i3 - i5 - i7 confused

[spinneruk]

Hi,

I'm fairly new to the wii/gamecube emulation after seeing it on youtube (someone had an i7 processor I believe), anyway i'm looking into building a dedicated dolphin/emulator pc which will be used for wii/gamecube and old retro machines (snes,megadrive etc etc)

Anyway i've been looking for the past week or so on various sites on what is the best options to go for, some say i7 overclocked, others say i3 overclocked.

Now the games I want to play are SMG, wave race,luigis mansion, burnout (GC), smb wii and a few others but these are the main ones.

I currently have a wii that the kids use along with far too many gamecube games on a shelf hence the need for this really....can sit in the corner and do the same sort of job (I know not perfectly but you get the drift)

I have an old graphics card kicking around which is a Geforce 7950 GX2 1Gb DDR3 PCI-E card, would that be suitable for most games ? Also have a 1tb and 500GB hard drive gathering dust here.

Now i've built lots of pc's in the past just not really for gaming, mainly for basic day to day work or business use so i'm a little confused when it comes to what is the best option in terms of i3,i5 or i7 and whether it's worth overclocking etc (never have in the past but willing to learn)

Any advice would be great and apologies for the length of this post.

On another note I have seen the following 2 pc's for sale on another site for less than £250 inc delivery (used of course but no idea whether they would work or not as they don't know either)

Sugo SG06 Case wih Power Supply
Zotac G43ITX-A-E, LGA 775, Intel Motherboard (Built in WiFi)
4GB RAM
Q6600 with passive Gemini Cooler (stock speed)
Passive ATI HD7750
Slim Line Disc Drive

and

AMD Phenom II X2 550 3.1GHz Black Edition
Biostar A880G+ AM3 Motherboard
Memory 8GB DDR3
Coolermaster 450 GX PSU
Coolermaster 342 case
250GB SATA Hard Drive
ATI HD4870 512MB (with HDMI ad)
DVD-RW

Thanks again

Spinner

[LordVador]

Processor: i5 3570k preferably. i5 2500k is an excellent choice too. i7 3770k why not. And have a look here http://forums.dolphin-emu.org/showthread.php?tid=24206
Graphic Card: 68XX/67XX. 560ti/550ti or beyond. And have a look here http://forums.dolphin-emu.org/showthread.php?tid=18414

[Garteal]

Now i've built lots of pc's in the past just not really for gaming, mainly for basic day to day work or business use so i'm a little confused when it comes to what is the best option in terms of i3,i5 or i7 and whether it's worth overclocking etc (never have in the past but willing to learn)

These are the major differences between the i3, i5 and i7:
Intel Core i3 CPU's are dual-core CPU's which have no Turbo Boost, but they have Hyperthreading.
Intel Core i5 CPU's are quad-core CPU's which have Turbo Boost, but they don't have Hyperthreading.
Intel Core i7 CPU's are quad-core CPU's which have Turbo Boost and Hyperthreading. (some i7 models have 6 cores)

The PC's you've listed are not suitable for the games you want to play.
And I wouldn't recommend buying used PCs in the first place.

I would recommend you to build a PC yourself as you have precise control over the components you need.
It will also be much cheaper than purchasing a prebuilt PC.
But this will require you to either assemble the PC yourself or pay some cash to let the vendor assemble the PC for you. (Not always available)

If you're more comfortable with purchasing a brand PC where the vendor will assemble your PC for you (which is more expensive than building it yourself + paying assembly cost), let me know.

What's your budget for building/purchasing a PC?

[spinneruk]

Thanks for that, had a feeling you would say that so it's not a big shock.

Budget wise it's about £400, I don't need a hard drive or windows as I already own them so it's basically the right parts I need to look for really.

Perfectly fine building it myself, as said before I have built lots of pc's in the past (over 300 odd) so no big deal in that respect...it's just knowing what the ideal parts I need to get to get a comfortable dolphin playing machine really.

[Garteal]

I see.
Do you have any preferred stores you'd like to purchase your parts from?
So if I read you correctly, you need everything else besides a harddrive and OS?

As for your setup; will you only use this for emulation, or will you also play PC games on it?

[spinneruk]

I tend to use ebuyer.com but i don't mind really as it comes down to best price so if you know of any other good sites feel free.

Yep I have an OS and hard drive, I also have a geforce 7950 GX2 1GB graphics card but i'm not 100% sure if it works to be honest so I would probably get everything minus a card, see if it works and if not get a new one....if you think that card would be suitable as it's fairly old I think now.

Won't be used for PC games, well might play Trackmania 2 Canyon on it but thats about it (runs perfectly fine on my imac which is a Lion, 3ghz, 12gb ram) so that won't be an issue really...it's just dolphin I haven't got a clue about.

Also have a spare case that I know I can use, but if you think a new one would be best then so be it.

Sorry about all this, normally find my way around and get things sorted just don't want to get something then regret it.

[Garteal]

The 7950 won't be sufficient, so I'm going to replace that.
You will be able to play PC games aswell with your new setup. I was just wondering if you required a faster GPU.

Will this be a 'regular' desktop? Or do you want to integrate it as much as possible in the living room?
Basically; ATX or micro-ATX?

Also, what case do you have?

And no problem. We're here to help.

[spinneruk]

Ok no worries, it's a noisy card anyway so no big loss. I'll just stick it on ebay anyway.

Whatever card you think is best would be cool.

The case I have is an ATX case but also have a micro-atx case in the garage.

It's going to be used in various rooms but mainly the garage where the kids play on the tv in there so doesn't need to integrate into the living room.

[Garteal]

I see. But more important to know is its model and such.
You're going to have to stretch your budget a bit though.

Right now, the setup looks as such:

The total cost jumped up to £566.72 though.

This CPU is probably the best CPU you can get right now for Dolphin. It's also unlocked, so you can overclock.
Memory is pretty cheap, so I just put 8GB for you in.
Motherboard is fine.
The 550Ti will allow you to play most of your games in x4 Internal Resolution.
The Gelid Tranquillo cooler will allow you to overclock your CPU safely.
PSU needs no explanation.
You're free to pick your own case (ATX format), but I generally pick cases which are made of good material and have great airflow. That will help keep your components at a low temperature.

If you want to reduce the cost a bit by reducing performance, let me know.

[admin89]

Budget wise it's about £400

I recommend these parts : (ebuyer.com )
CPU : i5 3570k (£175)
Mobo : Asrock Z77 Pro 3 (£76)
GPU : Sapphire 6670 1GB GDDR5 (£72)
Ram : G.Skill 8GB DDR3 1600Mhz RipjawsX (£30)
PSU : Antec 450w 80 plus (£19) http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Antec-450w-VP4...20ccc4ca35
Case : Coolermaster Elite 360 Black Desktop ATX (£36)
HDD : Seagate or Western Digital or Hitachi or Samsung 7200rpm
CPU Heatsink : Zalman cooler (£14) http://www.ebuyer.com/349014-zalman-cnps...x-performa
Thermal Compound (TC): Arctic MX-4 (£4) http://www.ebuyer.com/319887-arctic-mx-4...mx40001-bl

Edit : Total cost without HDD : £426