Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

(06-24-2013, 10:14 AM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]Although you would be surprised what you can get away with.

What do you mean by this? Because I was also considering waiting about half a year for the prices to go down a little, and maybe considering adding a graphics card to the computer to do at least some gaming in the meantime. I was considering the GeForce 650 Ti (more expensive) or the Radeon HD 7750 (less expensive) or 6670 DDR3 (least expensive). This is probably not a good idea in the long run... maybe now is not the best time to build a whole new computer from scratch.

I really don't think I have to worry about DDR4. It's so far in the future, and I realize that computers are constantly being made obsolete. I could get a Haswell now, or I could wait until Broadwell, but then I might as well wait until Skylake etc. etc. Haswell is the first generation that can play all playable games at fullspeed, I shouldn't need anything beyond that.

I guess that makes sense. Whichever is cheaper, then, is what I'll do when it comes to RAM.

I don't think I'll need more than 520W. I never intend to SLI or Crossfire, and parts are only getting more efficient. 620W might be overkill. The thing about modular power supplies is that you only use as many cables as you need, right? I'm not sure if that is worth the premium.
I like the Corsair cases too (I saw them on display in a store), but even the Rosweill was more than I wanted to spend on a case.

Buying a computer is like a slippery slope, there is always something "better" to get: well, if I'm spending this money on a nice motherboard to overclock, I might as well get liquid cooling... if I'm going to liquid cool I should get a water resistant motherboard... I should get 16 GB of RAM... and so on and so on. I need to put my foot down and so "no, enough is enough, this is overkill as it is!"

turtlefu Wrote:What do you mean by this?

This requires context to understand. I was quoting your statement where you were assuming that 400 watts wouldn't be enough. I have found that in general people on internet forums tend to grossly exaggerate the power requirements of desktops to people who are building new rigs and asking for psu advice. They generally assume that 500-650 watts is needed for any high end hardware and don't bother to do the math. If they did bother to do the math that would realize that the power requirements of modern desktops are much much lower than most people assume. In your case you could get away with a high efficiency 400 watt psu and still provide enough power for your system even with heavy cpu overclocking. Barely though. So my statement "you would be surprised what you can get away with" holds true. Is that not surprising to hear? Of course you still probably want 500 watts or more just to be on the safe side and have some headroom for future upgrades.

Most high end home built pcs don't actually need more than a 400 watt psu. Of course they all buy 650watt+ units anyways since somebody who doesn't know what they're talking about told them to. Since they don't know how to calculate the power requirements they generally just spit out a high enough number where it's going to be more than enough no matter what. It's always better to guess high than guess low. Plus it gives lots of headroom for any future upgrades. But it's not a requirement.

turtlefu Wrote:Because I was also considering waiting about half a year for the prices to go down a little, and maybe considering adding a graphics card to the computer to do at least some gaming in the meantime. I was considering the GeForce 650 Ti (more expensive) or the Radeon HD 7750 (less expensive) or 6670 DDR3 (least expensive).

That sounds like a decent plan. And you can sell the old card to help pay for the new card so it won't hurt your wallet too bad. If you only care about emulation and not pc games you could go even cheaper.

turtlefu Wrote:This is probably not a good idea in the long run... maybe now is not the best time to build a whole new computer from scratch.

This is literally the best time to build a rig in the last decade. Haswell just came out and broadwell has been delayed to 2015. Broadwell is also not expected to make any significant improvement in singlethreaded cpu performance. It's going to be a long time before any substantial improvements to cpu performance will be available to you.

I would be building one myself if I hadn't just upgraded to ivy bridge last winter. I'm kicking myself over not waiting for Haswell.

turtlefu Wrote:I really don't think I have to worry about DDR4. It's so far in the future, and I realize that computers are constantly being made obsolete.

You're missing the point of why I brought it up. Go back and reread that section of my post. I'm not asking you to worry about it. I'm just saying you don't need to upgrade to DDR3 1600MHz ram.

turtlefu Wrote:I could get a Haswell now, or I could wait until Broadwell, but then I might as well wait until Skylake etc. etc.

You'll be waiting a long time then. Broadwell is 2015, skylake is 2016.

turtlefu Wrote:Haswell is the first generation that can play all playable games at fullspeed, I shouldn't need anything beyond that.

Hahahaha

I wish. Dolphin is always getting more demanding. That won't change anytime soon. I remember when a geforce 7 card and core 2 duo were enough for nearly any game.

turtlefu Wrote:I don't think I'll need more than 520W. I never intend to SLI or Crossfire, and parts are only getting more efficient. 620W might be overkill.

This is true. I was just trying to get you one with good reviews for under $100 from the same brand. And the 500 and 600 watt models tend to cost about the same.

