Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hey all. I am spec'ing out a gaming/work rig with the goal of Twilight Princess running at ~30fps in 2x IR, even at Hyrule Field. It's the only game I am interested in emulating. If anyone could provide some feedback & answer a few questions, I'd really appreciate it!

I have two potential models I put together on PC Part Picker, and meet my needs for storage. This expensive one would be overclocked:

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core
Cooler: Zalman CNPS9500 AT Ball Bearing
Motherboard: ASRock Z77M Micro ATX LGA1155
Memory: Samsung 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600
Storage: Crucial M4 64GB 2.5" SSD
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti 1GB
Case Inwin MANA136 WHITE ATX Mid Tower w/300W Power Supply

The less expensive, and non-overclocked, set up:

CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core
Cooler: None
Motherboard: ECS B75H2-M3(1.0) Micro ATX LGA1155
Memory: Samsung 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600
Storage: Crucial M4 64GB 2.5" SSD
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti 1GB
Case: Apex DM-318 HTPC w/275W Power Supply

So here's a few questions I have:

(i) Would a 300w PSU be enough to overclock the expensive rig to 4.0 GHz? The base-line total is 269W. I am a beginner at overclocking, could someone recommend a good resource?
(ii) The cheaper rig wouldn't be able to do LLE Audio b/c that requires its own core, right? Does anyone have experience playing Twilight Princess w/ High level audio? Is it acceptable?

Thanks very much. I've learned a lot by reading in this forum & hope to learn more here.

PC Part Picker links
Expensive build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/rbMS
Cheaper build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/qMk2

You're defenatly going to want a better PSU, atlest 450w

But choose 3570k. It's definitively the best deal for Dolphin

Yep, I agree.

The Zalman CNPS9500 is able to cool it down, even when u overclock this CPU

Quote:You're definitely going to want a better PSU, atleast 450w 80 plus certified PSU

Thank you for the tips, guys. If overclocking is a must for Ivy Bridge to meet my goals, I may wait until to compare its price against stock Haswell performance + power demands.

The equivalent Haswel chips are likely to be at the same price point. They'll have better performance, and lower power consumption (or at least lower power consumption when at a clock rate giving the same IPS), but ivy chips will be harder to get when Haswel is released, and you'll also have the problem of there being not so many motherboard reviews etc. If you want the PC now, it may be better to get it now, if you would rather wait, then you can, but you won't see a really major improvement.

Quote:(i) Would a 300w PSU be enough to overclock the expensive rig to 4.0 GHz? The base-line total is 269W.

Good lord no. Others in this thread are recommending 450 watts but I would recommend a 550w PSU simply because they're nearly the same price.

Quote:I am a beginner at overclocking, could someone recommend a good resource?

www.google.com

Quote:(ii) The cheaper rig wouldn't be able to do LLE Audio b/c that requires its own core, right? Does anyone have experience playing Twilight Princess w/ High level audio? Is it acceptable?

No. Get the i5-3570K.

Swap out that SSD with a samsung 830. Swap out that cooler with a noctua.

Quote:or at least lower power consumption when at a clock rate giving the same IPS

Did you mean IPS (instructions per second) or IPC (instructions per clock cycle)?

You can't lower the IPC by underclocking a processor, so I'll go with IPS, which is what I wrote.