Dolphin PC buying guide

[NaturalViolence]

Quote:Side question - sorry.

Don't be. The entire purpose of this thread is for random people to ask the forum lurkers on here questions about how certain hardware will fair with dolphin and what the best options are for them within there budget. Your question is completely on topic.

Quote:If I can get my hands on a 2500 cheap/free, is it worth it? Or do I really need to pony up and grab a 2500k?

If it's significantly cheaper then go for it.

I'll probably get flamed for saying this but in the case of sandy bridge most users severely overestimate the benefits of overclocking. Most applications seem to reach a memory bottleneck somewhere are 3.8-4.0GHz on sandy bridge cpus so getting a considerable amount of extra performance without overclocking the IMC tends to be difficult. Not enough data has been collected on dolphins performance to study the effect of overclocking these newer architectures. You will obviously experience better performance on an overclocked i5 2500k but how much of an improvement is not a question that we can answer. Assuming turbo boost works properly 18% is about the maximum amount of extra performance you could get out of overclocking the cpu to 4.5GHz, with 5-15% being a more likely scenario.

That may seem low but to be fair to the other side an i5 2500K is usually only $15 more than an i5 2500 ($225 instead of $210) and every bit of extra performance counts (plus that's only a 7% increase in price and an even smaller increase to the total system cost). However please keep in mind only P67 and Z68 motherboards support cpu overclocking. If you're getting an H67/H61 motherboard there is no point in buying a K series cpu since you won't be able to overclock it anyways. Also limited overclocking is available on non K series cpus on P67 and Z68 motherboards which does fairly well (you can get up to 4.1GHz on limited overclocking).

[dolver]

Wow - that was incredibly insightful/useful - Thanks for the detailed response!

[gatecityradio]

I was looking at 260GTX's but I saw that the 450GTS cost about the same. Which one would be better? I already have a e8400 at stock clock, but for some reason my bios won't let me overclock over 3.1ghz (cheap zotac itx board). What would be a good itx board to get? (HTPC use)

[DJ Infinity]

hello all this is what I use for Dolphin primarily

i5-2500K processor
ASUS SABERTOOTH P67 LGA 1155 Motherboard
ATI Radeon HD 6850 Black Edition Video Card
Raidmax RX-850AE 850w ATX Power Supply 80 Plus Gold PSU
LG Blu-Ray Burner drive

[sixor]

(11-03-2011, 04:43 PM)gatecityradio Wrote: I was looking at 260GTX's but I saw that the 450GTS cost about the same. Which one would be better? I already have a e8400 at stock clock, but for some reason my bios won't let me overclock over 3.1ghz (cheap zotac itx board). What would be a good itx board to get? (HTPC use)

the 260 is a little faster, but old, dx10, old, old, old, you can OC the 450 and win or be the same as the 260

try getting a gtx460 560 560ti or 6850 6870 6950

[LordVador]

(11-04-2011, 11:20 AM)sixor Wrote:

(11-03-2011, 04:43 PM)gatecityradio Wrote: I was looking at 260GTX's but I saw that the 450GTS cost about the same. Which one would be better? I already have a e8400 at stock clock, but for some reason my bios won't let me overclock over 3.1ghz (cheap zotac itx board). What would be a good itx board to get? (HTPC use)

the 260 is a little faster, but old, dx10, old, old, old, you can OC the 450 and win or be the same as the 260

try getting a gtx460 560 560ti or 6850 6870 6950

Go for these ones

[gatecityradio]

would this play most wii games at playable speeds?

ASUS P5G43T-M PRO mobo
intel e8400 core 2 duo (possibly OC'ed)
4gigs ddr3 1333 ram (would I benefit from more ram?)
Nvidia GTX560

---

(11-04-2011, 09:55 PM)LordVador Wrote:

(11-04-2011, 11:20 AM)sixor Wrote:

(11-03-2011, 04:43 PM)gatecityradio Wrote: I was looking at 260GTX's but I saw that the 450GTS cost about the same. Which one would be better? I already have a e8400 at stock clock, but for some reason my bios won't let me overclock over 3.1ghz (cheap zotac itx board). What would be a good itx board to get? (HTPC use)

the 260 is a little faster, but old, dx10, old, old, old, you can OC the 450 and win or be the same as the 260

try getting a gtx460 560 560ti or 6850 6870 6950

Go for these ones

what is the benefit of going with the 560ti over the regular 560?

[LordVador]

(11-04-2011, 10:04 PM)gatecityradio Wrote: would this play most wii games at playable speeds?

ASUS P5G43T-M PRO mobo
intel e8400 core 2 duo (possibly OC'ed)
4gigs ddr3 1333 ram (would I benefit from more ram?)
Nvidia GTX560

---

(11-04-2011, 09:55 PM)LordVador Wrote:

(11-04-2011, 11:20 AM)sixor Wrote:

(11-03-2011, 04:43 PM)gatecityradio Wrote: I was looking at 260GTX's but I saw that the 450GTS cost about the same. Which one would be better? I already have a e8400 at stock clock, but for some reason my bios won't let me overclock over 3.1ghz (cheap zotac itx board). What would be a good itx board to get? (HTPC use)

the 260 is a little faster, but old, dx10, old, old, old, you can OC the 450 and win or be the same as the 260

try getting a gtx460 560 560ti or 6850 6870 6950

Go for these ones

what is the benefit of going with the 560ti over the regular 560?

560 is +/- equivalent to 6870
560 Ti is +/- equivalent to 6950

[Maverick Hunter X]

(11-04-2011, 09:55 PM)LordVador Wrote:

(11-04-2011, 11:20 AM)sixor Wrote:

(11-03-2011, 04:43 PM)gatecityradio Wrote: I was looking at 260GTX's but I saw that the 450GTS cost about the same. Which one would be better? I already have a e8400 at stock clock, but for some reason my bios won't let me overclock over 3.1ghz (cheap zotac itx board). What would be a good itx board to get? (HTPC use)

the 260 is a little faster, but old, dx10, old, old, old, you can OC the 450 and win or be the same as the 260

try getting a gtx460 560 560ti or 6850 6870 6950

Go for these ones

I'm using the ASUS model of the 6950 card and I love it so I would recommend that card also.

[Duke Nukem]

(11-04-2011, 10:17 PM)Maverick Hunter X Wrote:

(11-04-2011, 09:55 PM)LordVador Wrote:

(11-04-2011, 11:20 AM)sixor Wrote:

(11-03-2011, 04:43 PM)gatecityradio Wrote: I was looking at 260GTX's but I saw that the 450GTS cost about the same. Which one would be better? I already have a e8400 at stock clock, but for some reason my bios won't let me overclock over 3.1ghz (cheap zotac itx board). What would be a good itx board to get? (HTPC use)

the 260 is a little faster, but old, dx10, old, old, old, you can OC the 450 and win or be the same as the 260

try getting a gtx460 560 560ti or 6850 6870 6950

Go for these ones

I'm using the ASUS model of the 6950 card and I love it so I would recommend that card also.

ASUS is good in almost everything they make.
The 6950 is no exception.

I feel it's like ASUS - You're playing with power.