Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

I'm building a PC that will only be used for emulators. I'm on a budget of around $400 for everything (I can go a little over if necessary). This build was recommended:

Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor
MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
MSI Radeon R7 360 2GB Video Card
Mushkin ECO2 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Full build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/mW2F23

When I requested the build I only mentioned emulating up to the GameCube. Afterward I saw a video of how well Dolphin can run Wii games. I'd like to know how capable this build would be at running games like Skyward Sword and Super Mario Galaxy on a 60" 1080p TV. How high of a resolution can I go without slowdown if I overclock? I saw a video of Skyward Sword running at 4x IR and it looked gorgeous. I'd like to get that level of performance if possible. I'm also open to any other suggested parts.

You must overclock G3258 to the max if you wish to run those games full speed at 4xIR
4.4GHz -> 4.6GHz . Keep Vcore lower than 1.35V if you want a stable OC
Don't cheap out on mobo . Asrock Z97 Anniversary micro ATX isn't expensive

Try and get dual-channel RAM. It does helps. Also, if you ever want to do a texture pack, with prefetching of the textures, get 8GB of RAM.

I can bump up to the Z97 Anniversary and some more RAM. Thanks for the help.

I read that it's kind of a "lottery" whether or not I'll get a G3258 that's capable of the overclock I need. What CPU would be equivalent to an overclocked G3258? I'd rather spend more and buy something guaranteed to work.

A heavily overclocked G3258 is a beast when it comes to single and double threaded performance (which Dolphin relies on). To beat it you would have to have an overclocked i5 (4690K for example) or an i7, both of which would cost nearly thee times what the Pentium goes for. What comes to "the silicon lottery", it doesn't really apply to the G3258 as the chips generally all have fairly good potential to achieve overclocks around the 4.5Ghz mark. What you should worry more about is getting a decent mobo that can support a stable overclock and doesn't break under raised voltages (I'm looking at you Asrock budget boards).

The G3258 is still Haswell-based, so the VRMs are on the CPU package, so it shouldn't matter what motherboard it's paired with. As for the silicon lottery, the vast majority of G3258s seem to be able to get high overclocks, but a small number can't. I get the impression that it's probably worth the risk. If you want to be sure, buy a few tens of millions of weaker Haswell Pentiums, so only the absolute best get binned as G3258s.