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The ideal pc
taz-nz:
--- Quote from: IG-88 on April 18, 2009, 06:42:53 am ---Would a quad core save the trouble then of overclocking?
All I really need is CPU and Mobo recommendations. And I guess a vid card.
--- End quote ---
No MAME is only partly multi threaded so you don't gain a lot going from a Core2Duo to a Core2Quad (or Core i7). It's the preformance per clock of the Core2 core, combined with it's ability to be heavily overclocked that makes it's so great for MAME, not the number of cores is has.
If your trying to keep the budget down, I recommend the following:
Intel Core2Duo E7500 CPU (overclock to 4.0ghz)
Sunbeam Core-Contact Freezer heatsink
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3L motherboard ($25 less for an open box one)
Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400 2x 1GB DDR2-800 Ram
Gigabyte GV-R455D3-512I Radeon HD4550 512MB graphics card.
Have a read of my benchmark/overclocking/MAME preformance thread: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=72776.0
Blanka:
--- Quote from: taz-nz on April 18, 2009, 08:15:21 am ---Intel Core2Duo E7500 CPU (overclock to 4.0ghz)
--- End quote ---
The E8400 is only 20$ more, for that you get 1333mhz fsb instead of 1066, and double the cache (which makes it 10% faster on equal ghz). Consider to spend those bucks!
retrometro:
Has anyone posted out of the box or overclocked numbers for the new i7 CPUs yet for some of the more intensive games yet?
All I've come across are the 4ghz core2duo ones in search.
thanks!
IG-88:
Very nice guys, thanks. I added an extra 2gigs of ram. Necessary? I'm still under $400.
I'm thinking a new PSU might be a good idea too. What are your suggestions?
taz-nz:
--- Quote from: Blanka on April 18, 2009, 01:53:17 pm ---
--- Quote from: taz-nz on April 18, 2009, 08:15:21 am ---Intel Core2Duo E7500 CPU (overclock to 4.0ghz)
--- End quote ---
The E8400 is only 20$ more, for that you get 1333mhz fsb instead of 1066, and double the cache (which makes it 10% faster on equal ghz). Consider to spend those bucks!
--- End quote ---
Please note my recommendation were based on trying to keep the cost down, my recommendations for the optimal overclock setup would be noticably different.
The E7500 lower FSB is of little importance as when you overclock the CPU to 4ghz, you would be running a 400mhz (1600) FSB. What is of more importance is the CPUs Multiplier, the E7500 has 11x stock Mutliplier, where as the E8400 has a 9x Multiplier, thus the E8400 needs to a 445Mhz FSB to reach 4ghz and there for need DDR2-1066 Ram, where as with the E7400 you can drop the Multiplier to 10x and run a 400Mhz FSB which mean you only need DDR-800 ram and you can get away with a cheaper motherboard, which helps keep the cost down.
The CPU binning also comes into it play, the E8400 has the worst binner of the E8#00 series CPUs were as the E7500 has the best binning of the E7#00 series CPU, the cheapest models in any series of CPUs often overclock no where near as well as the top models in the same range. Because of this it's possible the E7500 will overclock better that the E8400 purely due to binning. (note: there is always a good measure of luck involved in overclocking)
MAME doesn't appear to be overly sensitive to memory bandwidth or cache memory, so the difference in cache memory is less likely to be noticable than some other apps. When I changed from my old E6850 to my E8500 clock for clock at 4ghz there was no noticably difference in MAME even with the 4MB vs 6MB cache difference.
I'd like to recommend an E8600, GA-EP45-UD3R, and 4GB of DDR-1066, etc to everyone, but it's not in everyones budget. If your looking at E8400 CPU I recommend getting the E8500 as with the right cooling you have a very good change of getting to 4.5ghz and it's only $25 more than the E8400.
--- Quote from: IG-88 on April 18, 2009, 05:42:06 pm ---Very nice guys, thanks. I added an extra 2gigs of ram. Necessary? I'm still under $400.
I'm thinking a new PSU might be a good idea too. What are your suggestions?
--- End quote ---
4GB will not hurt to have, it will help preformance a little if you running 64bit Vista, if your going to be running 32bit XP don't bother. I recommend:
Corsair TWIN2X4096-8500C5 2x 2GB DDR2-1066
A good brand name power supply is always a must, as long as your only going with a basic graphics card you can get away with a 400-450watt PSU, just make sure it's something like a Seasonic or Enermax, I'd rate a 400w brand name PSU over a no name 650w PSU any day. I'd recommend a ENERMAX ETK405AST 405W as a minimum.
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