2015: Which hardware is good enough?

[Nexxxus]

any new intel core-i processor is good, even if its an i3.
For graphics card, anything should work. 
If you wanna stay at basic PS2 graphics and don't plan to enhance the graphics by increasing the resolution or using antialiasing, even integrated Intel graphics work fine.

[Akio]

No need to waste your money on a Core i7 or a TITAN X.

[JobeStroud]

4790x is best for emulation. Any AMD fanboys, sorry. AMD hasn't released anything useful in a long time. They have terrible STP (Single Threaded Performance) compared to MOST intel i3 or i5.

Unless you are going to play Zone of Enders you don't need a massive videocard. So Titanx is kind of a huge waste of cash. Any x60 series Nvidia card can basically handle everything in terms of emulation. Now for most modern games outside of emulation you should get a 970 at least. 2gb memory buffers are FINALLY going away.

[Blyss Sarania]

Any AMD fanboys, sorry. AMD hasn't released anything useful in a long time. They have terrible STP (Single Threaded Performance) compared to MOST intel i3 or i5.

That's a pretty charged statement. "Useful" is quite the subjective term as well.

It's true AMD CPUs have much lower single threaded performance, and it's also true that this makes them less than perfect for emulation. Whether they are useful or not is completely up to your needs though. My FX 6300 rig was an amazing performer consider cost/performance ratio. I also used it with PCSX2 and sure it did have some slowdowns here and there, but overall I was and am still very happy with it's performance. It's now my home server.

Now my main rig is an i7 3770k and it surely smashes the performance of the 6300 in emulators. But it also(the CPU) would have cost me about 3 times as much. I got it free Also in PC games I don't really notice but maybe 1-5FPS gain.

I say this often but it's kind of like cars: You can buy a Honda for 20k or a Ferrari for like 100k(or whatever they cost). Surely the Ferrari is better, and if you can afford it then by all means. But the Honda will still you get you from A to B. And most times you have a speed limit anyway XD

[TheFirePlayer14540]

4790x is best for emulation. Any AMD fanboys, sorry. AMD hasn't released anything useful in a long time. They have terrible STP (Single Threaded Performance) compared to MOST intel i3 or i5.

Unless you are going to play Zone of Enders you don't need a massive videocard. So Titanx is kind of a huge waste of cash. Any x60 series Nvidia card can basically handle everything in terms of emulation. Now for most modern games outside of emulation you should get a 970 at least. 2gb memory buffers are FINALLY going away.

I am not a fan of AMD because I don't really like it that much. It's none with my experiance.

So the card you suggest getting would work any PS2 game for emulation, as long as it isn't a broken game and is in the Perfect/Playable priest in the wiki? We're talking about GPUs and CPUs together now. With the GPU thing, you are saying you recommend these?

Nvidia GeForce GT 610
Nvidia GeForce GT 640

And the 6700K may not work for the emulator without lag or slowdowns? I don't plan on getting some kind of hardware where I can play broken and/or intro/menu games for the emulator. I'm take my word with the perfect and playable ones.

For your comment, I think some AMDs work, but it's hard to find the right one.

[TheFirePlayer14540]

If it's custom made for this emulator then you are going about things way wrong. You're spending way too much on both CPU and GPU - basically you are just going for the most powerful hardware without understanding what you really need.

Let's start from the beginning: Are you really building this PC only for PCSX2 and nothing else?

Honestly, not for just the PS2 emulator.

I also plan on using OBS (Open Broadcaster Soft ware) to record my gameplay without problems with my recording as well with the emulator.

I am also planning on building it to use the Nintendo Wii/Gamecube emulator that is the Dolphin program itself.

---

If it's custom made for this emulator then you are going about things way wrong. You're spending way too much on both CPU and GPU - basically you are just going for the most powerful hardware without understanding what you really need.

Let's start from the beginning: Are you really building this PC only for PCSX2 and nothing else?

Not to mention it's been something I tried to achieve for years, but didn't get any luck.

[Akio]

I recommend a Core i5. PCSX2 mainly uses up to 3 threads with MTVU enabled. Dolphin mainly uses up to 2 threads. As for the GPU, a GTX 980 Ti is comparable to a GTX TITAN X and it's much cheaper. That said, it's still most likely overkill for your need.

[Nexxxus]

Yea single core performance is more important to emulation than the amount of cores.
So having a 6 or 8 core processor with a worse single core performance than a 4 core doesn't help at all.
At the moment, more than 4 cores won't help pcsx2 at all unless you're using gsdx's software renderer and increase the render threads. 
So a current i5 processor is reasonable.

[TheFirePlayer14540]

I recommend a Core i5. PCSX2 mainly uses up to 3 threads with MTVU enabled. Dolphin mainly uses up to 2 threads. As for the GPU, a GTX 980 Ti is comparable to a GTX TITAN X and it's much cheaper. That said, it's still most likely overkill for your need.

What do you mean by "overkill for your need"?

[willkuer]

Emulation doesnt work like pc gaming. Modern pc games heavily use the gpu and less often the cpu. For emulation it is the opposite case - most load is handled by the cpu and less by the gpu.

This just can be summarized as you need a high-end cpu but only a mid-range gpu for emulation.
The opposite case for pc gaming - you need a mid-range cpu and a high-end gpu.

Thats also the reason why blyss didnt see improvements in pc gaming even if his new cpu is much stronger but he gets much better results in emulation. And thats the point why we ask what you want to do. Do you only want to emulate? Then skip the titan.