Here are some other alternatives:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371016
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139048
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817256065

If you ever thing you might turn this into a very high end rig with SLI/Crossfire than you definitely should spend the extra $10-20 to get a PSU with a higher rating than 600 watts.

turtlefu Wrote:The thing about modular power supplies is that you only use as many cables as you need, right? I'm not sure if that is worth the premium.

Anyone who has used a modular psu (such as me) will swear by it. It makes assembling/disassembling so much faster and easier. Not to mention it looks way better to not have cables hanging all over the place and improves airflow. All for a tiny increase in cost.

turtlefu Wrote:I like the Corsair cases too (I saw them on display in a store), but even the Rosweill was more than I wanted to spend on a case.

Just do it. Chassis last forever and they're not something that you want to replace. It's better to just get a good one from the start. Corsair cases are amazing.

turtlefu Wrote:Buying a computer is like a slippery slope, there is always something "better" to get: well, if I'm spending this money on a nice motherboard to overclock, I might as well get liquid cooling... if I'm going to liquid cool I should get a water resistant motherboard... I should get 16 GB of RAM... and so on and so on.

I disagree. Most people know what they want and pay whatever is needed to get it and "do it right". Most people pay a bit extra for using quality equipment and future proofing the system for any upgrades that you might do down the line.

There is a "sweet spot" where performance per dollar is maximized. And that's what most people aim for. For both cpus and gpus this spot generally hovers around $200-250. Anything above that provides increasingly higher cost and increasingly lower performance gain for each tier.

People generally buy ram based on how much their applications need, not price.

Liquid cooling is a good future upgrade to do down the line. It's something that you should invest a lot of money into to do right the first time. But it's not something you should do with your initial build since it costs a lot and adds very little performance to the system.

Most people who use liquid cooling do not have water resistant motherboards. Just be careful, do your research, and test the loop before installation and you'll be fine. Also water resistant motherboards aren't foolproof.

turtlefu Wrote:I need to put my foot down and so "no, enough is enough, this is overkill as it is!"

You did. You said $800 so that's what I'm working with. You said you wanted to future proof it. So that's why I recommended a good psu and chassis.

Thanks for putting up with me, NaturalViolence. I really appreciate your help and I hope my endless stupid questions don't bother you
1. So are you saying the "recommended minimum power supply" on the boxes of the Video Cardsare actually over-estimates?

2. So, the motherboard on the old computer only has 1 PCIe 16x slot, and 2 PCIe 1x slots. Which means that the 650 Ti won't fit (I think, it does need a PCIe 6x for power). That leaves me with the Radeon 7750. Honestly, why would I spend almost a hundred dollars for such a lackluster card when I'm going to spend $200 for something much better? Doesn't seem worth it, I can just wait.

3. I'm honestly just surprised that there is no difference between 1333 MHz and 1600 MHz RAM, especially because you see websites recommending 1600 over 1333. I know that 2133 makes a difference if you are using an APU, though. What about lantency, does that make a performance difference? I imagine though that RAM is the least important component when it comes to gaming, the CPU and video card is probably much more essential.

4. And here I am I finally thought Haswell was the perfect processor for Dolphin. If that is true about Dolphin getting more demanding, what's event he point? I'll never win!
The thing that I was worried about was: spending all this money to build a new computer, and then having it NOT able to do the things I want. If Dolphin is constantly getting more demanding, that means that whatever I build now will not be enough! So are you saying even THIS wouldn't even be able to play Okami in HD?

5. Here is what I am thinking the upgrade path will be:
I will want the computer to at least last past Skymont (so... until 2018?), when the switch to graphene is expected to take place.
For whatever is past Skymont, I'll get a new processor, motherboard, and DDR4 RAM.
- Might add liquid cooling.
- Might add an SSD if SATA II drives become too obsolete.
- Hope to keep the graphics card, I would want it to last at least that long.
I absolutely would not want to replace the case or power supply. So spending a little more money to get higher quality, longer lasting parts will ultimately save me ~$100-150 for my next build. So the Corsair case is definitely good. Which PSU would last the longest? The SeaSonic? The Corsair CX600M is significantly cheaper than all the others ($50, compared to $75 for the SeaSonic)

6. The other question I have is about efficiency. If the computer is off, do 620W PSU draw more power than the 520W PSU? I'm sorry if that is a stupid question but I'm not sure about how they work. Would having a 620W PSU make my energy bill go up more than 520W PSU is what I am asking, even if the computer doesn't use all that wattage.

7. The computer is only $800 because I'm not buying RAM or HDD though. Which I guess is good because it means I can spend more money to get higher quality parts now, because RAM can be extremely cheap in the future. I can make do with 4 GB now and add more later, I really don't think it's that important to get 8 GB.

