later, pick option 3. You should be -just- fine if you play on the lowest graphical settings possible.

You don't really have to OC, it's fast enough at its stock clocks.

But if the stock speed is sufficient, wouldnt the i3 2125 at 3.3 Ghz perform almost as well? The lack of two extra cores should not impact performance in Dolphin much.

[NaturalViolence]

and perhaps SMG/SMG2 will benefit more from future Dolphin updates rather than throwing pure CPU power at it.

No.

Therefor I wonder how Ivy Bridge's increased IGP performance will impact Dolphin. Perhaps then it will be (more) feasible to do without a dedicated GPU at all.

It will, but you'll still have to use native resolution.

You don't really have to OC, it's fast enough at its stock clocks for the vast majority of games but not quite all of them.

Fixed.

But if the stock speed is sufficient, wouldnt the i3 2125 at 3.3 Ghz perform almost as well? The lack of two extra cores should not impact performance in Dolphin much.

Typically having a quad core gives about a 10-20% performance increase. However if you use LLE audio then using LLE on thread with a quad core cpu is a must in order to achieve decent performance in a lot of games that do a lot of audio processing.

Though I suppose going with a Sandy Bridge CPU would still make more sense, since the AMD CPU would become the bottleneck much faster.

At 1x IR with no AA, AF, or per-pixel lighting a sandy bridge cpu will win easily. At higher graphics settings llano will beat sandy bridge thanks to its faster IGP.

[Hes]

Thanks NaturalViolence, that's pretty clear.