You could probably get a Z77 mobo and an i-2500K on the cheap nowadays and with a decent overclock you can play most titles at full speed (thats what I have). If you can find a newer processor for the same price go for it just make sure it is a K series so you can overclock and I would stay away from AMD processors. Since that power supply can run your 770 without issue you may be able to get away with using it in the upgraded rig.
Correction: at newegg the Haswells are only $20 more than the Ivys so go with something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116899
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130695
As long as your RAM isnt ancient it should work with the new mobo above. total cost (ish) $350 for a kick ass system. You, of course, need to do the homework to ensure all your parts are compatible, etc but I wanted to give a little insight.
(11-07-2013, 02:35 AM)haddockd Wrote: [ -> ]You could probably get a Z77 mobo and an i-2500K on the cheap nowadays and with a decent overclock you can play most titles at full speed (thats what I have). If you can find a newer processor for the same price go for it just make sure it is a K series so you can overclock and I would stay away from AMD processors. Since that power supply can run your 770 without issue you may be able to get away with using it in the upgraded rig.
Correction: at newegg the Haswells are only $20 more than the Ivys so go with something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116899
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130695
As long as your RAM isnt ancient it should work with the new mobo above. total cost (ish) $350 for a kick ass system. You, of course, need to do the homework to ensure all your parts are compatible, etc but I wanted to give a little insight.
As I was saying, if I do a build, I'm going to go pretty serious with it, since I already went ahead and bought a high-end GPU, which was more than the tower before the rebate (lucky for me it went down 70$ right before I bought it!)
I seem to recall him saying the RAM is proprietary or special to the computer in some way, but I'm not 100% on it, and it seemed strange to me...
Thanks though!
If anyone has a good, easy to understand/basic guide for these types of things, I'd absolutely LOVE to have it. I don't know how to check compatibility of computer hardware basically at all lol...
The last computer I opened before this didn't even have PCI slots.
Check the ram to see if it's DDR2 or DDR3. If it's DDR3 you can reuse it. If it's DDR2 you'll need to buy DDR3 ram.
Haddockds recommendations are high end parts and I would stick with them. A 4670K is currently the ideal cpu for dolphin and PC gaming. You just need to pair it with a good Z87 motherboard and you're set. The other things you need to worry about are ram (mentioned above) and the PSU. What are your PSU specs (open it up and take a picture of the label on it if you're not sure)?
(11-07-2013, 03:22 AM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]Check the ram to see if it's DDR2 or DDR3. If it's DDR3 you can reuse it. If it's DDR2 you'll need to buy DDR3 ram.
Haddockds recommendations are high end parts and I would stick with them. A 4670K is currently the ideal cpu for dolphin and PC gaming. You just need to pair it with a good Z87 motherboard and you're set. The other things you need to worry about are ram (mentioned above) and the PSU. What are your PSU specs (open it up and take a picture of the label on it if you're not sure)?
800 watts, don't know volts or amps or any of that. I can try to snap a pic when I get home.
So it's really not worth it to get a higher processor then? I take your post to mean that if I wanted to run things like higher res, internal res, anti-aliasing, and all that fancy stuff/enhancements, it's going to tax my more-than-capable GPU, and actual game speed is all CPU based then?
While I'm here, how do you guess my rig currently fares for the Wii side of Dolphin? Is it still set up as single-processor dependent? I have yet to try it myself. Should the same situation be expected? If I can get that running, or build a rig that accommodates that side as well, my fiance would be immensely satisfied, as most of the games she shows interest in are for the Wii. She's a bit of a casual...
(11-07-2013, 04:02 AM)supraman97 Wrote: [ -> ]While I'm here, how do you guess my rig currently fares for the Wii side of Dolphin? Should the same situation be expected?
Wii games should be similar, but wii controls can be weird without an actuall wiimote
supraman97 Wrote:800 watts, don't know volts or amps or any of that. I can try to snap a pic when I get home.
Yes please do that. The wattage tells you surprisingly little about the quality of the unit.
supraman97 Wrote:So it's really not worth it to get a higher processor then? I take your post to mean that if I wanted to run things like higher res, internal res, anti-aliasing, and all that fancy stuff/enhancements, it's going to tax my more-than-capable GPU, and actual game speed is all CPU based then?
Yes and yes.
supraman97 Wrote:While I'm here, how do you guess my rig currently fares for the Wii side of Dolphin? Is it still set up as single-processor dependent? I have yet to try it myself. Should the same situation be expected? If I can get that running, or build a rig that accommodates that side as well, my fiance would be immensely satisfied, as most of the games she shows interest in are for the Wii. She's a bit of a casual...