8. Graphics cards. My options are: MSI GTX 660 ($175), Sapphire 7870 GHz OC ($200), Sapphire 7870 XT or ASUS GTX 660 Ti ($250). The $250 cards would make me go $50 over budget though, I'm not sure if the slight boost in performance is worth the extra $50, especially if all of them are just going to need to be replaced when I do my major upgrade. If all of them will last about the same amount of time, I should save some money and get the MSI GTX 660. I really don't need the extra power of the 660 Ti for gaming, I just thought the more expensive card might last longer, and I really want to stay on budget.
The other option is the GTX 760, but I'm guessing that will be closer to the $300 and apparently it's only a slightly better 660 Ti. We'll know for sure tomorrow though.

turtlefu Wrote:1. So are you saying the "recommended minimum power supply" on the boxes of the Video Cardsare actually over-estimates?

Yes. Think about this for a minute. How would they know how much power you're going to need for the system if they don't know what other components you're going to have in the system? How do they know which cpu and motherboard you're using for example? They don't. So they assume that you're using the highest power components on the market and the lowest efficiency psu on the market. They use these super conservative figures in order to prevent people from complaining that their system didn't have enough power after following their recommendations. As I said earlier, it's better to guess high than to guess low.

turtlefu Wrote:2. So, the motherboard on the old computer only has 1 PCIe 16x slot, and 2 PCIe 1x slots. Which means that the 650 Ti won't fit (I think, it does need a PCIe 6x for power).

That doesn't make any sense. All modern graphics cards use the same slot. PCI-e x16. The only thing that would make the card not fit is if its physical dimensions are too big to fit into your case. But as long as you have a decent sized case (which you do) that shouldn't be an issue unless you're trying to use one of the largest graphics cards on the market (which you aren't).

The 650 TI probably does require a 6 pin power connector but that shouldn't matter as your new psu will have at least two of those.

turtlefu Wrote:That leaves me with the Radeon 7750. Honestly, why would I spend almost a hundred dollars for such a lackluster card when I'm going to spend $200 for something much better? Doesn't seem worth it, I can just wait.

So you want to run with integrated graphics for now? Am I understanding you correctly?

turtlefu Wrote:3. I'm honestly just surprised that there is no difference between 1333 MHz and 1600 MHz RAM, especially because you see websites recommending 1600 over 1333. I know that 2133 makes a difference if you are using an APU, though.

I would recommend 1600 too if you were building completely from scratch (since they cost the same). But you're not. You've got some existing DDR3 ram that you can reuse. Like I said you can still get 1600 MHz ram and use it with your 1333 kit which is what I'm recommending that you do.

And yes higher frequency memory does boost IGP (integrated graphics processor) performance considerably.

turtlefu Wrote:What about lantency, does that make a performance difference? I imagine though that RAM is the least important component when it comes to gaming, the CPU and video card is probably much more essential.

Correct. And latency has even less impact on performance than memory bandwidth in the modern world of multilevel cpu caches.

turtlefu Wrote:4. And here I am I finally thought Haswell was the perfect processor for Dolphin. If that is true about Dolphin getting more demanding, what's event he point? I'll never win!
The thing that I was worried about was: spending all this money to build a new computer, and then having it NOT able to do the things I want. If Dolphin is constantly getting more demanding, that means that whatever I build now will not be enough! So are you saying even THIS wouldn't even be able to play Okami in HD?

Possibly. Okami is a very demanding game. I think with a minor OC you should be ok.

Regardless of whether dolphin gets more demanding in the future you should still strive to have up to date hardware to run it as best as you can. And besides like I mentioned earlier there won't be anything on the market worth upgrading to for at least several years anyways.

turtlefu Wrote:- Might add an SSD if SATA II drives become too obsolete.

Add the SSD now. Get a cheap 64GB or 128GB one. It is the single most important thing you can do to make your system feel fast and responsive.

turtlefu Wrote:- Hope to keep the graphics card, I would want it to last at least that long.

If you're into high end PC gaming, playing the latest games on high settings with good framerates. It won't. GPUs evolve fast. 5 years is a long time to wait for a GPU upgrade. I try to wait 3-4 years at the most.

turtlefu Wrote:Which PSU would last the longest? The SeaSonic? The Corsair CX600M is significantly cheaper than all the others ($50, compared to $75 for the SeaSonic)

If you can get that exact corair psu model that I linked for $50 do it. It was $70 on newegg the last time I checked. Antec, corsair, and seasonic are all very reputable psu brands so you should have no issues buying from any of them.

tutrlefu Wrote:- Might add liquid cooling.

