Dolphin PC buying guide

[dudeami]

(06-16-2010, 02:59 AM)Arpit Wrote:

(06-15-2010, 08:02 PM)dudeami Wrote: Thanks, I don't think i'll go with the thuban, but I might change my mind by then. Anyways, I forgot to throw the Arctic Silver 5 up there, but im debating if I should use the 7 (For chipset heatsinks). This way I might be able to push it a little further :p But then again im not to familiar with the P6T, and was thinking if I should replace any of the chipset heatsinks (NB/SB/Mosfet). Any advice to anyone with the P6T Deluxe would be nice ^^ Else I'll just look into a bit more. I'm just debating how far I should push it, and whats really needed to get it at a stable 4.0ghz or a little higher than that :p

You can get these advantages of using thuban...:-
1. It's a black edition, so you can unlock core multiplier, so you can basically have 4 GHz normal speed...You can squeeze more by OCing HT link(FSB) and Core speed
2. You get six cores, plus you get Turboboost...(can function at par with 4 cores, is more expandable with future)
3. Great compatibility - You can get atleast 170 models of MB currently supporting Thuban X6....(especially 1090T)
4. BUDGET.....That I forgot....is really cheap...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3676/phenom-ii-x6-4ghz-and-beyond-in-64bit-oses

Well I want to be able to play dolphin as close to full speed as possible, and this is going to be a gaming computer, so I think an i7 would be fine for the newer games I will be playing (Fallout 3, Mass Effect 2, such). I don't really see the need to go to the thuban for just those, and if the i7 helps with dolphin, I'll stick with that ^^

[avindra]

i7 930 / gtx 470 / 4gb ram combo gives me 60 fps on smash brawl

[Rekneslon]

CPU - Intel Pentium D 3.00 GHz
RAM - 2 GB
GPU - NVIDIA GeForce 7300LE
I plan on upgrading my graphics card but before I do ( with a new graphics card ) would I be able to run Dolphin at full speed?

[edgartheface]

(06-18-2010, 06:05 AM)Rekneslon Wrote: CPU - Intel Pentium D 3.00 GHz
RAM - 2 GB
GPU - NVIDIA GeForce 7300LE
I plan on upgrading my graphics card but before I do ( with a new graphics card ) would I be able to run Dolphin at full speed?

No! Your cpu is very old and you can be lucky that it's a dualcore P4. Which mainboard do you use? Maybe it's possible to switch to a fast Core2Duo.

[Rekneslon]

Board: ASUSTek Computer INC. EMERY 1.05
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD 3.17 09/15/2006

Im sorry in advanced if im being annoying or a noob or anything like that but my CPU is old but it does have 2 cores and at 3.00 GHz I figured id be fine. I did kind of expect this since my computer is 4 years old. So is there no hope and would I have to upgrade my whole pc to get fullspeed?

[Ocean]

(06-16-2010, 04:52 AM)PercentSevenC Wrote:

(06-15-2010, 01:44 PM)edgartheface Wrote:

(06-15-2010, 10:13 AM)PercentSevenC Wrote: I'm on a fairly strict budget, but do you think it's worth a ~$30-40 price premium to get a Radeon 5770 rather than a 4870? Benchmarks put the two cards close, with the 4870 winning by a bit, but the 5770 supports DX11. I don't know how big of a deal that is or will be. I won't be doing Crossfire with this box, and I don't care about Eyefinity.

If you're living in a country where the power is for free - *click*

That's a really informative link, thanks. Didn't realize the difference in power consumption was so great.

Power consumption of a graphics card is really not a financial strain any way you look at it. Even in the worst cases and most powerful crossfire/tri-sli configurations you are maybe looking at an extra $10-$15 per year in electric bills (or about roughly 1 dollar per month).
It's one of the worst arguments against buying better video cards.

[PercentSevenC]

(06-19-2010, 03:24 AM)Ocean Wrote: Power consumption of a graphics card is really not a financial strain any way you look at it. Even in the worst cases and most powerful crossfire/tri-sli configurations you are maybe looking at an extra $10-$15 per year in electric bills (or about roughly 1 dollar per month).
It's one of the worst arguments against buying better video cards.

That's the conclusion I came to as well after doing the math. It was actually even less for me since I tend to shut my desktop off and use my netbook for most of the day. So I went ahead and pulled the trigger:

AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE
4GB G.Skill Ripjaws Series DDR3 1600 RAM
ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
Gigabyte GA-770T-UD3 mobo
Antec Three Hundred case
Rosewill Green Series 700W continuous PSU

Should be a fairly decent gaming rig for a $500 budget. The PSU is overkill, but Newegg had it on sale for a couple bucks cheaper than the 630W version.

Any thoughts on how this build will do with Dolphin? I'll be shooting for at least 3.6 GHz, but I need to upgrade my cooler first, so that won't be right away.

[avindra]

Agreed. Even the best rigs imaginable can get lag, Dolphin needs a bit more work before you can get full speed and accurate gameplay in every game. It does a very damn good job so far, there are only a few games that exhibit minor problems.

[Ocean]

(06-19-2010, 04:04 AM)PercentSevenC Wrote:

(06-19-2010, 03:24 AM)Ocean Wrote: Power consumption of a graphics card is really not a financial strain any way you look at it. Even in the worst cases and most powerful crossfire/tri-sli configurations you are maybe looking at an extra $10-$15 per year in electric bills (or about roughly 1 dollar per month).
It's one of the worst arguments against buying better video cards.

That's the conclusion I came to as well after doing the math. It was actually even less for me since I tend to shut my desktop off and use my netbook for most of the day. So I went ahead and pulled the trigger:

AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE
4GB G.Skill Ripjaws Series DDR3 1600 RAM
ATI Radeon HD 4870 1GB
Gigabyte GA-770T-UD3 mobo
Antec Three Hundred case
Rosewill Green Series 700W continuous PSU

Should be a fairly decent gaming rig for a $500 budget. The PSU is overkill, but Newegg had it on sale for a couple bucks cheaper than the 630W version.

Any thoughts on how this build will do with Dolphin? I'll be shooting for at least 3.6 GHz, but I need to upgrade my cooler first, so that won't be right away.

Looks like a good rig. I'd patiently raise the fsb multiplier and/or frequency in bios but no voltage changes, and up the phenom's clock rate to around 3.2ghz at the most on a stock cooler. Remember to also up your RAM frequency to around 0.7ghz in advanced chipset features (BIOS) if you decide to perform this overclock, for a stable experience.
Should result in full fps with your system even on demanding wii games. Just remember not all games can be run at full speed yet even on the best computers so if something is slow it might be the game.

As for PSU, one should never look at price, something to consider the next time. A quality 500w can be a dozen times better than a dirt cheap 1200w which might even be poorly manufactured or outright dangerous to components.
It's much dangerous to buy a poor PSU than any other component (since bad ram, hdd's, cpu's, gpu's, mobos rarely break the entire system - a bad PSU can destroy everything)

[PercentSevenC]

Agreed. Believe me, I've been-there-done-that with cheap PSUs. The Rosewill Green Series are made by ABS and are pretty solid units (unlike some of Rosewill's other stuff).