Need emulation-ready CPU advice

[Searinox]

First of all, hello. I know it's short notice, but I have to ask now since either today or tomorrow I'm supposed to be getting a new processor. Obviously why I'm here is because I need to know how well it can run PS2 emulation. Right then...

So I have this crappy 3.06 Ghz + HT, 1MB L2, 533 FSB Intel that scores 4.3 in the Windows Experience Index. FFX runs at 40-50% FPS. I'm planning to get a Dual Core E5400, that's 2.7Ghz, 2MB L2, 800 FSB. I looked the model up, and on a site containing Experience Indexes for pretty much every model out there, it scored 5.5.

Would that be enough for full frames under PCSX2? Btw I have a 256bit 512 GDDR3 GeForce 9600 GT. I do believe the graphics card suffices right?

[Larfin_Man]

If you mean to play FFX, then that will get you full speed easily. It should also run most other games well, but there are a bunch that may require more power for full speed, such as Dragonquest 8 and MGS3.

[ChronicNL]

you can always try overclocking your gpu with nvidia system tools
and configure that the overclock only starts when the pcsx2.exe is started, when you shut it down the clocks go back to normal as well

a 10% upgrade at least should be possible on aircooling (i overclock my GT130M by 16% on standard cooling and thats a laptop)

but yes get a better cpu

[refraction]

if you can afford an E7 or E8 series cpu it will be benificial, but the E5400 will be a huge improvement over your p4

[Searinox]

Is there a known Windows Experience Index for which PCSX2 runs fine? Something like say "all CPUs with a Vista rating of 5.5 or higher will run PCSX2 well"? I've been looking into overclocking, tell me, are MULTIPLIER OCs safe from potentially damaging a CPU? And sorry I won't be able to afford any Exxxx processor, this one is pushing my money to the absolute max as it is.

[refraction]

Windows Experience rating is useless. If you had the worlds fastest cpu and worlds fastest gpu, PCSX2 would run amazing, but if you had a really crappy hard drive, your windows experience rating could be like 3.5 (as it goes off your lowest score). so it is not a true reflection of your system.

Honestly a core 2 duo processor running at 3ghz or more and a Geforce 9800 or higher gpu will be very very quick on the emulator. Somethings will still run slow, but most games will be playable

[Searinox]

I was obviously NOT looking at my Experience Index's final mark, but rather the CPU's own. This is sounding more optimistic than I expected. This is a good thing cause I'm used to bad news. One more thing... the RAM clock is only 533 Mhz, is that likely to affect my performance? I have 4GB of it though...

[refraction]

well 533 is the base clock, being DDR its actually 1066mhz memory, which is very nice stuff, providing you do have it running at 1066

[Searinox]

I have four sticks 1GB each, two rated at 533 three years ago(266 is the base clock BTW, as set in BIOS), one at 667 and one at 800 so they all run as lowest. XD Also the CPU base clock is 133(processors are quad pumped, RAM is double).

[refraction]

oh i see, best running the 2 faster sticks then, however as memory is so dirt cheap at the minute, id recommend getting some quicker stuff