Hello,
I am beginning to put together a budget build for an all in one Emulation Station. My goal is to get it to play NES-Gamecube (or even Wii). The biggest thing I don't know, however, is what processor to look at. I usually stick with AMD, but have read that Intel is the better choice when it comes to running Dolphin and PCSX2. I am trying to keep my build around $300, and have been looking at either the Intel G3258 or the i3-4170. I know that I can overclock the G3258 and not the 4170, but how important is that to running Dolphin? Do I need a processor that I can overclock to 4.0ghz and up? Will the 3258 simply fry itself after running overclocked? I am new to overclocking processors and am really flying blind here. I have seen videos of people using both processors, so I wasn't able to really tell if one was a solidly better choice than the other. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Joe
Regarding Dolphin, a Pentium G3258 with OC can beat the performance of even an i7-4770K. And the good thing is that G3258 barely heats up, mine for example is running at 4.2GHz with stock cooler (and I probably could push it a little more)...
(02-23-2016, 01:28 AM)Jhonn Wrote: [ -> ]Regarding Dolphin, a Pentium G3258 with OC can beat the performance of even an i7-4770K. And the good thing is that G3258 barely heats up, mine for example is running at 4.2GHz with stock cooler (and I probably could push it a little more)...
So then the G3258 would be able to also emulate Wii games as well? If so that would be fantastic since it is a good amount cheaper then the i3.
Also, do I need a certain motherboard to OC the G3258? I was looking at getting this board for it, will it work?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6813130731
Quote:Will the 3258 simply fry itself after running overclocked?
Yes ,it will if you set Vcore higher than 1.35V
Do not trust auto-OC feature on Bios ! Usually , you should be safe at 4.2GHz and 1.3V (probably lower than that) . The lower Vcore you set , the safer you overclock
If you hit bluescreen on boot , that means your Vcore is not enough to feed the CPU , try to increase it little by little (for example , 1.25V->1.26V)
Keep your Vcore under 1.35V , your CPU probably will last a decade or two
G3258 has base clock of 100MHz . So you only have to set multiplier/ CPU ratio = 42 (100x42 = 4200MHz = 4.2GHz). Do not touch the base clock !
I recommend Asrock Z97 Anniversary as mobo for overclocking . Try to avoid H81 , B85 or H97 chipset because you may have compatibility issues with Windows 10 (unable to boot unless you stop overclocking and set everything back to default)
Quote:I know that I can overclock the G3258 and not the 4170, but how important is that to running Dolphin?
Both chip are Haswell but Dolphin is a dual core application . So G3258 is a much better value
Btw, Intel graphic is terrible due to bad driver . Make sure you op for sth like EVGA GTX 750
(02-23-2016, 02:30 AM)admin89 Wrote: [ -> ]Yes ,it will if you set Vcore higher than 1.35V
Do not trust auto-OC feature on Bios ! Usually , you should be safe at 4.2GHz and 1.3V (probably lower than that) . The lower Vcore you set , the safer you overclock
If you hit bluescreen on boot , that means your Vcore is not enough to feed the CPU , try to increase it little by little (for example , 1.25V->1.26V)
Keep your Vcore under 1.35V , your CPU probably will last a decade or two
G3258 has base clock of 100MHz . So you only have to set multiplier/ CPU ratio = 42 (100x42 = 4200MHz = 4.2GHz). Do not touch the base clock !
I recommend Asrock Z97 Anniversary as mobo for overclocking . Try to avoid H81 , B85 or H97 chipset because you may have compatibility issues with Windows 10 (unable to boot unless you stop overclocking and set everything back to default)
Both chip are Haswell but Dolphin is a dual core application . So G3258 is a much better value
Btw, Intel graphic is terrible due to bad driver . Make sure you op for sth like EVGA GTX 750
Any slightly more budget friendly motherboards for this if I run Linux instead of Windows?
As far as the video card I was thinking about getting an R7 240 like this guy since the Dolphin FAQ said that an AMD card should work fine and I have seen some videos with people running this card.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6814125516
(02-23-2016, 02:22 AM)Spectre216 Wrote: [ -> ]So then the G3258 would be able to also emulate Wii games as well? If so that would be fantastic since it is a good amount cheaper then the i3.
Just wanted to say that Wii games are not inherently more intensive to emulate than GC games -- it really depends on the game.
(02-23-2016, 02:22 AM)Spectre216 Wrote: [ -> ]Also, do I need a certain motherboard to OC the G3258? I was looking at getting this board for it, will it work?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6813130731
With Linux, any motherboard that can overclock the G3258 is fine. You don't necessarily need a Z97. I have a H81M-P33 and it works fine, since I don't use Windows 10 at all.
GTX 750 or 750 Ti has a much better performance than the R7 240.
EDIT: oh, and the most important thing: since you plan to use Linux,
avoid AMD GPUs at any cost. I originally had a R7 260X and the proprietary driver was very buggy and caused crashes.
(02-23-2016, 02:58 AM)leolam Wrote: [ -> ]Just wanted to say that Wii games are not inherently more intensive to emulate than GC games -- it really depends on the game.
With Linux, any motherboard that can overclock the G3258 is fine. You don't necessarily need a Z97. I have a H81M-P33 and it works fine, since I don't use Windows 10 at all.
GTX 750 or 750 Ti has a much better performance than the R7 240.
EDIT: oh, and the most important thing: since you plan to use Linux, avoid AMD GPUs at any cost. I originally had a R7 260X and the proprietary driver was very buggy and caused crashes.
Thank you for the heads up about the graphics card. I always heard that AMD was the way to go with Linux, but it's good to know that that may not be the case. I was trying to keep this around $300, but it looks like I may have to go a bit over that if I want this to work well.
You're welcome. I made the mistake of buying an AMD GPU and using it with Linux, because I had read that the Linux driver works fine. If there's one driver that does work, it is probably the AMD open source driver, but that gives you reduced performance. So I really recommend a NVIDIA GPU, so you don't have to deal with crashes and can get the most out of your hardware
(I sold my R7 260X and replaced with a GTX 660 which works just fine)
I think a build around $300 is definitely possible. Here's a quick, incomplete build:
https://pcpartpicker.com/p/ZcZh4D
btw, I like to use pcpartpicker.com as they aggregate many online retailers so you get the lowest price.
Please don't get that PSU. Please refer to this list.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-254...-list.html
Cheap PSUs are really risky to run because if they suddenly mis-regulate power to your system or they fail, you run a huge risk of breaking every other component in your system. And CPUs and GPUs are both very expensive, and very delicate.
That build is okay, I would go with 2x4gb sticks of memory so you're getting dual channel going.
Here's a quick build I threw together.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/bMHdpg
Note that I did not include a case or storage, as that's really just personal taste and up to you.
Also note that this is a Skylake build with a nvidia 950 card rather than a 7xx, which bumps the cost a little because of a current gen GPU and DDR4 RAM, but not too badly, I think. Again, I didn't put too much thought into this, just got you some quality parts.
admin89 might want to chime in if the skylake Pentium CPU I picked won't overclock. I think it will? I know the haswells do.
EDIT: I'm stupid. I didn't notice that you wanted a $300 build. I'll revise this build in a couple hours when I get home. Sorry.