This is more of a luxury item. Even by my standards. If you're going to do liquid cooling do it right and build a custom loop for $200-400. Anything less is pretty pointless. And I think you'll agree that spending $200-400 for a slightly higher cpu oc is a bit nuts.

tutrlefu Wrote:6. The other question I have is about efficiency. If the computer is off, do 620W PSU draw more power than the 520W PSU? I'm sorry if that is a stupid question but I'm not sure about how they work. Would having a 620W PSU make my energy bill go up more than 520W PSU is what I am asking, even if the computer doesn't use all that wattage.

That depends more on how the psu models you are comparing were designed and their efficiency rating. Rated wattage has little to nothing to do with this.

Also it depends on how much load you're putting on them. Generally speaking a 620 watt psu is not going to use more power than a 520 watt psu. And definitely not significantly more.

turtlefu Wrote:I can make do with 4 GB now and add more later, I really don't think it's that important to get 8 GB.

I disagree. 8GB is already worth it. Especially with next gen. games right around the corner.

turtlefu Wrote:8. Graphics cards. My options are: MSI GTX 660 ($175), Sapphire 7870 GHz OC ($200), Sapphire 7870 XT or ASUS GTX 660 Ti ($250). The $250 cards would make me go $50 over budget though, I'm not sure if the slight boost in performance is worth the extra $50, especially if all of them are just going to need to be replaced when I do my major upgrade. If all of them will last about the same amount of time, I should save some money and get the MSI GTX 660. I really don't need the extra power of the 660 Ti for gaming, I just thought the more expensive card might last longer, and I really want to stay on budget.
The other option is the GTX 760, but I'm guessing that will be closer to the $300 and apparently it's only a slightly better 660 Ti. We'll know for sure tomorrow though.

Yeah wait until the GTX 760 reviews come out before you decide. I would try to spend around $170-230 at the most. You don't need a $300 card.

Sorry about any spelling/grammar errors. I don't have time to proofread or elaborate right now.

Your help is always appreciated! I wish this forum had rep so I could give you some
The Radeon HD 7750 is the fastest graphics card that doesn't need an auxiliary power input. You can just plug it in to a PCIe-16x slot.
The 650 Ti needs a 6-pin PCIe slot for power. I'm talking about adding in a graphics card into the old computer while I wait half a year for prices to go down on the higher-end components. I didn't even realize PSU had PCIe power slots... so the current Allied PSU that I have might not work with the 650 Ti, but I know the motherboard does not have any 6-pin PCIe slots.

I wonder if I could OC the Athlon II X4 635 at all? That might be useful if I decide to wait half a year and try to boost some performance in the meantime.

If I don't add a graphics card to the old computer while I wait, I can still use my laptop, which is decent for low-end games like Torchlight, indie games like Bastion, etc. I have high-end games like Alan Wake but I don't NEED to play them right now, especially if it's more cost-effective to wait.

So the differences between RAM are actually really minor... hm I'll have to think more. Honestly, I agree that I will eventually get 8 GB of RAM, but I just want to wait to get it because at this moment RAM prices are high whereas a couple months ago everything cost $20-30 less.

I'm not married to SeaSonic brand. I only picked that one because someone else on the forum recommended it. I like Corsair's cases and memory: I see no reason that their PSU would not last a long time and isn't high-quality. Unless you know otherwise, of course. But a savings of $25 is a good thing because I can sink it into the GPU.
EDIT: So the Corsair is clearly inferior to the SeaSonic, from what I've read. SeaSonic has reputation of very high quality = lasting a long time, whereas Corsair ones can fail after a while. Right now, Corsair is on sale for $38 while SeaSonic is $68. It's hard to justify paying double... but I'm thinking it is worth it.

Wow... if I can't even play Okami, fullspeed with LLE in HD, then it's not worth it. That's why I got interested in Dolphin in the first place!
I can't really afford to be constantly updating the system... that's why I wanted to wait until the architecture changed significantly again.

Like RAM, it seems like SSD prices are high right now and I'm waiting for them to go down. I've used computers with SSDs before and while I love the responsiveness, like RAM, it's not essential to gaming performance. Load times are slightly shorter. As long as I can play games with my SATA II HDDs, everything is good enough until prices go down.

Yeah, liquid cooling is really not necessary and I'm thinking in 4-7 years it will be more mainstream and efficient.

I'm thinking that when the 760 comes out that might make the 660 Ti go down a little in price, putting it in budget.
EDIT: GTX 760 is out, and it's a beast. $250 and it's better than the 600 Ti (putting it better than the 7870 XT as well). The ones I would want (with the factory overclock and the improved cooler) is the MSI Gamer edition with the Twin Frozr cooling or the Gigabyte Windforce edition (which has slightly higher factory overclock). Both are $260. I'm thinking they are worth it... if any card is going to last me 5 years, it'll be that one. Thoughts?

