CPU or GPU causing frame rate drop

[tdevine33]

I'm in the process of upgrading my build and was curious as to what it was that was causing a drop in framerate on certain games, mostly Wii (Super Mario Galaxy, Twilight Princess) but also sometimes on GC games (mostly Double Dash).

While I am planning on updating my GPU next, I've heard that Dolphin is heavily CPU dependent and mine is starting to get a bit dated - which made me wonder which was causing the drop, the CPU or the GPU. My current build setup is:

GPU
MSI Radeon R7 370 DirectX 12 R7 370 GAMING 2G 2GB
CPU
Intel Core i7 860 Processor 2.80 GHz 8 MB

Any help is greatly appreciated! I am a bit of a newb when it comes to hardware so patience is always welcome.

[admin89]

Nah , your GPU is fine . 1080p or even 4xIR(2560x2112) is not a problem as long as you don't use anti-aliasing
Your CPU is weak for Dolphin because Dolphin is a dual core application . According to Dolphin Benchmark , 4th gen Haswell i3 4130 @ 3.4GHz is twice as fast as first gen i7 920 @ 2.9GHz which is a little bit faster than yours
To run most games at full speed , your CPU must be on the same level as i3 4130 at least

[tdevine33]

Thanks, this is exactly what I was looking for... greatly appreciated! Time to do some more upgrading!

[admin89]

If you're not familiar with overclocking , you can get sth like Xeon E3 1230 V5 which is 6th gen Core i7 6700 without integrated GPU , it's as cheap as 6th gen Core i5 6600k
The mobo for this CPU is not cheap though($142)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157690
16GB Crucial DDR4 is quite cheap ($55)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148859&cm_re=crucial_ddr4-_-20-148-859-_-Product