Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

I am planning to upgrade my PC in some future. These are the alternatives i'm considering:

In CPU part, would an i5-3470 be enough or should I get something better?
Is it a good idea to buy an used CPU?

In GPU part, do you think a  GT1030 will be fine or should I pay for something better like a GTX1050 or GTX1050Ti?

I am about to get 4GB more of RAM to make a current total of 6GB.

Do you think these hardware would be enough to play Super Mario Galaxy 2 at 60FPS at 2x/3x Resolution?
Personally I wouldn't care if there are minor slowdowns. I got used to them with this toaster PC.

It will depend on your budget, but an i5 3470 is not a bad choice. More reasonably powered 4th generation Intel CPUs are hitting the used market at some pretty significant discounts. Used CPUs can be a good way to save some money but like purchasing anything used it really depends on who you get it from.

For the GPU just make sure that you stay away from the ddr4 versions of the 1030 or the 1050. As far as which version you get it's really going to depend on how much you're willing to pay and exactly how much the enhanced resolution or other pretty features matter to you. You'll be able to push a GTX 1050 much higher than a 1030 and the 1050 TI higher than the 1050, but none of this really matters if it's not within your budget.

While RAM usually doesn't matter to a emulation build it is kind of ridiculous to have 2GB of RAM. For most modern OS 8GB is where I would usually draw the line, though more may be useful depending on the use case.

(10-27-2018, 11:33 AM)EblfIYH Wrote: [ -> ]I am planning to upgrade my PC in some future. These are the alternatives i'm considering:

In CPU part, would an i5-3470 be enough or should I get something better?
Is it a good idea to buy an used CPU?

In GPU part, do you think a  GT1030 will be fine or should I pay for something better like a GTX1050 or GTX1050Ti?

I am about to get 4GB more of RAM to make a current total of 6GB.

Do you think these hardware would be enough to play Super Mario Galaxy 2 at 60FPS at 2x/3x Resolution?
Personally I wouldn't care if there are minor slowdowns. I got used to them with this toaster PC.

It really depends on what you do with your PC and what your exact budget is.

The CPU in my rig (Pentium G4560) can run basically anything I throw at it and the CPU itself only cost like 60 USD, the 16GB DDR4 cost me like 140USD (and if you go for 2x4GB probably around 90USD and 2x2GB even cheaper) and the motherboard was like 80USD (MSI PC MATE H270), that will set you back a couple of hundred bucks but will give you so much more joy in the long run. Then deciding on the GPU I personally would probably check the used market for a GTX750ti or 780(ti) like I have now (my system can run almost any PC game at a lovely 30FPS at 4K and 99% of the Gamecube/Wii games at their native speeds at 1080p) or maybe a 950/970/980 used for just that little extra longevity. If you go with the GT1030 make sure to get the GDDR5 version and not the GDDR4 as that is most likely slower than the onboard intelGPU. Also if you add 4GB for 6GB make sure that if you have 2x1GB you add 2x2GB instead of a single 4GB module, or if you currently only have a single 2GB module it might be smart to add a single 2GB module for 2x2GB in dual channel which will help out your CPU more than the single channel ram, but that is only true if you do not go over 4GB of ram, otherwise it might indeed be smarter to add a single 4GB module.

Just my 2 cents.

I've build 2 systems for you in PC-partpicker (both are Pentium based which is a 2c/4t part with 2x4GB 2400MHz RAM and a GT1030 2GB)
1: "old" Kaby-Lake based CPU: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/twKsP3
2: "new" Coffee-Lake based CPU: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/wrhvvn

This will set you back about 270USD if you go with the Kaby-Lake one, but in the future you can go up all the way to the amazing i7 7700k (4c/8t) or the Coffee-Lake build can even go up to the i7 8700k (6c/12t) and even the i9 9900k (8c/16t) (but you wont get the full performance without a different motherboard on the i9) but will set you back an additional 50USD at 320USD.

Or go even different with AMD and their systems with high performance build in GPU with the Ryzen 2400G (which is a 4c/8t part with 2x4GB 3000MHz RAM and the build in VEGA 11 GPU which easily blows away the GT1030 DDR4 and is a bit faster than the DDR5 version):
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/VN6Rw6

This will give you the option to go up to the amazing Ryzen 7 2700x (8t/16c) but will then also need a discrete GPU, also keep in mind that the AMD's give you the possibility to overclock your CPU for just that little extra OOMPH! and will set you back about 290USD. The only "bad" thing about it is OpenGL performance which is a bit worse with the AMD GPUs but the Vulkan API makes up a lot for that (which currently doesn't do that much for nVidia GPU's) and DX11/12 is usually fast on both manufacturers GPU's.

This is of course all taking into account that you keep your old harddrive(s)/PSU/case/peripherals

I do agree with @TKSilver that going with a GT1030 wouldn't be a very good choice though especially if there are other things you want to do with your PC than just emulation, also as more and more games and applications can take advantage of multiple threads the AMD CPU will have quite the advantage over the Pentiums (but emulation usually is very single thread dependent where the Pentiums are quite a bit faster unless you also are going to emulate PS3, Wii U and Switch)

So as you see there really is no great answer without more information about budget and use case.

the CPU is fine, you can get a used 970 or 770 for pretty cheap, ($100-140) and those will beat most similarly priced new GPUs, especially if you OC. I got my 3rd gen mobo for $72 on ebay used, but it's OC capable, so a non OC capable chipset will be even cheaper. (Plus my board is mATX.) 50-90 dollars depending on what features you want.