This is GC/Wii emulation community. We're all filthy casuals
It's the same emulator so it requires the same types of resources. Wii games tend to be a bit more demanding than GC games on average since the Wii hardware is faster than a GC.
(11-07-2013, 06:20 AM)NaturalViolence Wrote: [ -> ]supraman97 Wrote:800 watts, don't know volts or amps or any of that. I can try to snap a pic when I get home.
Yes please do that. The wattage tells you surprisingly little about the quality of the unit.
supraman97 Wrote:So it's really not worth it to get a higher processor then? I take your post to mean that if I wanted to run things like higher res, internal res, anti-aliasing, and all that fancy stuff/enhancements, it's going to tax my more-than-capable GPU, and actual game speed is all CPU based then?
Yes and yes.
supraman97 Wrote:While I'm here, how do you guess my rig currently fares for the Wii side of Dolphin? Is it still set up as single-processor dependent? I have yet to try it myself. Should the same situation be expected? If I can get that running, or build a rig that accommodates that side as well, my fiance would be immensely satisfied, as most of the games she shows interest in are for the Wii. She's a bit of a casual...
This is GC/Wii emulation community. We're all filthy casuals
It's the same emulator so it requires the same types of resources. Wii games tend to be a bit more demanding than GC games on average since the Wii hardware is faster than a GC.
sorry, took the pictures, forgot to upload them yesterday...
I have the specs, but also, I've never messed with PSU's before, so I don't know if this is normal or not, but there's just one MASSIVE plug on the end of this, which goes to a few harnesses for what I figured out installing my card were PCI power ports, some power for the HDD's and DVD drive, power for the board, and some other things... I was worried that I would have to somehow add another power harness for my card! It came with a 2-1 adapter which went to the card, which I used at first, and the card told me to plug in the PCIe power... I don't know how wreckless or stupid this is, so you really get a sense of how little I know now; I have it with 1 PCIe power cord into that adapter, and one in the normal matching slot on the card, (Because I heard it needed two, and there was that little 2-1 adapter included), which made it boot. I figured if it accepted that, and booted, it would run properly, and I'm running new games just fine, with the software reporting that it has used 100% at least one time.... So hopefully that was the right thing to do... I was also surprised at how big the card was! I had to take a few pieces out of my case, which I had already thought was pretty big itself!
Anyway, picture time.
My pictures were too big, but it turns out after almost 10 years, photobucket (and my account) still exists, so.....
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k208/wolfshadoson/20131106_150429_zps45bc7300.jpg
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k208/wolfshadoson/20131106_150604_zps31dae61d.jpg
Stranger than fiction. I'd go ahead and put that power supply on the list as well. That's not gonna cut it for a Haswell rig.
(11-08-2013, 03:28 AM)cosmoruski Wrote: [ -> ]Never seen such a plug before - don't think that this is official ATX specification, maybe some crazy dell invention?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATX
(11-08-2013, 03:58 AM)rokclimb15 Wrote: [ -> ]Stranger than fiction. I'd go ahead and put that power supply on the list as well. That's not gonna cut it for a Haswell rig.
There's not even a wiring diagram of any kind, so I was afraid I was extra-screwed if I needed that other plug! lucky I got it to work I guess lol. All the wires are packed in that sucker TIGHT too. There are no other plugs but one that matches the plug I just pulled out of it too... the fact that they're all bundled together, and the very precise length of all of them made it quite a challenge to pull the power supply when I was checking for an additional PCI power cord... or how to add one... I'm assuming that it's meant to be much easier to add/wire in these types of cords for standard power supplies? (Which this apparantly is not) I saw a video from newegg where they were benchmarking 4 Titans in SLI, and the power supply they were using just had slots on slots for the 6-pin harnesses....
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k208/wolfshadoson/20131106_150623_zps64b6c553.jpg
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k208/wolfshadoson/20131106_150616_zpsed359263.jpg
What's special about a "Haswell" anyway? Is it a hardware family, architecture, or reference to manufacturing plant or something? I've gathered the "k" on (newer at least) intel's mean that they support overclocking....
I still have to poke around this area with the hard drive cradle and a few fan housings to check the RAM... Hopefully it doesn't require anymore actual dis-assembly.. As I said, I already removed a few case components that were attached to that cradle in that general area...(an arm for holding wires in place and securing the cradle from movement, card was too tall to close case with it on)
While I'm at it, here's a picture of a sticker I found on the tower itself, for whatever this information means to anyone...
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k208/wolfshadoson/66e88d85-6bb9-4b08-963e-1a2b165d6f7c_zpsb6067e8e.jpg