I want to build a PC that, among other things, will run Dolphin.
I'm trying to decide between
- Intel i9-10900K | 10 core (20 thread) | 5.1 GHz max clock
- AMD Ryzen 9 3950X | 16 core (32 thread) | 4.7 GHz max clock
I'm sure the higher core count of the Ryzen will be very useful outside of Dolphin, but I'm wondering if I'd be giving up a noticeable gain from the 0.4 GHz clock difference, since Dolphin can only use two cores.
Are there any benchmarks or other info that can give me a better understanding of what the trade off is here?
Thanks!
I would imagine the i9 being faste for the 1% it would matter. That said both will run dolphin fine for 99% of the time and will be overkill also.
Thanks themaster123
Are you saying that the processors have high enough clock speeds and IPC that they're both well into diminishing returns?
I remember seeing some chart on, or at least linked on, dolphin-emu.org. It showed Dolphin performance across the spectrum of clocks speeds of the processors available at the time. I seem to remember, the diminishing returns started in the 4.5 range. For the life of me I have not been able to find this chart again.
My laptop with an i7 7700hq usually doesn't have problems with the majority of games and it has a max turbo of 3.8. It performance is at around 15-25 of the i7 4790k of my previous desktop which the r7 3700x in my current desktop as a similar margin over the i7 4790k for dolphins and other light threaded program. Unless you run one of handful of game that need all the performance you can get(there aren't many I aware off) you will quickly run in diminishing returns.
As for actual usage dolphin doesn't usually use more then 2-3 cores. I assumed though since you where look at i9/to that you where likely more then gaming though and didn't mention this is the previous post, however a r3/i3(r5/I5 if pc gaming) even the cpu under those(assuming where not talking about the 3-10 tdp Pentium/celeron) should be enough again assuming reasonable clock speed and it being recent.
Thanks! Let me make sure I'm understanding you. You've mentioned 3 PCs.
- Laptop i7 7700hq Max 3.8 GHz
- Old Desktop i7 4790k
- New Desktop R7 3700x
And you are saying the following about them.
- Your laptop plays most GC and Wii games on Dolphin fairly well
- Your laptop's performance is 15-20% of your old desktop's performance
- Your old desktop's performance is, in turn, 15-20% of your new desktop's performance
Am I correct so far?
I think he's either saying the machines achieve 15-20 FPS more than each other or that they achieve 15%-20% more than each other. For Dolphin, those CPUs are about that close.
(08-05-2020, 06:50 AM)AnyOldName3 Wrote: [ -> ]I think he's either saying the machines achieve 15-20 FPS more than each other or that they achieve 15%-20% more than each other. For Dolphin, those CPUs are about that close.
Thanks, AnyOldName3!
Do you have an opinion on what the performance difference might be between the two CPU's I'm considering? Would there really be a noticeable difference at all, for most games?
In my experience; Dolphin cares more about overall CPU speed than how many cores you have, though I'd say 4 cores should be the absolute minimum.
And for what it's worth, I run a 10-core Intel i9-series CPU and watch my system's loads on a second monitor: I've never seen an application max out all of my CPU's cores, and I have hyper-threading disabled.
(08-05-2020, 08:24 AM)themaster123 Wrote: [ -> ]Sorry I meant percent sorry for any confusion. https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-un...ted--45007 might give some idea in a worst case game it might not have the exact cpu in question but it should give you an idea.
Thanks for the clarification themaster123.
I have seen that spreadsheet you linked to. After you posted it, I noticed it includes an R9 3900X, which has the same clock speed and the R9 3950X I'm considering. Since core count above 4 shouldn't really make any difference, I should be get at least some relevant info from the spreadsheet once I've made sense of it.
Does anyone know where I can find the chart I referenced above. It was a line graph that represented the performance of Dolphin at different CPU clock speeds?
It topped out at just above 5 GHz.