Will a kind soul evaluate these specs and tell me if they're worth it?

[naoan]

Does that mean that the core he mentioned is less powerful than a conventional Phenom 2 quad?

Yes.

And even if it is, it could not hope to beat any comparable Intel cpu currently available, especially on emulator.

[Jickler]

First, everything below is written with the caveat that I have a fairly shallow understanding of how processors actually work, so anything I'm saying could very well be completely wrong

The general consensus is that Bulldozers have serious architectural shortcomings, at least in regards to gaming, and severely underperform next to other modern CPUs. The reason why is anyone's guess, I know AMD claims that Windows is unable to properly allocate resources for the Bulldozer series, and that in a better environment they would easily outperform other CPUs on the market. Either way the practical result is that a even fast Duo would probably show better real-world performance than an FX. They're technically very "powerful" processors, but I don't think many (or any?) actual applications are able to effectively utilize them.

I honestly almost bought an FX before I picked up my Phenom II. I was looking and I was like "omg they have 8 cores and such a high clock speed and they're so cheap omg omg omg what a deal." Thankfully I read a little bit about them and managed to avoid that mistake. Pretty tempting on a college budget though!

Edit: Just saw the post above mine, and I notice pretty much everyone in this forum heavily recommends intel CPUs over any and all AMD equivalents. At least so far, I've had 0 problems playing everything full speed. To be fair, I've only played a few games (Shadow of the Colossus, FFX, Ico).

[Ice Queen Zero]

if only PCSX2 could take advantage of 8 cores in FX..

would we got MASSIVE fps boost?? like 1000 FPS maybe??

(juz joking, don't take it seriously posters)

[Jickler]

God that would be so awesome. The main reason I emulate PS2 is, no joke, turbo mode. I just don't have the same patience for tedious RPG tasks that I had as a child. Now when FFX asks me to play a million gabajillion blitzball games to get Wakka's stupid ultimate weapon, I just crank that sucker up to the highest FPS humanly possible, crack open a beer, and mash buttons until my ludicrously overpowered team achieves victory. If I could accomplish those kinds of tasks at 1000 FPS I would be in heaven.

[rick_meadows]

Wait wait wait, what's that, now? There's a chance I might be able to play Dark Cloud 2 with my current specs? Or the ones I listed on the OP?

My problems with Dark Cloud 2 specifically: http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Dark-Clou...able-speed

[StriFe]

Well the bulldozer isn't bad in general gaming o.o my friend got the 8120/8150 (Can't remember which one) and that CPU is way faster then my 980 BE in normal PC Gaming even though it runs on lower speed.

[rick_meadows]

Indeed an i5 2500K is what we also recommend. OC that nice processor to 4 Ghz and there is almost nothing that can't be ran at full speed

Does that mean that the core he mentioned is less powerful than a conventional Phenom 2 quad?

Cause if it ain't, what he has would be adequate to play Dark Cloud 2 on the svn without too much of a problem, including speedhacks for the occasional busy scenes. Although the PAL version, Dark Chronicle, requires both 10 less frames to run properly and is actually a bit less demanding than its counterpart.

Well the bulldozer isn't bad in general gaming o.o my friend got the 8120/8150 (Can't remember which one) and that CPU is way faster then my 980 BE in normal PC Gaming even though it runs on lower speed.

Really? But people have been calling it the "faildozer" around here so I kind of scrapped the whole thing out

Right now I'm trying to understand how to get the most of PS2's library by using a non-OC'd i5...

[Bositman]

Seriously, just get the i5 2500k and OC it. It took me literally 10 seconds to OC it to 4 Ghz by changing a single setting in the BIOS. You set it and never worry about it again, it's that simple. At 4 Ghz that processor will run almost every single PS2 game at full speed with PCSX2

[micerau]

Oc'ing is very easy these days, especially with a cpu like the 2500K. The only thing I would advise is an after market cooler to keep temps within safe range.

The only reason I don't have my 2500K OC'd right now is because I'm using the stock cooler, and when I had cpu @ 4.5ghz temps got up to 95C with intel burn test.

[Bositman]

I don't think you even need an after market cooler for 4 Ghz with the i5 2500k, considering you have decent air flow in your case. Intel burn test always makes your processor go like +15c of what any game/application would ever make it so I don't think that matters