Finding a new desktop (Advice)

[NaturalViolence]

limith Wrote:For gaming there's a Toms Hardware report that says the 4th generation stuff is generally only 10% better than 2nd generation Intel after overclocking is taken into consideration due to the fact the 3rd/4th generations focus more on energy efficiency. If you don't care about electricity bills, just get a new motherboard (that's "future proof") and a used/old/ or even new top of the line i7 from the 2nd generation that can overclock and use all of your existing old computer parts. Power supply shouldn't cost you more than $50 if you need one (really only need minimum 400W for 1 graphics card, 600W for 2), you can get a great cooler for $40 to let you overclock your processor to 4.7+Ghz, and the processor/Mobo combination shouldn't be more than $450 (pretax) at most if you buy new because that's how much I spent on it when it came out, cheaper if you buy used.

That's a bit of an oversimplification. Haswell ranges from 0% to 30% faster clock for clock than ivy bridge depending on the application. Averaging around 10%. But for dolphin it's very close to 30%. You should probably take a look at our wind waker benchmark: https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-the-legend-of-zelda-the-wind-waker-cpu-benchmark

[limith]

(12-01-2013, 02:54 PM)NaturalViolence Wrote:

limith Wrote:For gaming there's a Toms Hardware report that says the 4th generation stuff is generally only 10% better than 2nd generation Intel after overclocking is taken into consideration due to the fact the 3rd/4th generations focus more on energy efficiency. If you don't care about electricity bills, just get a new motherboard (that's "future proof") and a used/old/ or even new top of the line i7 from the 2nd generation that can overclock and use all of your existing old computer parts. Power supply shouldn't cost you more than $50 if you need one (really only need minimum 400W for 1 graphics card, 600W for 2), you can get a great cooler for $40 to let you overclock your processor to 4.7+Ghz, and the processor/Mobo combination shouldn't be more than $450 (pretax) at most if you buy new because that's how much I spent on it when it came out, cheaper if you buy used.

That's a bit of an oversimplification. Haswell ranges from 0% to 30% faster clock for clock than ivy bridge depending on the application. Averaging around 10%. But for dolphin it's very close to 30%. You should probably take a look at our wind waker benchmark: https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-the-legend-of-zelda-the-wind-waker-cpu-benchmark

Of course the newer stuff will be better stock, but if you care about prices, or if you can overclock, 2nd generation according to Overclock.net is actually better since you can reach higher clock speeds given sufficient cooling.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1306928/2nd-gen-intel-i7-vs-3rd-gen-intel-i7#post_18177085

Tom's Hardware did a comparison and Stock 4th generation i7 in some cases is actually worse than stock 3rd generation.

[admin89]

Tom Hardware has nothing to do here . Haswell is barely faster than Ivy Bridge/ Sandy Bridge in most applications . However , Dolphin is just love Haswell improvement , Haswell is much faster than Ivy Bridge , much much faster than Sandy Bridge
I don't think an normal / inexperienced user can overclock SB i5 2500k over 4.5GHz without using high Vcore that could damage CPU itself
At 5.0GHz , both i5 2500k and i5 3570k are on par with the slightly overclocked i5 4670k @ 4.1GHz . Afaik , i5 4670k can oc to 4.3GHz just fine or even 4.6GHz with some luck

Then again , the @OP stated that he has 800$ to waste . My build only cost 565$ , why do we have to waste time on something so old and risk it (madly overclock ? )

Dolphin will get more demanding over time . An OCed i5 2500k won't be enough for demanding games

[NaturalViolence]

You would need to hit 5.6GHz on sandy bridge to match haswell at 4.3GHz in dolphin (an easy OC to achieve with any 4670K). Which is just not practical without LN2. Used sandy/ivy bridge parts could be a viable low budget option for a dolphin build. But like admin pointed out, this guy isn't on a low budget. He might as well get hardware that's up to date and delivers maximum performance.

I would agree with you limith if this were any other type of application. But for emulators haswell really is worth it. Unfortunately most of those overclocking communities are focused around PC gaming. Which is understandable. As a result their advice doesn't tend to factor in dolphin or pcsx2 performance.