Read first: Will PCSX2 run fast on my computer?

[Pyer]

Wow, thanks for the quick reply Bositman ! But isn't the 860 a little bit faster ? I'm looking for a gamer pc, so is the 860 best for the 'gamer' type ? Or is that 'high end' LGA1366 socket better than the little speed the 860 have over the 920 ? Thks in advance !!

[midlothian]

Wow, thanks for the quick reply Bositman ! But isn't the 860 a little bit faster ? I'm looking for a gamer pc, so is the 860 best for the 'gamer' type ? Or is that 'high end' LGA1366 socket better than the little speed the 860 have over the 920 ? Thks in advance !!

Hmm, I would say that way, for a gamer pc buy something like i7 950 at least.

[ilovejedd]

Hmm, I would say that way, for a gamer pc buy something like i7 950 at least.

What? No Gulftown?

Wow, thanks for the quick reply Bositman ! But isn't the 860 a little bit faster ? I'm looking for a gamer pc, so is the 860 best for the 'gamer' type ? Or is that 'high end' LGA1366 socket better than the little speed the 860 have over the 920 ? Thks in advance !!

The i7-860 is (slightly) faster. However, the LGA-1156 is probably a dead end socket meaning you likely won't be able to upgrade that CPU. The LGA-1366 has more of an upgrade path. Also, for an extra $10, you can get a Core i7-930 which runs at the same clockspeed as the i7-860. Considering X58 chipset motherboards have come down in price, the cost of a P55+i7-800 and X58+i7-900 are fairly comparable.

If you have no plans of upgrading the processor, though, going with LGA-1156 is likely a wee bit less expensive.

[Pyer]

Thks for the heads up concerning the i7-930 ilovejedd !! Actually it's 20$ LESS than the 860 and 920. My new rig SHOULD look like this:

Processor: Intel Core i7-930 @ 2.80GHz
Memory: GSKILL 2 x 2GB @ 1333MHz - CL7
Hard Drive: Seagate or Western Digital 1Tb
Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 5850
Motherboard: Gigabyte P55M-UD4P
Computer Case: Antec Nine Hundred 2
Power Supply: Corsair 650 Watt
OS: Windows 7 Professional

I'm not sure whick hard drive I should choose and like PCSX2 works better with dual core would it be better to have a I5-660 @ 3.33 GHz ? Anything else I should change or upgrade ? Thks in advance !!

[sakraycore]

pcsx2 will be faster with that i5-660, but you know that you can just overclock the i7 to those speeds yourself..

[midlothian]

Maybe you should think about AMD instead. Phenom II 965 seems much better than i7 930, and i5 6xx is only 2 cores.
Phenom II 965 - socket AM3, 3.4GHz, 125W, 4 cores, cache: L1 512kB, L2 2MB, L3 6MB
Core i7 930 - socket 1366, 2.8GHz, 130W, 4 cores - 8 threads, cache: L1 256kB, L2 1MB, L3 8MB

[Pyer]

Yeah, but does the 2 extra cores are really better ? I mean I always run maximum 2 applications at the same time, like internet and my music player, etc.. I really change my pc just to run games and PCSX2 better.. so isn't dual core enough ?

[sakraycore]

Yeah, but does the 2 extra cores are really better ? I mean I always run maximum 2 applications at the same time, like internet and my music player, etc.. I really change my pc just to run games and PCSX2 better.. so isn't dual core enough ?

That depends.

For PCSX2 - Yes
For internet and music player - Yes
For the latest games, not really.

[midlothian]

I even read something around that pcsx2 may use 3 cores in the future. Anyway for pcsx2 only i5 660 would be the best choice but you have to consider that some pc games already uses 3 or 4 cores and this will be a standard soon.

[Rezard]

For PCSX2 - Yes
For internet and music player - Yes
For the latest games, not really.

As for the latest games, dual cores are enough. Any game to date, that is. I've only seen quad cores show up in "Recommended" for a few games, and only more recently. I personally doubt games will "Require" quad cores for a while. I pick up Bad Company 2 the other day, and it runs beautifully.

Since you (Pyre) said you'd be more looking for better PS2 emulation, I'd say 2 cores is the way to go. My interpretation of the talk of PCSX2 supporting more than 2 cores seems more tentative than not. I recently spent some time looking into that same question (2 core or 4) on the forums here and ended up deciding on 2 cores with the highest Ghz I could afford.