Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

I bought a cheap ($57) HP 8300 Ultra slim to make a relatively small emulator box. I had no intention on going above n64/PS1. However it seems to run some GC/Wii/PS2 fairly well at native. It has the i5-3570S/Intel 2500. So obviously its being held back by the iGPU. I noticed it has an MXM GPU slot and i am torn between buying a cheap GPU (Has to be MXM 3.0a so something like the cheap k610m) and the upgraded PSU needed to boot the PC with a GPU installed. OR, trying to find a cheap i7-3770 or i7-3770s with Intel 4000.

k610m+PSU would be cheaper. https://i.imgur.com/O7CDwA8.png . Would have to DIY some sort of heatsink solution though hehe

Wondering what you guys think?

On top of just being better for dolphin a GPU would help with RetroArch CRT shaders for the 8/16bit systems. The 2500 chokes on anything more than CRT-Hillian with hard sync on.

Thanks

At the very least I would get something like this Nvidia Quadro K3000M, as it's stronger than the K610M for not much more (look around on ebay, there's some that are as low as $50, grabbed this one as an example cause it will ship to Canada)

As for power/cooling, you can always modify smaller heatsinks, but you'll need to check how much power the MXM slot can actually deliver to the GPU to see what is supported. That's your limiting factor, not the entire computer power.

I think it is 35watts max for the card and the 180w PSU is needed or it will not boot with a GPU installed.

EDIT: Also, K3000M is 3.0b