Building a Computer for PCSX2

[BlackVivi]

@Zeydlitz
But is the i5-650 overclockable? And... if i buy one of those i will need another ram and so on. It will cost more in the end, I think =/

Edit: Is it even possible to buy one of those at the moment? I can't find them on the german shops ._.

I still don't know what to buy.

[DKTronics]

I haven't seen any I5 chips hit 4ghz on Air, on Water, yes, but Air ? Remember, these things get very hot.
The last decent I5 overclock I saw was 4.2ghz using a quad rad, and 4ghz using a triple rad. And, if I recall, there still aren't any decent high-end air coolers out for the I5/I7 range ?
Personally, I would go for (and I admit I'm a little biased towards Asus )

Extreme budget
Intel E5200, Akasa 965, 4Gb 800mhz RAM, 9800GT, Asus P5QL-SE board. Every E5200 I've built, for the last 6 months, has hit 3.33 ghz with ease, 333x10, due to the high multiplier its real easy to get a stable overclock.

Budget Machine 1
Intel E7500, Akasa 965, 4Gb 800mhz RAM, 9800GT, Asus P5QL-Pro board. Look at my sig, cheap PC, 4ghz overclock 400x10, runs Pcsx2 really well.

Budget Machine 2
AMD Athlon II X2 550 BE 3.1GHz, Scythe Mini Ninja, 4Gb 800mhz RAM, 9800GT, Asus M4A785TD-V EVO AM3. Great overclockers, unlocked CPU should o/c to around 3.8ghz.

Decent PC, good price
AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE 3.2 GHz, Scythe Ninja II (Flippin' Huge), DDR3 RAM Whatever you can afford, GTX260 192 or 216 or a Radeon HD4850, Asus M4A79XTD EVO 790X. Fast machine , overclocks well, should have no problems with Pcsx2, or any PC game.

After that, I5, I7, HD4890, GTX285, as much RAM as you can afford.

[BlackVivi]

But isn't Intel a lot better for PCSX2? You're saying a decent PC would be AMD Phenom II X4... Mhm...

An E8600 should overclock good aswell, shouldn't it?

[DKTronics]

But isn't Intel a lot better for PCSX2? You're saying a decent PC would be AMD Phenom II X4... Mhm...

An E8600 should overclock good aswell, shouldn't it?

Yes, but I was thinking of cost, and those PII chips are good performers for their price.
Yes, the E8600 should overclock well with a high 10x multiplier, 4ghz should be easy enough, 400fsb x10 for example. But, it's way too expensive for what it is, so I would personally look for something else.
Here in the UK, that E8600 is over £100 more expensive than my E7500, and for such a slight performance increase I don't think it's worth it.

[xevean]

here's an excellent dual vs quad core comparison from tom's hardware

basically they found that quad beats dual cores in every 3d modeling/video editing scenario but when it comes to games it lags behind. However , they add that quad cores allow for background processes/software (ie anti virus) to be added to a 3rd/4th core while playing games or what have you. an ability not available to dual core cpu.

here's the full comparison
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/dual-quad,1720.html

personally i would go for

GPU: Radeon 4870 (750mz core clock/1800 mem clock)
which has consistently been beating 9800 gt in gaming reviews however its core clock/mem core are not significantly lower so it won't make much of a different for ps2 emulation

ram: 2x2gb 1066mhz ddr2 (needed for 4ghz oc)

mobo: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard

cpu: intel quad 9650 (4gz on air)
yes it will take a performance loss for ps2 emu/games however, its overclocking capabilities more than make up for it. and if your doing any kind of 3d modeling/ video editing it more than makes up for it. or if you just have lots of high end graphics programs open and forgot to close them

all in all its about a 7-750ish setup

[DKTronics]

You can't compare a 9800GT GDDR3, released in Q3 2007, to a 4870 GDDR5 released in Q2 2008 thats also £60 more expensive. The 9800GT was released around the same time as r600, and rapes it, plus it's more comparable to a 4850 in both price and performance, with the 4850 slightly ahead when using high resolutions and AA. If you have the cash, though, I agree, get the 4870.
And don't forget, your virus killer, despite what core it's running on, is still going to thrash your HD while it runs in the background.

Personally, when you start going over £150 for a CPU, I wouldn't touch 775 with a barge pole, as you are now in I5/PII X4 money.

