Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

I may just wait for new chips to release next year, but i wanted a basic idea of how AMD stands in the CPU market now with their new 6-core Thuban processors. I'm actually counting only the quad version of Core i7. Asking this because it seems like everyone always cites the Core i7 as the ends-all best CPU you can have for Dolphin (with a bit of overclocking you can apparently get fullspeed in every game).

First of all, yes i know you can only use 2 cores. And yes i know that one is a quad and the other is a hexacore. The reason i'm counting only the quad in intel is partially due to pricing and partially because i want to see if their advantage over AMD in terms of emulation has diminished. Specific reasons i'm considering a Thuban-

1- monster overclocker, which i'll be doing, on air i might add (no watercooling)
2- price: if it matches or beats an i7, i'll be going with it due to the awesome price. Assuming the Thuban is any good, i'll have a 6-core CPU for only $200. I'd have to pay almost $300 for a quad core i7

I'll be building a new PC soon. I don't know when, and i'm not sure whether i'm going to wait till next year. But i do wish to know whether an AMD Phenom II X6 1055T Thuban can beat a Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield. Stock clock speeds don't matter much to me, i intend to overclock both as near 4ghz as possible (on air cooling, aftermarket cooler of course). If there are any better AMD processors in the quad core range as well, can they match or beat the i7 as well? I've heard that the Phenom II series in general are monster overclockers and they're definitely more wallet friendly. I don't intend to spend more than an entry level i7 at any rate...

Obvious goal with using Dolphin is to get games running as well as iNexXxuS, such as this- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfR7IAMCFUE
and this-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE8WgYQ5_0A

Goal is to hit at least 720p at fullspeed for most games, 1080 if possible. Graphics card is pretty much decided- Radeon 5770. I probably won't make a different decision there unless something amazing pops up. Whenever i do buy my parts, my goal is to spend LESS than $1000. $900 would be a nice sweet spot for me, less would be nice, but i know that won't happen...

I'll take ANY advice for CPU's i can get. Going with Intel mobo's will be more expensive as well. I will not consider a CPU over $300 though, entry level i7 quad prices only. Thanks in advance.

(08-13-2010, 11:22 PM)Granville Wrote: [ -> ]I may just wait for new chips to release next year, but i wanted a basic idea of how AMD stands in the CPU market now with their new 6-core Thuban processors. I'm actually counting only the quad version of Core i7. Asking this because it seems like everyone always cites the Core i7 as the ends-all best CPU you can have for Dolphin (with a bit of overclocking you can apparently get fullspeed in every game).

First of all, yes i know you can only use 2 cores. And yes i know that one is a quad and the other is a hexacore. The reason i'm counting only the quad in intel is partially due to pricing and partially because i want to see if their advantage over AMD in terms of emulation has diminished. Specific reasons i'm considering a Thuban-

1- monster overclocker, which i'll be doing, on air i might add (no watercooling)
2- price: if it matches or beats an i7, i'll be going with it due to the awesome price. Assuming the Thuban is any good, i'll have a 6-core CPU for only $200. I'd have to pay almost $300 for a quad core i7

I'll be building a new PC soon. I don't know when, and i'm not sure whether i'm going to wait till next year. But i do wish to know whether an AMD Phenom II X6 1055T Thuban can beat a Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield. Stock clock speeds don't matter much to me, i intend to overclock both as near 4ghz as possible (on air cooling, aftermarket cooler of course). If there are any better AMD processors in the quad core range as well, can they match or beat the i7 as well? I've heard that the Phenom II series in general are monster overclockers and they're definitely more wallet friendly. I don't intend to spend more than an entry level i7 at any rate...

Obvious goal with using Dolphin is to get games running as well as iNexXxuS, such as this- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfR7IAMCFUE
and this-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LE8WgYQ5_0A

Goal is to hit at least 720p at fullspeed for most games, 1080 if possible. Graphics card is pretty much decided- Radeon 5770. I probably won't make a different decision there unless something amazing pops up. Whenever i do buy my parts, my goal is to spend LESS than $1000. $900 would be a nice sweet spot for me, less would be nice, but i know that won't happen...

I'll take ANY advice for CPU's i can get. Going with Intel mobo's will be more expensive as well. I will not consider a CPU over $300 though, entry level i7 quad prices only. Thanks in advance.

In terms of dolphin clock speed is whats important. In terms of gaming an i7 does not do any better than a PII core. My suggestion would be to buy the phenom II x6 1090T. Its a BE so ocing is a snap. They also run at 4.0ghz on air cooling. Don't believe me, search, people are using stock fans at 4.0ghz. The voltage on the piix6 is also low only needing 1.48v (must stay below 1.5v) to be stable. It costs 300 bucks and the i7 at any decent speed is more. Hell intels hex core is freaking 1k for the regular. No, you dont need a hex. But the best PIIx4 isn't much less than the x6. Prep for the future is what I do, so I tell others to also. Dolphin wont need it but something will.

