I'm planning on upgrading my system one of these days, but the question is how much of an upgrade will I make. One thing I am very much considering is how much of a speed boost I'll get in PCSX2 with a new system.

I am currently running an AMD Phenom II 955 with a RADEON 4800 and 4 GB of RAM. It's not bad, but not great. Using speed hacks, I can average around 100-120 FPS during standard game play with little to no graphical defects. I'm looking to increase this, as it's nice to be able to zip over cutscenes in games, etc. (mainly playing FFX International at the moment).

Anyway, does anyone have any recommendations for CPUs, GPUs, etc.? I'm curious if i7s will provide a big boost, or if it's more about a really good graphics card.

Please let me know. Thank you very much.

I'll move this to the hardware/software discussion forum. You can also find tons of similar threads there which might help you

Hmmmm,i think your system is great! Maybe you are trying to run demanding games such as God Of War 2.Anyway don't forget also that a good config can give a big boost sometimes. Now if you still want to upgrade your pc i would say upgrading your GPU. Your cpu is already at 3.2 GHz so you don't need anything faster (or you can either overclock it a little),you have enough ram.The only thing that could affect the performance i think is your GPU (although i think it's still a good one).Maybe you can go for a nvidia 4xx series or an ati hd radeon 5xxx series.

i7 will give a boost but your phenom II 955 is still good enough.
Overclock it to 4ghz and wait for next gen.

Alright. Thanks, guys. On a somewhat related note, are there any patches out there for skipping cutscenes in FFX?

You have the same PC as me
mine now is : 955 3,8Ghz OC,4870,4gb ram
anyone knows how much i should upgrade to play games like God Of War full speed with D3d internal res:2500x2500 without using speed hacks?
well,i've seen a guy playing like that with i7 975 Ex, Gtx295x2 SLI.
and now i'm wondering if i can play like that with a less expensive PC

I suggest waiting for the new Sandy Bridge processors as not many current processors will give you a gigantic boost. Until then overclock your computer, it's very very fast.

Good point. Probably best to wait for a while. I'm completely happy with my 1024x1024 right now anyway. Just discovered this emulator the other day, and it's truly awesome. (Thinking I should donate some money.)

But anyway, thanks for making it possible to enjoy PS2 games again. This reminds me of ePSXe for PS1 games; it's more enjoyable to play the games emulated on a PC with all sorts of graphical options and save states than the original.

Anyway, I'm getting about 100 FPS with no frame limiter, and that's enough for now to speed up the long cutscenes I don't like.

If you want an upgrade you can always get a solid state drive. That's something that your whole system will benefit from (including pcsx2) and it's a noticeable difference.

An SSD wouldn't really increase FPS in PCSX2...