When it comes to graphics cards, I would like to at least try to hit the "recommended requirements", but I am also OK with turning down quality to high or even medium if I can't play on Ultra. I've never actually HAD a high-end PC before, though, so take this with a grain of salt. I've always played all games on low or lowest so far, because I've never even had a computer capable of more than that. When you play games in low all the time, they don't really look how they "should" look. For example, The Secret World is designed to be very atmospheric and moody, but at lowest quality settings it doesn't get that feeling at all.

What are your thoughts on accidental damage extended warranties? Are they ever worth it? I've read some horror stories about motherboards being fried...

Just a heads up it may take me another day or two to get to this post. I've been busy. I apologize for the delay. Here's a quick preview:

turtlefu Wrote:Yeah, liquid cooling is really not necessary and I'm thinking in 4-7 years it will be more mainstream and efficient.

I really doubt that. It was never really mainstream but it was fairly common among enthusiasts a decade ago. Then it mostly died out except for the cheap AIO (all in one) prebuilt systems that are often less effective than similarly priced HSFs (heatsink with fan). They'll never see widespread use in OEM PCs because of the risk of water damage (lets face it most people that use computers are idiots that can't be trusted to take proper care of them) which would jack up the costs of warranty support and part replacement. Over time aftermarket HSFs became cheaper and more effective as their designs improved. Meanwhile cpus became harder and harder to attain large overclocks on. Then the global recession hit and suddenly enthusiasts didn't have the hundreds of dollars needed to buy liquid cooling systems anymore. Combine that with the fact that the extra cpu overclocking potential has now become fairly small and you can see why the market died and lots of companies went under. I suppose it's still possible to see a reversal but I really doubt it as there are no strong indications towards that conclusion.

As far as efficiency is concerned don't hold your breath. Things haven't really improved on that front since....as long as I can remember. Performance per dollar has gone up thanks to cheap AIO designs but the performance of high end systems really hasn't improved at all.

No problem

I think I'm going to go ahead and start cleaning the old pc, taking it apart, making sure everything works, etc.

I thought that maybe I could actually start building by slowly replacing the parts in the old system, like getting the PSU/GPU/Case right away and just sticking it in there with the old motherboard, ram, hdd, and cpu. The CPU will bottleneck the GPU but that will go away once I get the Haswell processor.
Also I noticed a good Newegg combo on an 4670K and an MSI gamer motherboard, that has the same features as the ASRock but a better rating and some other nice features (it apparently has hardware acceleration with other MSI video cards, which is nice because I wanted either the Gigabyte or the MSI GTX 760)
EDIT: Ah, the MSI mobo doesn't support 1333 MHz memory...
I could buy a new 8GB C8 1600 MHz Crucial set, or I could pay $15 more for the ASRock Extreme 6 mobo which supports 1333 MHz, and then pay $38 for a 4GB set, re-using the RAM I have. Seems like the MSI board is still ultimately cheaper ($48 vs. $53).

I also got a $20 off coupon Newegg, which is really nice , and $15 gift card for amazon, where the MSI GTX 760 is cheapest. I'm thinking since the 760 just came out I should wait a little for a sale.

Also, I started reading about RAID, which all the new Z87 motherboards support. Would it be possible for me to put the two SATA II HDDs in RAID for improved performance?

All the sales expire 6/30, so I have to make a decision quickly...
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/turtlefu/saved/1Mml

More to respond to......

turflefu Wrote:The Radeon HD 7750 is the fastest graphics card that doesn't need an auxiliary power input. You can just plug it in to a PCIe-16x slot.
The 650 Ti needs a 6-pin PCIe slot for power.

That statement is correct but why are you comparing a $100 AMD graphics card against a $150 Nvidia graphics card? The 7750 is priced inbetween the GT 640 and GTX 650. The GT 640 is the fastest nvidia card that can run without a direct connection to the psu. And it is indeed slower than the 7750.

Also a PCI-e slot is different from a pci-e power connector. The 650 TI uses a pci-e x16 slot and a 6 pin power connector for power.

turflefu Wrote:I'm talking about adding in a graphics card into the old computer while I wait half a year for prices to go down on the higher-end components.

