Hello Dolphin Community!
I need some help determining which CPU to use. I have both in my possession and I want to use the one that will work best for Dolphin.
My E6300 gets up to 3.6ghz easily. I bet I can even get 3.7-3.8 out of it.
My Q6600 maxes at around 3.2/3.3Ghz. I will run both at their max.
So far I have been using the E6300 because I thought pure clock speed mattered more, but now I am starting to wonder if the higher cache and ability to use more than 2 cores for sound makes my Q6600 a better choice.
Obviously the real answer is to throw both away and get a 2500k, but my budget needs to go to upgrading my GPU first so I have to work with what I got for now. And I will be honest if they are close or the Q6600 OCed still isn't enough to even do LLE sound then I would love to know that too.
Thank you in advance for any consideration.
Welcome to the forums poofy!
Which E6300 do you have? The Intel Pentium one or the Core 2 Duo?
Which games are you intending to play?
Yes, definitely stick the cash into a GPU upgrade first, as you already know the one you have is garbage.
Thank you for the kind welcome Garteal!
The E6300 is the Pentium one (the one that is 2.8ghz stock).
As far as what games I want to play, mostly Gamecube games such as Soul Caliber 2, Super Mario Sunshine, Zelda TP/WW/MQ, Wave Race, SSBM, and one day I dream of a computer that can handle F Zero X.
The only Wii games I really want to play are Link's Crossbow Training, Mario Kart, the New Super Mario Bros, and maybe SMG1.
Dolphin has already shown me how bad my GPU is and I will replace it with either a 6670 or a 6770.
Both CPU's have the same CPU architecture, therefore the E6300 will be the better choice for Dolphin, since you're able to overclock it higher.
You should be able to play Mario Sunshine and Wind Waker very well.
Twilight Princess will run fine for the most part. The only areas you'll have slowdowns are Hyrule Field and Farons Woods etc.
Super Smash Bros Melee should work great.
NSMB should be a breeze.
Mario Kart Wii should run very well.
Crossbow Training should run good as well.
Now, Super Mario Galaxy is the only game that won't be enjoyable as you'll only be able to pump around 50-60%.
You'll need to use LLE for the music and some levels, but that will slow you down even more.
Get that 2500K before you play SMG.
F-Zero X? The one for the N64? Play it on an N64 emulator. It'll work great.
I would recommend the 6770 as it has a much higher Texel Rate and Pixel Rate than the 6670.
Thank for your the great response. I will keep the E6300 in my machine then and focus instead on the GPU.
On that point you mention getting a 6770 over a 6670. If you don't mind me asking another question in the same thread- should I just get a 7750 instead? I really want a fanless card and the fanless 7750 is about the same price as a 6770.
Thanks again.
I'd advice against getting a 7000 card for Dolphin as it suffers from bad performance. More in
this thread.
I'd also advice against getting a fanless card, especially if you're going to use them for gaming.
Fanless cards are not meant for gaming.
Oh wow, thank you again for all that information. Too bad, I liked that my HTPC was fairly silent and power efficient, but I will happily sacrifice that for 1080p Crossbow Training.
I guess then I should get as much power as seems reasonable. Would a GTX 460 do the job? I always wanted one of those.
Also since I don't care about noise now I guess I could crank the fans and get that E6300 over 4GHz. Is there some level where a dual-core can do LLE, or should I just completely forget about that till the 2500k?
Thanks again.
The GTX460 is an excellent GPU, much better than your previous choices. It will do your 1080p without problems.
You can enable LLE and see how fast it is. But you'll be missing out the LLE on Thread option, which puts LLE on a different core, which makes Dolphin use three cores instead of two.
Try it out, but I'd wait (unless your comfortable with the performance ofcourse) until you get your new CPU.
I would recommend you to take a look at the 3570K instead of the 2500K.
It has more advantages, and I would recommend that over the 2500K.
Wow, thanks again for the good information. That settles it, I will get a GTX 460 and save for the 3570K. That sounds like a good combo. I prefer Nvidia + Intel, and I want LLE eventually.
If you would indulge me one more question- with further research I discovered that there is actually three versions of the GTX 460: the 768mb version, an older 1GB version and a newer 1GB version (SE). They seem about the same except the older 1GB model has a 256-bit bus. Would they all be fine for Dolphin 1080p or should I pay more for one over another?