just curious if someone could give me insight as to how an intel i3 2120 could do on dolphin. looking to build a cheap dedicated emulation pc for the arcade i've been working on and it needs to be able to run brawl, melee, and mario kart at full speed BUT it can be all tuned down to 640x480 since the monitor i have only goes as high as like 800x600 i believe. anyways, yeah, i'm able to score a deal on an i3 for about 50 bucks OR i'm trying to possibly secure an i5 2500k + 500w power supply for about 175. just didn't know if i NEEDED the 2500k or if i can pull off the games necessary at a smooth framerate with an i3 2120
The i3 2120 would be enough for those games you mentioned at full speed. Give us more info, for instance the videocard etc.
The i5 2500k however will be more powerful and when overclocked even more powerful therefore will be able to run the demanding games at full speed.
Also dualcore is a bit outdated to be honest. If you do a lot of PC gaming, get a quad core as more and more game engines start to benefit from having more cores.
Also if you can get that good of a deal on those CPU's get both, build a htpc and a gaming rig.
Good luck
(06-29-2012, 10:49 PM)TSA Wrote: [ -> ]The i3 2120 would be enough for those games you mentioned at full speed. Give us more info, for instance the videocard etc.
The i5 2500k however will be more powerful and when overclocked even more powerful therefore will be able to run the demanding games at full speed.
Also dualcore is a bit outdated to be honest. If you do a lot of PC gaming, get a quad core as more and more game engines start to benefit from having more cores.
Also if you can get that good of a deal on those CPU's get both, build a htpc and a gaming rig.
Good luck
thanks for the informative reply. the pc for this build is purely for the arcade and i can't think of any pc games it would be running. the graphics card would probably just be an old gigabyte gt220 overclock taht my brother doesn't need anymore. it should be able to run the games at native decently.
I'd say, it depends. The i3-2120 will do fine with Melee, Brawl, and MK (Double Dash, the Wii one is more demanding iirc). When adding more players, the games might slow down, in which case, the i5-2500K will easily handle those situations. The 2500K gives you room to grow when you OC it as well.
Why double the price for a turbo boost? Dolphin use 2 cores anyway. Unless you're going to overclock.
I am wondering what PC game can stress the CPU usage of the 2120 to more than 80%? Except for some RTS titles, I bet no current PC game uses more than 50% of its processing power.
yeah this build is purely for emulation inside an arcade cabinet. i just need perfect play on those games at native res.
(06-29-2012, 11:28 PM)ShadeValryn Wrote: [ -> ]yeah this build is purely for emulation inside an arcade cabinet. i just need perfect play on those games at native res.
purely for emulation = 2500k@4.5/3570k@4.3 ghz
yeah, I'd go for the i5 2500k, more "future proof" too.
Quote:Why double the price for a turbo boost? Dolphin use 2 cores anyway. Unless you're going to overclock.
Dolphin gains up to a 20% performance increase with LLE on thread off on a quad core cpu from running minor stuff on other cores. With LLE on thread on the performance benefit of a quad core cpu can be well over 50%.
And then there's the ability to OC like you mentioned.
Also the price increase is closer to 50% not 100%.
Quote:I am wondering what PC game can stress the CPU usage of the 2120 to more than 80%? Except for some RTS titles, I bet no current PC game uses more than 50% of its processing power.
RTS games dealing with lots of units and complex AI such as SCII or CivV. Shooters with decent physics engines like BF3 or starforge. There are plenty of games that can stress a sandy/ivy bridge cpu.
My vote goes to the 2500K.
well, both of my deals kind of fell through. on the bright side, i can score an i7 930 still. think that'll run everything i need at full speed? again, keep in mind this is purely for emulation and needs to be able to support 4 players at once.