You'll be waiting a long time then. Intel never cuts cpu prices. The only component that really could go down in price is the graphics card. But over the last couple of years that hasn't really been happening at all. Like cpu manufacturers Nvidia/AMD have started just replacing older cards with newer models at the same price point. Without cutting the prices of the older cards. Instead they just stop manufacturing them. You might see a small price cut for graphics cards around the holidays but that's about it. The next gen. of GPUs is a year away and the next gen. of cpus is 2 years away.

turflefu Wrote:I didn't even realize PSU had PCIe power slots... so the current Allied PSU that I have might not work with the 650 Ti, but I know the motherboard does not have any 6-pin PCIe slots.

Again "a PCI-e slot is different from a pci-e power connector". No motherboard has a 6 pin pci-e slot, they don't exist. And PSUs don't have pci-e slots. Slot sockets are long and thin. Check to see if your psu has a 6 pin or 6+2 pin power connector (or neither).

turflefu Wrote:I wonder if I could OC the Athlon II X4 635 at all? That might be useful if I decide to wait half a year and try to boost some performance in the meantime.

Probably. As long as you have an aftermarket HSF and motherboard.

turflefu Wrote:If I don't add a graphics card to the old computer while I wait, I can still use my laptop, which is decent for low-end games like Torchlight, indie games like Bastion, etc. I have high-end games like Alan Wake but I don't NEED to play them right now, especially if it's more cost-effective to wait.

What are your laptop specs?

turflefu Wrote:So the differences between RAM are actually really minor... hm I'll have to think more. Honestly, I agree that I will eventually get 8 GB of RAM, but I just want to wait to get it because at this moment RAM prices are high whereas a couple months ago everything cost $20-30 less.

RAM prices could go up, stay the same, or go down over the next year. Anyways the difference will be $10-20 at the most. Do you really want to wait a year for that?

turflefu Wrote:I'm not married to SeaSonic brand. I only picked that one because someone else on the forum recommended it. I like Corsair's cases and memory: I see no reason that their PSU would not last a long time and isn't high-quality. Unless you know otherwise, of course. But a savings of $25 is a good thing because I can sink it into the GPU.

Corsair PSUs are generally wonderful.

turflefu Wrote:EDIT: So the Corsair is clearly inferior to the SeaSonic, from what I've read. SeaSonic has reputation of very high quality = lasting a long time, whereas Corsair ones can fail after a while. Right now, Corsair is on sale for $38 while SeaSonic is $68. It's hard to justify paying double... but I'm thinking it is worth it.

Where did you read this? Corsair PSUs have a tremendous reputation with virtually every online hardware community/organization and have rave reviews on every retailer site.

turflefu Wrote:Wow... if I can't even play Okami, fullspeed with LLE in HD, then it's not worth it. That's why I got interested in Dolphin in the first place!

You might be able to. I don't know for sure. Why is okami in particular so important?

turflefu Wrote:I can't really afford to be constantly updating the system... that's why I wanted to wait until the architecture changed significantly again.

Like I said about, you'll be waiting for a long time. CPU performance is what really matters. Broadwell is two years away and isn't expected to make much, if any, gains to singlethreaded performance. Which is what dolphin needs. You have nothing to worry about on that front.

turflefu Wrote:Like RAM, it seems like SSD prices are high right now and I'm waiting for them to go down. I've used computers with SSDs before and while I love the responsiveness, like RAM, it's not essential to gaming performance. Load times are slightly shorter. As long as I can play games with my SATA II HDDs, everything is good enough until prices go down.

I'm not even going to take the time to elaborate on this one. SSDs are crucial in modern PCs. They have become affordable and they're not expected to go down in price dramatically or improve dramatically for a long time. Migrating to an SSD can be a pain so you might as well just get one from the get go. Also I don't know why you think prices are inflated right now considering they haven't gone up over the last year. If you're waiting for them to stop going down you'll be waiting a decade.

turflefu Wrote:I'm thinking that when the 760 comes out that might make the 660 Ti go down a little in price, putting it in budget.

I highly doubt that will happen.

turflefu Wrote:EDIT: GTX 760 is out, and it's a beast. $250 and it's better than the 600 Ti (putting it better than the 7870 XT as well). The ones I would want (with the factory overclock and the improved cooler) is the MSI Gamer edition with the Twin Frozr cooling or the Gigabyte Windforce edition (which has slightly higher factory overclock). Both are $260. I'm thinking they are worth it... if any card is going to last me 5 years, it'll be that one. Thoughts?

Get the Windforce.

turflefu Wrote:When it comes to graphics cards, I would like to at least try to hit the "recommended requirements", but I am also OK with turning down quality to high or even medium if I can't play on Ultra. I've never actually HAD a high-end PC before, though, so take this with a grain of salt. I've always played all games on low or lowest so far, because I've never even had a computer capable of more than that. When you play games in low all the time, they don't really look how they "should" look. For example, The Secret World is designed to be very atmospheric and moody, but at lowest quality settings it doesn't get that feeling at all.

