8GB of RAM may be a wise investment on that computer
I'll be running Windows 7 32-bit on that computer, so 4 GB is the max it can recognize unfortunately.
The GPU you've got there costs the same as the MSI R9 285 from Scan that I linked, yet is only about 60% as powerful. If you want to save money, by all means go for a less powerful card, but don't spend the same amount to do it - If you're spending more than about £90 on a R7 265, you're being ripped off. If you're worried about Scan (you may not have heard of it - not everyone has, and it's usually a good idea not to buy expensive stuff from random sites) I can assure you it's very reliable, in fact, I've bought almost every computer part I've ever bought from there (they've been around about a decade longer than I've been alive) and have never had an issue that was their fault (once I preordered a part that had just gone out of stock, and they kept pushing back the ETA, but every other store had matching dates, and in the end it turned out it had been discontinued, but the manufacturer hadn't told anyone, and another time we had an SSD die and they replaced it immediately). They're also usually much, much cheaper than Amazon for a lot of parts, and if you can drive to Bolton you can pick your order up or complain about stuff in person for an instant replacement.
You also probably don't need to splurge on 2400MHz RAM - you'll see better performance on 2 2GB 1600MHz sticks than one 2400MHz one as DDRx can be accessed from two DIMMs in parallel but very few applications see an increase in performance from a straight frequency increase unless you're using an integrated GPU. I'd either get this from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CML4GX3M2A1600C9-Vengeance-Profile-Performance/dp/B0056J1GTO/ref=sr_1_13?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1431043907&sr=1-13 or this from Scan:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-(2x2gb)-corsair-ddr3-xms3-pc3-12800-(1600)-non-ecc-unbuffered-cas-9-9-9-24-xmp-165v or this if the other isn't in stock:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-(2x2gb)-corsair-ddr3-xms3-classic-pc3-12800-(1600)-non-ecc-unbuffered-cas-9-9-9-24-150v
The CPU, motherboard and cooler are all fine (in fact, my brother has the exact same board), and they're reasonably priced too.
don't run a 32bit os on a dolphin computer, you'll be unhappy because they don't support 32bit which means you'll be stuck using old builds. if you don't want to pay for a better os then just use ubuntu, which is a user-friendly linux distrobution and is the most common, so support is in abundance (and has suggestions that aren't "turn it off and back on")
(05-08-2015, 10:10 AM)Amon1995 Wrote: [ -> ]I'll be running Windows 7 32-bit on that computer, so 4 GB is the max it can recognize unfortunately.
There are literally only disadvantages to using 32-bit Windows if you've got more than 2GB of RAM. 64-bit is faster, supports more things, is more future proof, can be activated with the same licence key and means you'll actually be able to do the one thing you came here for - run Dolphin (we don't have 32-bit builds any more because the Wii/GC did a lot of 48 and 64 bit maths, and 32-bit PC CPUs don't have enough registers, and 32-bit was always breaking anyway - it was a poor investment of time to maintain it rather than actually fix emulation bugs and make Dolphin faster).
Okay I will definitely try that scan website, this is the first time I've heard of them. I'll get that GPU you mentioned, it looks pretty good. When I first saw it, I thought it was only a slight increase from the R7 haha, I never knew it was a huge difference.
About the OS... I bought Windows 7 32-bit a few years back and I'm still using it on my current computer right now, my initial plan was just to use this again on the Dolphin PC I'm going to build, but now I've realized Dolphin is better on 64-bit, meaning I'll have to spend more money on buying the 64-bit OS
With this in mind, I may as well go for 8 GB RAM now, considering the fact that I'm now going for the 64-bit system. Would I be better off using 8 GB with two 4 GB RAM sticks? Similar to the way you said two 2 GBs is better than one 4 GB on it's own?
By the way, about the OS, when you said 64-bit can be activated with the same license key, did you mean the same license key I used to activate my 32-bit system? (Sorry if this is a dumb question lol) But if that's the case, that will save me a lot of money because all I will need is the Windows 64-bit disc.
Yes, you can use your 32-bit key for 64-bit
Yeah, that RAM is fine, and that's a reasonable price for it, too.