| Main > Main Forum |
| Which one of these CPU/MB Combos will make a better MAME machine? |
| (1/1) |
| G@M3FR3@K:
I want to build a PC (strictly for MAME use) and will probably get one of these combos as the foundation for it: A) Intel Celeron D Processor 326 (Box Set) & ECS P4M800PRO-M Motherboard - OR - B) AMD Sempron Processor 3100+ ECS NFORCE3-A Motherboard I'm not to familiar with Intel CPU's since I haven't used them in several years. How does this Celeron compare to this (paticular) Sempron? Is the Sempron faster? If so, is it worth the extra $10 + HSF? Which one of these combos would you choose? Fastest games I want to play will be the Street Fighter (MvsC, SNK vs Capcom, X-Men COTA) type fighters. Will either of these be sufficient enough? CHD games are not a necessity at all! Some questions I have: 1) How much ram would be sufficient 128/256/512 mb? 2) What is the minumum PSU (watts) I should use on these systems? 3) I have a Geforce 2 MX400 32mb AGP card. Would this suffice? 4) Which (older) build of MAME would be the best for these games? 5) What OS would be the best for this system: Windows 98/2000/XP? Any advice/opinions will be greatly appreciated! TIA!! |
| G@M3FR3@K:
Here is a mini-review for the ECS NFORCE3-A Motherboard: http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=29&threadid=1737408&enterthread=y These are Fry's Electronics sale items. Besides having some of the worst customer service in the world I rather buy from them to avoid costly shipping fees. I'm trying to build this as cheap as possible. :P Here is Neweggs pricing for same combos: Price Shipping A) Intel Celeron D Processor 326 (Box Set) - $46.99 +($5.46) ECS P4M800PRO-M Motherboard - $45.99 +($6.67) --------- ---------- $92.88 + $12.13 = $105.10 (Subtotal) Price Shipping B) AMD Sempron Processor 3100+ - $77.00 +($5.46) ECS NFORCE3-A Motherboard - $43.99 +($5.46) --------- ---------- $120.99 + $10.92 = $131.91 (Subtotal) |
| Silhouette:
I'd go with the Sempron, 512mb(1GB would be better and RAM is dirt cheap) DDR memory, and a 250w PSU. Also, the video card doesn't matter, because MAME doesn't use the video card at all, unless you use it for TV-Out, then it's fine. Also, i'd go with the latest version of MAME, because that Sempron 3100+ is equivalent to a 3.1GHz Pentium 4. And for the OS, i'd probably dual-boot with Win98 and WinXP. 98 for running MAME and XP for system maintenance. |
| MPS:
To me, this is a no-brainer. Go with the AMD processor and ECS board. I have two Midway cabaret cabinets running MAME -- one Rally-X cabinet with a horizontal monitor and one Pac-Man cabinet with a vertical monitor. I purchased the AMD/ECS combination you list above to power both systems. I am VERY pleased with the performance. I had been powering these units off of some old P4 systems (1.4 Ghz and 1.6 Ghz) that were doing an OK job, but that processor/board combo price was just too good to pass up. I have been a huge fan of the AMD-based systems and despite my concerns about using a non-ASUS board, everything worked out just fine. The vertical unit has 512MB and an ArcadeVGA card running through a 13" arcade monitor. Most of what I am running on that system are older games like Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, etc. However, newer "shooter" games like Raiden and 19XX run at full speed with no issues. The horizontal system is a slightly different story. I am also using 512MB in this unit, but I elected to use a 15" PC monitor along with a GeForce 4 4600 card. The reason was that I also wanted to throw in some arcade-style PC games like NFL Blitz, Pac-Man Adventures in Time, Frogger 2, and Dragon's Lair. Just like the other systems, no problems with running any of these titles at full speed. I'm not into fighters, but I would imagine that they would run OK considering how efficiently everything else seems to be. I could try running some of those games on my rig and let you know how the performance is. I probably won't get to it before this weekend. Remember, the CPU in this bundle is OEM, so there is no heatsink or fan. I found some nice Gigabyte heatsinks at my local Microcenter for $12 each. |
| MPS:
Oops, I forgot to answer some of your questions. 1. I have 512mb in both of my cabinets. 2. I am using Seasonic 450 watt power supplies in both of my cabinets. They are probably overkill, but they are VERY quiet. The last thing I want from my cabinets are the sounds of PC's running inside. 3. Video should be the last thing to concern yourself with in a MAME cabinet UNLESS you are going to do the things I am doing -- i.e. use a real arcade monitor or run 3D-enabled PC games. Your card should be OK. 4. I think the AMD/ECS combo will give you enough power to negate the need to run an older build of MAME. I am using 0.96. 5. I am using Windows 2000 in both cabs -- less unneeded crap to disable. |
| Navigation |
| Message Index |