With a 760 there is pretty much nothing that you won't be able to max out at 1080p with 60 fps. This will be quite the transition for you.

turflefu Wrote:What are your thoughts on accidental damage extended warranties? Are they ever worth it? I've read some horror stories about motherboards being fried...

They're usually pretty worthless. Hardware tends to either fail very quickly (in which case it's still covered by the manufacturer warranty) or very slowly (in which case you'll want to upgrade it by then anyways).

turflefu Wrote:I thought that maybe I could actually start building by slowly replacing the parts in the old system, like getting the PSU/GPU/Case right away and just sticking it in there with the old motherboard, ram, hdd, and cpu. The CPU will bottleneck the GPU but that will go away once I get the Haswell processor.

I would advise this if you're on a tight budget, but I wouldn't advise doing it in that order. Hold off on the GPU and get everything else right now. You would be surprised what a Haswell IGP can do.

turflefu Wrote:Also I noticed a good Newegg combo on an 4670K and an MSI gamer motherboard, that has the same features as the ASRock but a better rating and some other nice features

I doubt it has the exact same features. But if it's cheap and well rated it would probably do well.

turflefu Wrote:(it apparently has hardware acceleration with other MSI video cards, which is nice because I wanted either the Gigabyte or the MSI GTX 760)

I think you're searching for a different term. "Hardware acceleration" means using the GPU for rendering. Which any motherboard can do.

turflefu Wrote:EDIT: Ah, the MSI mobo doesn't support 1333 MHz memory...

That's a load of bollocks. I guarantee you it does.

turflefu Wrote:I could buy a new 8GB C8 1600 MHz Crucial set, or I could pay $15 more for the ASRock Extreme 6 mobo which supports 1333 MHz, and then pay $38 for a 4GB set, re-using the RAM I have. Seems like the MSI board is still ultimately cheaper ($48 vs. $53).

See above.

turflefu Wrote:I also got a $20 off coupon Newegg, which is really nice Smile, and $15 gift card for amazon, where the MSI GTX 760 is cheapest. I'm thinking since the 760 just came out I should wait a little for a sale.

A sale immediately after its release? At this time of the year? I really doubt that.

turflefu Wrote:All the sales expire 6/30, so I have to make a decision quickly...

Which sales?

I would advise adding an SSD to your parts list and holding off on the graphics card until the holidays. Or getting a cheaper card to hold you over until then.

Edit: Something for you to look at: http://anandtech.com/show/6989/intel-z87-motherboard-review-with-haswell-gigabyte-msi-asrock-and-asus-at-200/24

Haha, I know, buddy! Hey, I'm not forcing you to answer these questions!

RE: PCI-E slot and PCI-E power, proving how little I actually know about all this!

Laptop specs are a couple pages back... found it!
CPU: APU A8-3500M 1.5 GHz
GPU: Radeon HD 6750M (Dual Graphics Set-Up)
HDD: 640GB, probably 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s or maybe SATA 6 Gb/s
RAM: 6 GB total, DDR3-1600
Screen: 1366x768

Corsair PSUs are cheaper than the SeaSonic, so I guess I'll go with them. Saves me about $15, eh. (I only thought Corsairs were bad because somebody said on TomsHardware forums that they tend to fail early)

Shoot, waited too long and the MSI Z87-GD45 is sold out. Next best is the ASRock Extreme6 for $135 after combo discount, $5 less than Extreme4. I honestly can't tell the difference between them anyways.

Oops, wrong terminology. It's a "VGA Boost" with an MSI Motherboard/Graphics combo. It just means that the similar hardware designs makes the graphics card easier to overclock, I guess. Either way, the Windforce looks to be every so slightly quieter and cooler, so at the same price I guess it's best.

If CPU prices won't change and graphics won't go on sale until holidays, that might be difficult... Haswell integrated graphics can't play most games. Even my laptop has better GPU (see above). But I'll consider it. I DO have $15 in Amazon gift cards, which puts the Video Card at $245.

As for SSD, the OS is already on the HDD anyways... but if prices won't change I'll have to look into just doing it anyways. Is it really that hard to transfer the OS?

My 20% off coupon, as well as a couple sales on the PSU/Case ends 6/30 on Newegg.

Okay, taking advantage of combos, here is the new build, gets just above budget w/ my coupon. Need to find $85/90 to make room for a 120/128GB SSD, then...

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/turtlefu/saved/1Mml
Puts me at $807 w/ coupon, not enough money for even a $50 60GB SSD... (REALLY trying to stay under budget!)

I want to take your advice but I am very skeptical of the Haswell's integrated graphics, and I don't really want to buy a cheap one (maybe the HD 7770?) only to spend more around Holiday time... hm, what to do!?

