i5-7300HQ?

[JosJuice]

It's not every day you see one of the developers make a thread in the hardware subforum, but... Well, I don't know much about the differences between different models of modern PC parts, so I could use some help

I've been looking at getting a new laptop, mainly because I'm tired of how long it takes to build Dolphin on the laptop I'm using right now (especially now that its fan seems to have stopped working), but I was also thinking that it would be nice to for once have a computer that can run Dolphin well. One computer that I've been looking at is the Asus FX553VD, which has an Intel Core i5-7300HQ. Is that CPU good enough for running Dolphin, or should I be looking for an i7? (Or is an i5-7300HQ overkill for Dolphin?) I'm fine with not being able to handle the most extreme games like Rogue Squadron 3, and I don't need to use 60 fps hacks or other demanding patches, but I would like to be able to run most games at a playable speed.

[ExtremeDude2]

The i5 should be fine imo.

[Helios]

get an AMD A6.

[Helios]

Just kidding. The i5 is fine. The i7 will build dolphin appreciably faster though

[JonnyH]

I have a laptop with an i7 6700hq, which appears to be the "same" cpu with a 100mhz boost on base frequency and HT.

From my testing, HT makes a very small difference for compilation - in some cases even reducing perf. I guess gcc is often cache bound?

I wouldn't bother paying any more for the HT-enabled i7.

[mstreurman]

Even my Kaby Lake Pentium G4560 @3.5GHz stock seems to run every single game I have thrown at it at 100% speed, so my guess is that a Kaby Lake i5 would be great for everything as well, I can't say anything about compiling though, that I do on my Haswell i7 4800MQ laptop...