(10-14-2010, 10:38 PM)leox001 Wrote:(10-14-2010, 05:01 AM)Aerosol Wrote: Still, dual-core is considered low by today's standards? That's saying something. I've already built my new pc on newegg, just need to save up to buy the parts and build it. I plopped in a dual-core processor, thinking I was getting the happy medium of cutting edge processing power and budgeting smarts. You're telling me I'm wrong? Oy-vey.
Dual core is already low for today's standards in real time 3D rendering. I get massive bottlenecks in most games just because it's a dual core and not x4
Even having a medium(-high?) tier GFX card (GeForce 9800GT) my FPS are sliced by the x2 CPU (All Unreal Engine 3 Games, and Dolphin of course) and sometimes they don't even touch 8FPS (GTA IV or FFXIV for example, though said games don't look THAT good compared to crysis which runs perfectly on a x2 core CPU, they still bottleneck) leaving them unplayable.
If you're going to build a PC yourself for current generation gaming (or wii-gc-ps2 emulation), get at least a x4 CPU.
Dual core is perfect for Dolphin, it doesn't even use more than 2 at this point anyways. Your bottleneck is NOT your cpu (unless it's in the 2ghz or below range), it's your gfx card. That card is good but nowhere near what would even be considered midrange these days.
I would disagree in advising people to only get 4 or more core cpus. I am running a core 2 @ 3.16ghz, 4gb 1333mhz ram, and a 1gb GTS250 and I can play any game out today, on Dolphin or otherwise. I just finished playing through Dead Rising 2, all settings maxed but shadows (medium), 4xAA, 4xAF, got 50-90fps all the way through the game. No need for a quad core whatsoever. The only games that benefit from quads right now are garbage like Crysis (most poorly coded PC game ever) and GTA4/GTA4 expansions (most poorly coded console ports ever).
That being said, quads are certainly not expensive and if you are building a new rig and get a quad, make sure it's a FAST quadcore, not a 2.3ghz one or something. Get as close to 3ghz as you can or higher. Quads don't mean squat if you only have like 2.4ghz speed.