EDIT: Okami is my favorite game of all time, because of it's beauty and amazing art design. Playing it in true HD has always been a dream. If it can't even play Okami, do I even need such a powerful system? Would I be happy with a cheaper, less powerful one? Will a more expensive system even last as long as I want it to? Am I even capable of building a computer? All these questions are making me doubt spending all this money... Since I would need a graphics card to add to Haswell while I wait for the holidays, I think I am going to go ahead and get a cheaper one that I can add to the old PC, and then gradually add the newer parts in, eventually ending with the video card if it goes on sale during the holidays. According to the Dolphin requirements, a GTX 650 Ti should be enough for HD gaming anyways. I may not even need a GTX 760...

turtlefu Wrote:Shoot, waited too long and the MSI Z87-GD45 is sold out. Next best is the ASRock Extreme6 for $135 after combo discount, $5 less than Extreme4. I honestly can't tell the difference between them anyways.

http://www.asrock.com/microsite/intel8/

Scroll down to the comparison chart at the bottom.

turtlefu Wrote:Oops, wrong terminology. It's a "VGA Boost" with an MSI Motherboard/Graphics combo. It just means that the similar hardware designs makes the graphics card easier to overclock, I guess.

Yeah that's a load of marketing horseshit. The only connection a graphics card has to the motherboard is pci-e. And that's used only for data transfers between video ram and main memory on higher end cards.

turtlefu Wrote:Haswell integrated graphics can't play most games. Even my laptop has better GPU (see above). But I'll consider it.

While your laptop does indeed have a faster GPU I think you underestimate haswells IGP performance.

turtlefu Wrote:As for SSD, the OS is already on the HDD anyways... but if prices won't change I'll have to look into just doing it anyways.

Oh. I thought that you were doing this completely from scratch. I didn't realize you already had the current desktop set up.

turtlefu Wrote:Is it really that hard to transfer the OS?

To avoid a long and tedious explanation of various factors: "It depends"

turtlefu Wrote:Okay, taking advantage of combos, here is the new build, gets just above budget w/ my coupon. Need to find $85/90 to make room for a 120/128GB SSD, then...

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/turtlefu/saved/1Mml
Puts me at $807 w/ coupon, not enough money for even a $50 60GB SSD... (REALLY trying to stay under budget!)

Get the Corsair 400R, not the 500R. Get the cheaper corsair PSU I linked earlier.

You may also considering getting a cheap LGA 1150 motherboard and a i5 4670 instead of 4670K. Haswell has trouble overclocking past 4.2/4.3 GHz so you won't be missing out on that much performance (13-15%). That would allow you to throw a cheap $90 SSD in there. You also wouldn't be able to use SLI but you haven't expressed any interest in it anyways.

If it were me I would prefer to get a cheap graphics card instead and wait to upgrade that down the road.

Or you could bump your build up to $1,000.....

Most gaming PCs cost around $1,000 without peripherals and around $1,300 with peripherals (keyboard, monitor, mouse, webcam, etc.). That's considered the "sweet spot" and it's been that way for 15 years now.

turtlefu Wrote:I want to take your advice but I am very skeptical of the Haswell's integrated graphics, and I don't really want to buy a cheap one (maybe the HD 7770?) only to spend more around Holiday time... hm, what to do!?

Which is more important to you, PC games or emulation?

How important are graphics to you?

turtlefu Wrote:If it can't even play Okami, do I even need such a powerful system?

Yes. Also don't ever ask this question in a forum full of computer enthusiasts and expect to get any other answer.

turtlefu Wrote:Would I be happy with a cheaper, less powerful one?

I don't know. I'm not even sure what you plan to do with it.

turtlefu Wrote:Will a more expensive system even last as long as I want it to?

It depends what you mean by "last".

turtlefu Wrote:Am I even capable of building a computer?

Do you have a functioning frontal lobe? Do you recognize basic shapes and patterns? What kind of a question is that?

Building a computer can be summed up as: "Put thing where thing fits". It's no different than building a lego kit or a piece of furniture from ikea. Except that certain parts don't work together so you have to pick the right parts.

turtlefu Wrote:All these questions are making me doubt spending all this money... Since I would need a graphics card to add to Haswell while I wait for the holidays, I think I am going to go ahead and get a cheaper one that I can add to the old PC, and then gradually add the newer parts in, eventually ending with the video card if it goes on sale during the holidays. According to the Dolphin requirements, a GTX 650 Ti should be enough for HD gaming anyways. I may not even need a GTX 760...

Get a 650 TI and wait until next spring/summer for maxwell. What screen resolution is your monitor?