Dolphin PC buying guide

[NaturalViolence]

A 260 is significantly faster than a 4850. In fact it's slightly faster than a 4870 1GB edition.

[Ryutsuna]

Hiya

I bought my gaming laptop back in July and I wanted to have an opinion for making use of Dolphin with it.

Medion Akoya X7811

GPU : ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5870 - 1 GB GDDR5
CPU : Intel® Core™ i7 CPU Q 720 @ 1.60GHz
HD: Seagate ST9500325AS, 500GB 5400rpm (this one's a bit slow).
RAM: 2x2GB DDR3-8500 (1066 MHz)
Mainboard : Intel PM55

Thanks.

[PurinFIN]

(01-02-2011, 05:41 PM)tuanming Wrote: A Core i3 or i5 systems would be a better buy for the mainstream section because it has better technology built in and it's faster clock-for-clock, higher IPC (Instruction Per Clock) than the Core 2 Duo series.

:3 Even so i think my pc is fairly powerfull and i should have no problems as long i get better cooler and overclock?

[NaturalViolence]

@PurinFIN

For most games yes.

@Ryutsuna

Your cpu clock rate might be a bit low for some games even though it's an i7 depending on how high turbo boost gets with dolphin. I would just try it and see if I were you. Try using an sse4.2 optimized older build.

[TheSonicEmerald]

Right now, I'm deciding what I should get to play Dolphin enjoyably and some other PC games as well, like CODBlackOps.

My Specs:
Core2Quad Q9550 2.93Ghz@3.2Ghz
P5QPL-AM Motherboard
4GB DDR2 800Mhz Ram
Antec Earthwatt 650w PSU
Cooler Master Storm Scout Case
Radeon HD 5450 DDR3 1GB

The bolded specs are the ones that I'm comtemplating on changing. My motherboard can't overclock past my current OC right now, and my Graphics Card just plain sucks. Which option should I do?

1)Get a 5850.
2)Get a motherboard that can overclock to 4GHZ at best, and a 4890.
3)Get a motherboard that can overclock to 4GHZ at best, and DDR3 memory.

Which option should I pick?

[hystery]

Is anybody here Actually using i5 760 or i5 680 Without overclocking?

I'm thinking about iMac either 21.5" with i5 680 or 27" with i5 760 model (Of course with Bootcamp installed though, if anybody's using Mac build with these models your review will be quite helpful) which are the same price by the retailer I'm going to use. Also SandyBridge models are coming and the price would drop further more so decided to upgrade my rig.

Here are those twos's specs:
21.5" 1,920×1,080
3.60GHz 4MB Shared L3 Cache Dual-Core Intel Core i5 680
ATI Radeon HD 5670 512MB GDDR3
4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB

27" 2,560×1,440
2.8GHz 8MB Shared L3 Cache Quad-Core Intel Core i5 760
ATI Radeon HD 5750 1GB GDDR5
4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x2GB

Since those models are the same price I like 27 with HD5750, however not quite sure this will be the right choice. I mean, I know in general dualcores with high clock rate can perform better than 4 cores as emulators like Dolphin uses only 2 cores, video and audio. However still I'm not sure which one would do better, because I suppose for 2 cores and 4 cores, performance of a clock rate are different. Simply... which performs better for Dolphin, i5 680 3.6GHz with 2 cores or i5 760 2.8GHz with 4 cores without overclocking?
I'll play Metroid Primes/Other M and Zelda Twilight Princess which are quite unstable on my iMac 20" Core2Duo 2.4GHz/Radeon HD 2600. Although I have Wii, wanna play the titles in 1080p...

Although 27 model is customizable to choose i7 2.93GHz Quad, the model number of the CPU isn't clear on Apple website and I wouldn't think there will be big differences that it's out from choice.

Sorry in case what I'm saying isn't clear, this ain't my primary language.
Thanks in advance!

[NaturalViolence]

Quote: My motherboard can't overclock past my current OC right now

Are you sure it's your mobo and not your cooling that's preventing you from achieving a higher overclock?

If it is indeed your mobo then I would go with option 2.

Quote:I'm thinking about iMac

Build your own pc for a fraction of the price of that overpriced apple crap.

[TheSonicEmerald]

(01-05-2011, 03:16 PM)NaturalViolence Wrote:

Quote: My motherboard can't overclock past my current OC right now

Are you sure it's your mobo and not your cooling that's preventing you from achieving a higher overclock?

If it is indeed your mobo then I would go with option 2.

Quote:I'm thinking about iMac

Build your own pc for a fraction of the price of that overpriced apple crap.

It's my mobo that's definitely that problem. It's a G41 chipset, so its not that much of an overclocker in the first place. My temps are usually 50C on load, so it isn't my cooler.

If I do option 2, will a 3.8-4.0ghz overclock and a 4890 be good enough to play Super Mario Galaxy 2 pretty well?
I can run SSBB awesomely full 60fps with my specs right now, BTW.

[hystery]

Did I ask which to buy Apple or PC? that's the answer from a posting freak...? sigh..


You really don't know how much Apple fans are crazy heh

edit: sorry for that. he actually woke me up, i thank to him.

[TheSonicEmerald]

(01-05-2011, 03:26 PM)hystery Wrote: Did I ask which to buy Apple or PC? that's the answer from a posting freak...? sigh..


You really don't know how much Apple fans are crazy heh

If you just want to use MacOSX, get Hackintosh compatible PC parts and install that instead of Windows. Get a better operating computer at the same price of a Mac.