core i3 vs core i5 2500k

[mytymaus007]

Looking to buy a system to run every emulator old and new including mame  dolphin(wii) playstation and xbox etc with Hyperspin. it will be in my cabinet once it if full configured

core i5 2500k system at newegg for $780.00

vs

core i3 system for $380

Do i need anymore then Core i3

Also thinking about the hard drives does it matter with emulators the HD speed 7200rpm vs 5900rpm also what about sata 2 3gbps vs sata 3 6gbps or can i just have an external HD 3.0 usb does it matter

Whats should i do

[PIZZ]

Might be sluggy with i3. I have emulators running off my Toshiba i5 laptop with 4gb ram. it runs fine. The newer PC games and stuff like future pinball and visual pinball youd probably want a core i7 with dedicated video card but for emulators and Hyperspin I think you would be ok with i5. 5200rpm drive is ok

[wweumina]

i3 will be fine for most of it.  You may need a decent dedicated graphics card for some emulators other than mame.  The hard drive will only affect your boot speed, not loading roms or the front end.

[ScottEK]

Can you guys give an example of an emulator / game that is difficult to run that I can use as a baseline?

[mytymaus007]

What emulators use the most resources GPU and CPU im trying to build for the future without spending all  my money. I dont care to much about PC games because i know thats where the most intense systems will be needed but im building a system just for emulators.

[JoeB]

My old MAME machine was an AMD 2400+ with 256mb of ram. It was slower than most pentium 4 machines, but it ran almost all MAME games (except the newest 3d ones - but they look like crap on 15khz monitor anyways)

The only reason I upgraded to i3 was because of Hyperspin.  It's written in flash, eats RAM for breakfast and craps on most CPUs.  I'm sure if it was written in C++ (like most modern applications) then I'd still be using the old CPU. But alas, developers are "lazy" they want full apps in 20 lines of code - so they use flash, .net, java, (name your crappy byte code compiled Lang of the day)

Take a look at all the games you play.  Most zip files are less than 1mb big! They should play fine on any modern system - even net books (if you don't use Hyperspin)

[PIZZ]

What emulators use the most resources GPU and CPU im trying to build for the future without spending all  my money. I dont care to much about PC games because i know thats where the most intense systems will be needed but im building a system just for emulators.

Mame, Daphni, Neo-Geo, Sega, NES  emulators should all be good on i3

PS1&2, NES 64, Xbox emulators and most pc games you'll need i5 or better.

[JoeB]

What emulators use the most resources GPU and CPU im trying to build for the future without spending all  my money. I dont care to much about PC games because i know thats where the most intense systems will be needed but im building a system just for emulators.

Mame, Daphni, Neo-Geo, Sega, NES  emulators should all be good on i3

PS1&2, NES 64, Xbox emulators and most pc games you'll need i5 or better.

Is there a technical reason for this? Or just because i5 costs more, you assumed that was the case?

i5 does have 2 more cores than i3, but i3 is hyper-threaded which i5 is not.  Both run at the exact same speed, and have the same CPU features.  So with this i5 all you pay for is 2 more cores.  If you use an application that was developed for only single processor (like most) than you will not notice the difference.

Don't believe me?  Google for i3 vs core 2 Quad benchmarks.  All benchmarks I found showed that the i3 was 20-30% faster than core 2 quad because most games/apps were not developed to take advantage of the 4 cores, i3 beat the quad cores on CPU speed alone (3.2ghz vs <3 ghz).  Only video encoding was faster on quad, because the app they were using actually used all 4 cores!

Back to original question.  If you're using apps that utilize all 4 cores, or do heavy multi-tasking, than buy the i5.  But if you're going to only use a single emulator in a dedicated system, then you'll be wasting $$ by moving to i5/i7.  Take that money and spend it on other components.

Also, if possible, try to use all 64-bit.  Either Windows 7-64, or XP 64 (which isn't really XP - but rather much more similar to vista/7).  You'll get 10-20% boost using mame64.

[PIZZ]

I've tested these emulators on my friends i3 and my i5 and we saw a difference in the n64 and ps1/2. That said if youre just running mame go for i3 but you can get an i5 now for the price of what an i3 cost when it first launched.

[mytymaus007]

I've tested these emulators on my friends i3 and my i5 and we saw a difference in the n64 and ps1/2. That said if youre just running mame go for i3 but you can get an i5 now for the price of what an i3 cost when it first launched.

Thats what i figured good looking out always nice having a friends pc to work with to compare. What type of GPU did you use or not to test n64 and ps1/2 eulators not sure i thought i read an article here about ATi cards vs Nvidia cards for emulators

[JoeB]

I've tested these emulators on my friends i3 and my i5 and we saw a difference in the n64 and ps1/2. That said if youre just running mame go for i3 but you can get an i5 now for the price of what an i3 cost when it first launched.

That's very subjective.  Did you guys use the same video card, mother board, amount of RAM, hard drive, background processes?  Did you compare a laptop to a desktop? (laptops are typically tuned for longer battery life at the cost of top performance) etc etc.

I personally went with i3 (paid 200$ for i3 550 + 1156 asus MB + 4GB ram + power supply). With the $$$ savings, I got a JPAC and ArcadeVGA.  Connected it all to a 300GB 2.5" SATA laptop harddrive.

The system is SILENT.  I can only hear the buzzing from the 29" arcade monitor. 

[Turnarcades]

It's a tricky situation cos I've always been of the opinion that it's nice to have a lot, but not worth breaking the bank to squeeze a few negligible titles into a machine. I'm warming to the idea of higher performance machines for things like SF4 and newer arcade titles, but even these can be run on modest specs so again I don't see the benefit. If you really want later systems I'd just say go with the best you can get for normal performance PC money, without going to extreme gamer prices over 4 figures. The problem facing those after newer emulation though is that it's more an issue of software coding and arcade environment integration than simply performance. For example I can run Wii OK on my modest home dual-core, but things like Saturn and Dreamcast (much older now) are still an issue with the complication of bios environments, disc emulation, encryption decoding and of course whether emulators are coded for specific hardware accelerators like graphics cards or not. Sure there's some great games that would be great with arcade controls, but could be very expensive and time consuming to look and play right.

[JoeB]

Turnarcades: all great points.

For me, the original experience is very important. MAME on a real arcade machine using soft15 or arcadeVGA works great for that.  If I want to play NES, PSX, XBOX or DC .. I play it on the real system using original controllers (I own all those as well as others)

[PIZZ]

Or you can mod an Xbox 360 to run virtually all the good system emulators and have the best of both worlds. And that will only run you $299 or less if you can get one used.

[JoeB]

Or you can mod an Xbox 360 to run virtually all the good system emulators and have the best of both worlds. And that will only run you $299 or less if you can get one used.

I think you missed my original point.  There a difference between playing NES or PSX games on the real hardware vs emulator on another system.  If you don't notice it, then you should be perfectly contempt playing arcade games as 1600x1400 resolution on an LCD monitor, keyboard and on a laptop rather than using real arcade monitor and real arcade joysticks/buttons.

[PIZZ]

I think you missed my original point.  There a difference between playing NES or PSX games on the real hardware vs emulator on another system.  If you don't notice it, then you should be perfectly contempt playing arcade games as 1600x1400 resolution on an LCD monitor, keyboard and on a laptop rather than using real arcade monitor and real arcade joysticks/buttons.

OK I was just responding to the original post topic. He wants a cost effective way to run all his emus. Modded xbox is a good choice. Hell, I think I might even do that on my new build!