Is this hardware sufficent?

[atton32x]

Hey Everyone

I am looking into upgrading my pc and I would like to have something that is capable of running dolphin on the highest possible settings are the following components sufficient?

- Intel i5-3570(3.4 ghz)
- Nvidea GTX 1060
- 16 gb ram(DDR3)

thank you

[Shonumi]

As far as I know, the i5-3570 will do just fine in most games in Dolphin. In terms of CPU,it's getting pretty old. It came out before Haswell (which was a HUGE boost for Dolphin) so it's not exactly as fast as more recent CPUs and you can't overclock it to make up the difference.

For the GPU, I believe you'll be able to do 4K in a number of games with a GTX 1060, and you won't even have to worry about 1080p and 1440p, as that'll be all but guaranteed.

RAM doesn't really play that much of a role in Dolphin's performance. As long as you have enough for Dolphin and maybe a few background programs, that's fine. 16GB is more than fine.

Do you have a budget? If so, you could get a much better CPU, probably for the same price you're willing to pay for the i5-3570.

[atton32x]

(05-24-2019, 11:29 AM)Shonumi Wrote: As far as I know, the i5-3570 will do just fine in most games in Dolphin. In terms of CPU,it's getting pretty old. It came out before Haswell (which was a HUGE boost for Dolphin) so it's not exactly as fast as more recent CPUs and you can't overclock it to make up the difference.

For the GPU, I believe you'll be able to do 4K in a number of games with a GTX 1060, and you won't even have to worry about 1080p and 1440p, as that'll be all but guaranteed.

RAM doesn't really play that much of a role in Dolphin's performance. As long as you have enough for Dolphin and maybe a few background programs, that's fine. 16GB is more than fine.

Do you have a budget? If so, you could get a much better CPU, probably for the same price you're willing to pay for the i5-3570.

---

I am looking to spend $750 at the most
Is their a better cpu?

[Shonumi]

Yes, there are plenty of more capable CPUs. I myself recently upgraded my old i5-2500K to an i5-9600KF. Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge have very similar performance (with Ivy Bridge being slightly better), and I can tell you firsthand that jumping to 9th gen Intel makes a difference. So whatever you were going to spend on the  i5-3570, throw that cash towards a new mobo + CPU. Without taking into account other stuff (PSU, case, fans, etc) I'd probably go with something like this:

RAM: - Corsair Vengeance LPX (8GB x 2) - ~$79.99
GPU: - Zotac GeForce GTX 1060 6GB - ~ $213.98
CPU: - i3-9300 - ~$181.15
Mobo: - MSI Z390 A Pro - ~ $129.99

So altogether, about $605.11 before shipping and everything, leaving you with a bit less than $150 for anything else you'd want. You probably have your own RAM and GPU already picked out, so ignore my suggestions if need be. I'd go with a 6GB 1060 in case you do PC gaming and want to have some decent headroom for newer titles on higher settings.

The i3-9300 is available at a decent price. Almost all i3s now have "4 cores, 4 threads" instead of using hyperthreading to get "2 cores, 4 threads". So the newer i3s are like the older i5s. Even at the same speed as the i5-3570, the i3-9300 will run much faster in Dolphin. Obviously you have to include the price of the mobo when considering everything, so the "true" upgrade price would be something close to $300+ here, but it may be worthwhile considering that the i3-9300 will not age as badly as the i5-3570 in the coming years (i.e. the i5-3570 is getting pretty old as is).

The i5-3570, as I mentioned before, will do perfectly fine in Dolphin for most scenarios. If you went that route, you wouldn't be disappointed. But IMO it's not something I would upgrade to. Haswell (Intel Gen 4) was literally a double-digit performance boost for Dolphin, somewhere on average of 15% if I recall, and each generation has added a few extra percentage points. Anything Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge will still do okay, but I personally wouldn't recommend that when there are other options.

EDIT - Meant to say i3-9300 not i3-9100.