Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

If you have some cash to drop, look at Xoticpc.com. They ship internationally, and have a ton of brands to choose from

(11-06-2013, 03:33 AM)

Shonumi Wrote: [ -> ][quote=]
I ran the benchmarks on cpubenchmark.net and the 6350 has a higher score than the 2500k, similar to the 3570. I heard the sites pretty reliable.. Sounds like I have much to learn with regards to system setups though... unlocked what? lol

Other CPU benchmarks mean nothing. When it comes to Dolphin performance, the only benchmarks that count are the ones that use Dolphin. See the [url=https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-the-legend-of-zelda-the-wind-waker-cpu-benchmark' Wrote: [ -> ]Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker CPU Benchmark[/url]. Dolphin relies greatly on single-threaded performance. Currently, Intel's latest 3 hardware generations products excel at this type of work load, but the same cannot be said for AMD's offerings. You can see the results for yourself; an AMD FX 8350 @ 4.52GHz loses to my i5-2500K (no overclocking, stock clocks @3.3GHz) in all but the last save (and even then, it only performs better by 2 FPS). A 100MHz overclock would is enough to surpass the FX 8350 @ 4.52GHz. That's the performance difference we're talking about here.

Intel "locks" their multipliers, which ordinarily prevents overclocking (in Haswell, iirc, it definitely prevents any substantial form of overclocking). Models that end in "K" or "XM" typically have unlocked multipliers, so you can overclock them quite high. Some games (Super Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 with LLE audio for proper sound, The Last Story, Metroid Prime 1-3) need overclocking to reach fullspeed consistently in Dolphin. Since you want to play SMG2, you'll have to deal with LLE audio for proper sound emulation (HLE audio drops music every now and then) which makes this game very CPU intensive. If you're going to get a computer for this game in Dolphin, it's highly recommended that you get a Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, or Haswell CPU capable of overclocking. An i5-2500K or i5-3570K will do the job, but know that with Dolphin, Haswell performs somewhere between 20~30% better than Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge, with almost no increase in price differences (at least by MSRP), thus an i5-4670K is the ideal CPU for Dolphin.

Also, if you're in the UK, I here Scan.co.uk is pretty good. Look for some deals there.

Great advice, thanks. Even the cpu benchmark for 4670 is significantly higher, makes me wonder why the price is at least the same, if not lower. I'll likely get a second hand rig off ebay as theres potentially some very good deals vs. building my own, I'll just have to wait for the right one. I'll be watching out for any mobo limitations from now on too.

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(11-06-2013, 02:32 AM)KHg8m3r Wrote: [ -> ]Found this on NewEgg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229478


Intel Core i5 4670K(3.40GHz)
8GB DDR3
500GB HDD Capacity
Windows 8 64-bit
AMD Radeon HD 7750 2 GB

$619.99

Ah so on further inspection the motherboard is a b85 which apparently wont allow unlocking. BIOS updates were released by Asus a few months ago but intel were arsey and said they intend blocked them - however I can't seem to find whether or not they actually went through with it. so the overclocking potential will likely be lost. Even so it's still a great price..

Quote:... unlocked what? lol

Unlocked multiplier = Ok for overclocking
Locked multiplier = Nope

Unlocked CPU : i5 2500k , i5 3570k , i5 4670k ....
Locked CPU : i5 2500 , i5 3570 , i5 4570 ...
Unlocked mobo : P67 , Z68 , Z75 , Z77 ,Z87...
Locked mobo : H61 , H67 , H77 , B75 , H81 , H87 , B84...

Quote:cpubenchmark.net

is garbage
When it comes to benchmark . You must check :
_Single Threaded Performance (1 task / basically 1 core performance)
_Multi Threaded Performance ( multitasking / all cores performance)
_Power Consumption
_Overclocking Capability
If you're lazy , you can use CPUboss.com or google "i5 2500k vs fx 6350"

FX 6350 OC Capability isn't as good as FX 6300 (You should google this) . It will lose to i5 2500k since i5 2500k can be overclocked to 5.0GHz

To simplify it:

Any cpu with a K at the end of the model number is unlocked. Any motherboard with a P or Z at the beginning of the chipset name is unlocked. You need both in order to overclock.