AMD concentrates on a single thread and Intel on multiple threads so that's why AMD is better for Dolphin, that's what I've heard. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Well the X6 i was looking at isn't black edition. And if i can get the non-BE anywhere near 4ghz (even 3.8, which i hear is possible on air), i'd rather just save $100 and go with the non black edition. If i HAVE to go with the BE though, and it's on par or faster than the Core i7, i'd just go with the AMD one. At any rate, i don't know whether the black edition is really worth it, according to various sources the 1055t is perfectly capable of being pushed up to 4ghz on air. I realize BE chips have had a history of being easier to overclock, but it doesn't seem to be a problem here- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a7AxZJ7tWc

I won't be judging these chips at stock clock at all. I fully intend to take them as high as they can get while still being stable. And i don't mind buying one of the entry level ones and just overclocking manually. Spending and extra $100-$200 is not something i'm going to do just to have the stock speed be 200-400mhz higher. I realize clock speed is important for Dolphin, but i had heard that what really matters also is architecture. I have monitored this board for a long time, and have always been led to believe that Intel Core i7 beats AMD Phenom II series clock for clock at all times. This mentality is even more rampant over at the PCSX2 boards, they are generally against buying any AMD cpu over Intels. Which is why i asked about the latest hexacore, in case there had been any leveling out between the two rival CPU's. I don't hear people talk much about the x6's and i wanted some info about them.

And you don't have to convince me that people have gotten the x6 at 4ghz on air, i'm well aware. What i didn't know was that you can just use the stock fans... Is that safe? And could you still do it with the non-black edition chip?

But at any rate, my goal here is to get a CPU that will let me run games similar to how iNexXxuS does. Even intensive games like Conduit, Mario Galaxy 1/2, Metroid Prime 3, etc. Fullspeed is my goal. I should have luck with almost any other normal PC game with pretty much any of the Phenom II or Core i series chips, so i'm now focusing on how Dolphin would run. I realize the GPU will do the resolution pushing, so i'm not worried about that. I'm just into getting as many games as possible running fullspeed with as little slowdown as possible. I wouldn't have considered the X6 (since it's a hexacore) had i not heard about its amazing overclocking reputation and great price.

@darkshdw
you're wrong, there's no such a thing as concentrate on single vs multi, Intel is still faster clock for clock, period.

however, given enough OC there's a barrier you break where it doesn't matter whether you use Intel or AMD, in other words, 4GHz thuban should be more than enough to have most games in Dolphin full speed, even though a 4GHz Core i7 will still be faster than Thuban 4GHz most of the times.

Well that seems to answer my question naoan. So the Intel advantage is STILL there. I guess that won't change until the AMD "Bulldozer" chips arrive, if even then...

Well the fact still remains, the X6 can overclock to 4ghz easily on air. And it's almost $100 cheaper than the entry level Core i7's... Like i said, my goal is to get wii games running in HD (which won't be an issue with the GPU) and as fullspeed or close to it as possible. The only question is whether i want to push my price up for the i7 to ensure i get the best speed possible. Which i'm still not sure about. I guess this is the part where i ask for you guys' personal recommendations. Is the i7 REALLY worth the $100 extra? The motherboard will probably end up costing more than an AM3 one as well...

I doubt you could get the game run @ full speed with core i7 if you could not with Thuban 4GHz... but maybe someone with more experience than me could prove otherwise.

Imo, go for it (Thuban).

Well that's comforting. I'm mostly going off of videos to judge speed, and i realize the speed is cut in half with fraps. People with fast i7's always seem to be able to record even at full speed, but those with fast Phenom II's always seem to lag FAR more. But i've not seen many people able to get up to 4ghz on a Phenom II until now (on air). And since i've seen very little talk about Thuban, i thought i'd just ask and see.

If i don't wait till next year's Bulldozer, and whatever Intel comes out with, i'll probably go with the Thuban. I'm getting into video converting soon too, so 6 cores could really help me. It's not really the core amount that's pushing me though, it's the price and overclocking ability. Can't beat the price!

(at any rate, mom will be grateful for the donation of my old PC, she's still running a Pentium 4, going to an Athlon II dual core will brighten her day lol)

Even the 1055t phenom can go to 4.0ghz with basic bios OC options. It will work the same way, just the FSB will be manipulated instead of the multiplier. If you cannot run a game at full on a oc'd 1055T, an i7 is not going to do any better.

@naoan: No, just no. A processors performance is not debated by the clock speed. Intels cpus are better, but not in this case. Dolphin runs better on higher clock speeds.

as always AMD is cheaper and a better route for budgets. If you OC the 1055t to 4.0 dolphin would run just as good on any core at 4.0, dual or better. More threads won't help as dolphin uses 2 physical cores, not logical.

I don't understand what you're disagreeing with me at all... Yes, Indeed, clock speed doesn't entirely dictate processor performance on a given program but it has some impact and give us some insight (given you're familiar with the processor architecture and IPC).

Intel IPC is just plain better in almost (if not all) softwares, thus at a the same clock it usually will outpace AMD counterpart. Don't believe me? please go see any benchmark out there comparing these two architecture, do note any cores and softwares involved in the benchmark though.

But like I said, past certain mark, there's no point in having higher clock or more efficient cpu as you already long since passed the comfort level of Dolphin.