Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Hello everyone,

Recently I came across a few computers that were being thrown out and took them home with me. I am wondering if any of them are powerful enough to run Dolphin as I've been wanting to get a dedicated emulator PC for my living room. If none of them will work, which one should I upgrade and what should I add? Or is better to just buy the parts and build a computer from scratch. I am trying to spend as little as possible.

I have never built a computer before so I'm sorry if this is a basic question.

I have the following computers:

Dell Optiplex 3010 (i5 version)
Dell Optiplex 990 (i5 version)
Dell Vostro 460 (i5 version)

Thanks in advance!

Lol what a treasure
I would go for Dell Optiplex 3010 which has i5-3470.
You would have to add low TDP graphic card like gt 1030 or gtx 1050 if you wanna pay more. Check for empty pcie slot if available.
i am sure RAM would be low, so you would have to add another RAM stick.

(02-25-2020, 10:28 AM)sirdaniel Wrote: [ -> ]Lol what a treasure
I would go for Dell Optiplex 3010 which has i5-3470.
You would have to add low TDP graphic card like gt 1030 or gtx 1050 if you wanna pay more. Check for empty pcie slot if available.
i am sure RAM would be low, so you would have to add another RAM stick.

Haha I know, they are not the greatest computers but I figured they may be worth a shot. If the CPU is good enough I dont mind replacing everything else. 

Do you think its worth it to keep the 3010 and replace those other parts? Or should I just bite the bullet and buy all the parts for a new build?

i5-3470 has 1916 points in single core pass mark. So if not overheating, it would be quite usable. Its not topnotch either, but base is 3.2GHZ and turbo @3,6GHZ so should be ok for almost all games, and emulators like pcsx2. Maybe sobody else might comment this too.



I think the cost of new rig should play the role here. Compare price of new one with the dell 3010. If You are tired of assembling new rig, consider staying with 3010, i would do that.

If they're all from the same generation (Intel 3rd gen, I think from what I'm seeing), get which ever has the highest base clock speed, since the turbo speed isn't always guaranteed. You can always update RAM and GPU later.

Just keep in mind that an Intel Haswell or better CPU (AMD Ryzen or better) will perform better in the long run, as performance requirements only go up over time (usually).