Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hello

I'm trying to find PC parts online (I prefer Tigerdirect.ca, I'm in Canada), and am trying to do it so Dolphin will work on it (basing the parts on the Dolphin PC Buying Guide -- although some parts it suggests are unavailable). I also plan to use this computer as my main gaming/movie PC, so I want it to be good, but to tell you the truth, I want it to be as cheap as possible lol (but have Dolphin still work good on it) -- hopefully no more than $600.

I've been messing around with this for hours lol, trying to find the best while on a very tight budget.

So far, I have:

• $109 - AMD Phenom II X2 550 Dual Core Processor - 3.10GHz
  
• $99.97 - GeForce 9800 GT Video Card - 1024MB GDDR3
  
• I have no idea what motherboard I need/should get. I liked the one that the above guide suggested, but it's no longer available (not on TigerDirect, either, I don't think)
  
• And I don't know which PSU I should get (I'm guessing that it doesn't matter, as long as it's like 400+ Watts?)
  
• Anything else, I think I can handle.
  

So, would Dolphin work well with this PC's specs? Is it overkill, or not powerful enough? Any better suggestions (and help) as to what parts I should get or not get, etc. would be very, very much appreciated. Thanks

Personally I'm not sure how 8 series motherboards perform these days but I do know of a cheap and cheerful 770 that might be just up your street! the MSI 770-C45 is supposed to be a brilliant little board especially for it's price, you can find a review for it here.

As for the power supply you won't need anything too big with the components you'll be putting in it but as always with power supplies you should buy a high quality one regardless of capacity. The Corsair CX400 is the best 400W power supply you can buy and it's still incredibly cheap as power supplies go . Here's a review of it.

EDIT: I can't comment on how dolphin would run but if I was in your posistion I'd look at going for a core i3 based system, a core i3 530 performs better than the Phenom II 550 but just from the CPU you're adding $25 to the cost and I'm struggling to find a good cheap P55/H55 board to accompany the Core i3. I also don't know if it performs better in Dolphin or if it's just everything else. I'm new to dolphin so I don't know whether it's pure clock speed that matters or if what type of CPU it is matters.