Hello again,
I currently am using the E3-1270 V2 CPU in my computer, and I was wondering if this would still be a good processor to run most games on in Dolphin? I know that this is an older Ivy Bridge CPU, however I believe I read recently that Dolphin has shifted more towards the GPU now than the CPU. My main question is whether I should just purchase a new GPU for this computer (the current one can only run games at native resolution) or build an entirely new one with a different CPU? I can upgrade to the E3-1290 V2 CPU in my current computer but it would only be an extra 0.2Ghz clock speed so I'm not sure if that would help.
The passmark specs of the E3-1270 V2 are:
Multithreaded: 9776
Singlethreaded: 2151
And it is 3.5Ghz with a turbo clock of 3.9Ghz (1 core).
(09-10-2018, 09:38 AM)AwesomeMarioFan Wrote: [ -> ]however I believe I read recently that Dolphin has shifted more towards the GPU now than the CPU.
No it hasn't.
Anyways, unless that CPU can hit that 3.9 ghz turbo sustained on two cores, you're not guaranteed to have reliable performance. You need to stop trying to upgrade to old server grade CPUs and get a system actually designed for single threaded perf. Like, any reasonable desktop or laptop in the last 4 years.
(09-10-2018, 11:02 AM)Helios Wrote: [ -> ]No it hasn't.
Anyways, unless that CPU can hit that 3.9 ghz turbo sustained on two cores, you're not guaranteed to have reliable performance. You need to stop trying to upgrade to old server grade CPUs and get a system actually designed for single threaded perf. Like, any reasonable desktop or laptop in the last 4 years.
The reason I have server hardware is because I am also using it as a server - but in that case maybe a better way to ask my question is what would be a good generation of Intel CPUs to look into for Dolphin? Anything Haswell and up?
Pretty much yeah.
It was figured out that at around 4 ghz, haswell or newer can run anything in Dolphin at full speed, disregarding lag that happens on real hardware (Like The Last Story)
Skylake could get away with a bit less, but since Intel hasn't actually released anything new since Skylake so far the rule hasn't changed much.
For AMD, any desktop Ryzen is fine (and also works well for small servers). Some report that the Ryzen APUs also work well.
(09-10-2018, 11:47 AM)Helios Wrote: [ -> ]Pretty much yeah.
It was figured out that at around 4 ghz, haswell or newer can run anything in Dolphin at full speed, disregarding lag that happens on real hardware (Like The Last Story)
Skylake could get away with a bit less, but since Intel hasn't actually released anything new since Skylake so far the rule hasn't changed much.
For AMD, any desktop Ryzen is fine (and also works well for small servers). Some report that the Ryzen APUs also work well.
So I did some research, and what I ended up going with was an upgrade to a Haswell E3-1280 v3 (equivalent to a 4th generation i7), along with a new motherboard. This CPU has a maximum turbo boost of 4.0Ghz and only required me to purchase a new motherboard+CPU since I can reuse my existing case/power supply/SSD/RAM. I was thinking of getting a Skylake v5 E3-1270/1280 instead but I figured there was only incremental performance improvements (~5% for each architecture after Haswell) versus the ~40% increase with Haswell, and with anything over Haswell I had to also buy 16GB of DDR4 RAM since I couldn't reuse my current DDR3 RAM. I am also planning to purchase a GT 1030 GDDR5 graphics card to go with this soon. Does this sound like a decent setup to run games in Dolphin?
If that Xeon can turbo boost 2 cores to 4 ghz, yes.
That coupled with the GT 1030 should play everything you probably care about at HD resolutions.
It's just important that you can turbo boost 2 threads to 4 ghz consistently. Many Xeons cannot do that
(09-17-2018, 02:39 AM)Helios Wrote: [ -> ]If that Xeon can turbo boost 2 cores to 4 ghz, yes.
That coupled with the GT 1030 should play everything you probably care about at HD resolutions.
It's just important that you can turbo boost 2 threads to 4 ghz consistently. Many Xeons cannot do that
Ok awesome - I checked this website and it says 4.0 boost for 1 core and 3.8 for 4 cores, but it doesn't specify anything for 2/3 cores so I'm hoping it is 4.0 for 2 cores. (
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/Intel...%20v3.html) As for boosting consistently, I assume if it cannot this would be a thermal issue? If so I can always put an aftermarket cooler on it.