Ah, my bad I buy my stuff from newegg and that is where I got my pricing 960 is $200 while the r9 285 is $200 as well. If you could get an hd 7950 probably has to be used now for the same price range I would go with that instead. As I said that 128 bit bus would no doubt have some sort of impact on how much AA and higher resolution you can do. I will look around and see if someone is using a 960 for dolphin and if that impacts then on what they can do.
*edit After researching the 960 should be fine and it would be a good pair with the pentium cpu. With an oc on that cpu around 4+ghz which you should be able to do at stock volts you will have a great machine for running dolphin. I believe you should be all set and shouldn't worry about much. I am sure you aren't planning on making a 4k gaming machine so at 1080p and probably in 1440p for dolphin you should be fine.
Just a couple of points:
The G3258 is probably fine with major overclocks with just the stock cooler (i.e. the one it comes with). It's the same cooler as comes with Intel's top-tier CPUs, which have much higher TDPs than the G3258. It takes a pretty large OC on an unlucky chip to take the heat output of the G3258 above the 90W the cooler is rated for.
Bus width isn't directly proportional to performance - the whole point of nVidia's Maxwell architecture is to use things like busses intelligently so as to make do with narrow ones in order to reduce power consumption by reducing component counts. Don't dismiss a GPU because it's got a narrow memory bus. Instead, look at benchmarks - if a GPU beats another in a wide range of games, it's faster.
No one dismissed the 960 entirely I said the 960 would be fine :/ from what I read people said they pushed the pentium to 4.2 but that was the maximum they could get with the stock cooler without overheating. Getting a better cooler to overclock wouldn't hurt, he is putting the computer in a smaller case so the airflow won't be that great people who got high clocks with the stock cooler also had bigger and well ventilated systems.
(03-31-2015, 07:01 AM)AnyOldName3 Wrote: [ -> ]Just a couple of points:
The G3258 is probably fine with major overclocks with just the stock cooler (i.e. the one it comes with). It's the same cooler as comes with Intel's top-tier CPUs, which have much higher TDPs than the G3258. It takes a pretty large OC on an unlucky chip to take the heat output of the G3258 above the 90W the cooler is rated for.
Bus width isn't directly proportional to performance - the whole point of nVidia's Maxwell architecture is to use things like busses intelligently so as to make do with narrow ones in order to reduce power consumption by reducing component counts. Don't dismiss a GPU because it's got a narrow memory bus. Instead, look at benchmarks - if a GPU beats another in a wide range of games, it's faster.
I was doing a bit of research on the G3258 and saw the same as what you're saying-- I used to OC pentium II's back in the day and while they ran fast, I would often experience glitches (game/OS/etc) that I was never able to quite figure out. I ultimately blamed it on the cpu overheating so a little extra cash to protect my investment is fine by me. I even picked up some Arctic Silver
The GPU reviews are hard for me to even read anymore. Around the same time I was overclocking pentium II's I used to lurk at Tom's or Anand's and analyze every gpu option ever while finding ever more ways to spend 'just another $20' on a slightly better card.
I started to do that with the processor so i'm happy as hell I can get by with a $50 cpu. I figure with the mobo choice I can upgrade to something beefy if I take a bigger interest in pc-gaming.
If I was going to build a pure gaming PC, i'd no doubt obsess and find a reason to buy a crazy vid card (and a parts list that closer to 'in your dreams' wishlist topping out at 4-5k dollars)... but I've got to imagine there's a ceiling to how much of the GPU Dolphin can use before you get to the point where they all perform the same and that's why i turned to the forum for help.
Thanks to everyone who chimed in and helped out with this. All the parts will be here Wednesday and i'll probably start building that night. Only thing arriving later is the Arctic Silver and Zalman cpu fan... so no overclocking until maybe next week. Plus I got 5% cashback on everything thanks to the ole credit card.
Should I bother with a build thread?
Congrats on buying the parts and keep posting here I wouldn't mind seeing that machine being set up. Besides if you have another other questions when the rig is set up I am sure people on here are more than happy to help. So far if there is a ceiling on dolphin being able to use the gpu I haven't hit it because when you start to go above an IR of 4k with SSAA my gpu takes a hit and the game comes crashing down to a crawl.
(03-31-2015, 07:17 AM)darkberry Wrote: [ -> ]No one dismissed the 960 entirely I said the 960 would be fine :/ from what I read people said they pushed the pentium to 4.2 but that was the maximum they could get with the stock cooler without overheating. Getting a better cooler to overclock wouldn't hurt, he is putting the computer in a smaller case so the airflow won't be that great people who got high clocks with the stock cooler also had bigger and well ventilated systems.
Although i'm seeing what you mean now about that memory bus.... damnit.
Here's everything I ordered. I'm going to return the 960 and instead go for the slightly cheaper Sapphire R9 280. Should I be ok with the 500W PSU?
PCPartPicker part list:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/mDFMgs
CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($64.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS9500 AT Ball Bearing CPU Cooler ($37.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($138.99 @ NCIX US)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($59.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Sandisk Ultra Plus 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($116.95 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 280 3GB Dual-X Video Card ($172.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Silverstone GD09B HTPC Case ($73.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($37.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $703.87
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-30 23:56 EDT-0400
Don't do Pentium. The bad things outweigh the cheapness.
1. Pentiums notoriously run VERY hot. You would require extra cooling that you might not on an i5 or something
2. They will be obsolete and unable to run any emulators for last-gen consoles (PS3, XBOX360) in the next few years.
3. Pentium is a funny name
I'm sure we told you this last time you posted that crap somewhere, but a modern Haswell Pentium runs a buttload cooler than a Haswell i-series chip. The G3258 has a 53W TDP, whereas a 4690K's is 88W - much higher. Just because in the Pentium 4 era Pentiums were the high-power parts it doesn't mean they are these days, over a decade later.
Any modern CPU is highly unlikely to be able to run PS3/XBox 360 emulators at decent speeds once they're complete enough to play more than a couple of games right through, not just a Pentium. It's a bad idea to look this far into the future when choosing parts anyway, as something much better will be much cheaper by then.
20 years ago, Pentium was chosen by Intel's best marketing people as a good name. It's now an older brand, so is less exciting, but that doesn't mean the performance will be any worse.
Most G3258's testers can oc it to 4.6GHz without extra cooling ....