[Koji]

But isn't Intel a lot better for PCSX2? You're saying a decent PC would be AMD Phenom II X4... Mhm...

An E8600 should overclock good aswell, shouldn't it?

Better clock for clock? Yes. Much better? Probably not. In most situations the difference for equal clock rates will be 5-10%. So if you're running a game at 50fps on the AMD, you may get 55fps on an intel equivalent... but depending on which intel you get, even at the same clock rate you may be paying 30-50% more.

For budget machines, you'll normally do better with AMD... but if you absolutely must have the top speed and price isn't an issue, intel will likely give you better results.


Now back to dual core versus quad core... If you get a dual core at 2.8ghz versus a quad at 2.6ghz... you probably wouldn't notice the quad being any slower... But generally, you can get a base dual core at 3.4ghz for about the price of a quad at 2.8ghz and if you got a new computer build solely for PCSX2, the dual would do better always.

[rex1825]

...there is a thing you should know, "Building PC for PcSx2" is nonsense, ...firstly, all of us already have PS2 or PS3 capable to play PS2 games, so, you wanna spend 10x more money from the costs of PS2, so you could run PS2 game on PC?!?
...secondly, there is no future, so to say, for DualCore CPU's, even if the E8600 is the best of it, I would consider buying a Quad, AMD or Intel, doesn't matter, because they all perform good...
...after that, ...even that new CPU's are capable better to OC, you will need good aftermarket cooler for that, these CPU' suck much power, & all that heat must go somewhere, ...I read somewhere that i7, PII have for 0.8-1.0GHz bigger clock dubled Power consumption & heat made... It's not easy to take away all that, need MoBo capable to output that power for CPU, plus there is decend Graphic card, many modlues of RAM... Air cooling is good when you have low temperatures where you PC case is, but it's not always low temps... & dust, that always comes where air flow is... In the other hand, water cooling is much better, but still it has it's good & bad things...

After all, consider what for you need PC, if it's only PcSx2 I would say forget it, ...if you wanna do much more, then buy a good Quad PC with some SLi/CF & have fun...

Cheers...

Edit: ...look at my PC, I am enthusiast, but still didn't buy Intel becouse it's better, you can tune up AMD as well, to run good, besides AMD's Dragon Platform is realy KickAss... 2x320GB in Raid0 for HDD to work faster, OC'ed Graphic card, ram modules & CPU, but with good cooling I managed to keep components cool, & PSU is fighting for now realy good with all this, in Element S case with lot's of air flow, OCZ Vendetta 2 for CPU CPU never goes over 55'C @ 1.42V, & Graphic is around 90'C, on load, ...althou I moded airflow for Graphic to keep it cooler...
Something else, my friend has same Graphic card, but we didn't manage to oc it over 830/980MHz, same card...

[BlackVivi]

After all, consider what for you need PC, if it's only PcSx2 I would say forget it, ...if you wanna do much more, then buy a good Quad PC with some SLi/CF & have fun...

I think I wasn't clear enough... I wanted to say: "I want to build a new Computer, it should run PCSX2 properly because i've always wanted to test it out. I need it for everything else too, like surfing, chatting and sometimes even PC-gaming. But I don't play PC games so often, that's the reason I don't need a SLI-Graphics Card"

I hope thats clear enough. I think I will go for the Quad Core and overclock it to 3.2~3.4. I want to buy a aftermarket cooler anyway, the boxed cooler are way too loud and crappy. Scythe Mugen 2 will be the Cooler i want.

[rex1825]

...with that cooler you'll get even more out of cpu...

If it is going to be AMD or Intel it's up to you... if you wanna go with less money, go for AMD Dragon Platform, if you wanna have best of, buy a i7 & x58 mobo, & for graphic card, earlyer was like this, nVidia yes, ATI no, but today, they are all same, 4870 is realy cheap this days, but you should wait for a month so the new Radeon 5 series comes out...

I can only say, if going to buy AMD, go for 955BE, becouse it's TDP 125W, has DDR2/DDR3 memo controller , sotck @ 3.2GHz & can good oc, 965 is much hotter, & it needs mobo with TDP140W, but has 3.4GHz, & you can get 965 from 955 with only one click so to say, mp in BIOS from 16 to 17 xD ...for i7, you should look at newer series that camed out with dual channel memory, it's mutch cheaper, & you only need dual channel memory...

Cheers...