New CPU - Really cheap and possibly awesome for Hyperspin & Emulation

[dark13]

Always consider daily overclocks needs to be under the maximum limit of hardware

After 2-3 years of daily use at maximum frequency and chances are you will need higher voltages to reach stability so "pedal to the metal" philosophy is not wise if you don't change rig that often

[MonkeyJug]

It's a 50 buck CPU! Thrash it from day 1!!

[urbangangsta101]

According to Custom PC, you should be able to hit 4.8 with most chips.

They reached 4.8Ghz at 1.37v stable...

Yeah I haven't fully worked out my overclock yet, but I will try and push it further. I just wanted to do a quick dirty overclock and see how it performed...

EDIT: just tried 4.8GHz at 1.37v and it wouldn't post. Bumped it up to 1.4v and the same thing happened. Guru3D thinks that 4.8GHz is too much for these chips and needed 1.5v but still wasn't entirely stable...

[urbangangsta101]

Spent the last few days refining my overclock, settled on 4.4ghz as it requires less voltage and produces more manageable heat. I could pass several hours of prime95 with 4.4ghz @ 1.220v but had a pretty rapid BSOD during a quick game of Mario Sunshine (Dolphin Emu), showing that prime95 and other torture tests are not something to use and claim that your system is stable! I decided to do my own torture test by running Dolphin (Mario Sunshine Caterpillar boss on loop, loads of water and sand particles), Project64 (conker intro on loop) mame (tekken tag attract screen on loop) and a 1080p MKV file playing through media player on loop - all at the same time, resulting in 95-100% load. The G3258 managed to maintain an almost full speed frame rate on everything that was running together - very impressive considering the strain it was under. After increasing the voltage by 0.005v at a time, the system wasn't stable until I reached 1.330v, then it passed over 6 hours of constant abuse! Top temps are 73c. Load line calibration/vdroop offset set to 100%. Custom PC's must have been lucky getting it to boot at 4.8ghz @ 1.370 but there is no way that's 100% stable....

4.4ghz performs buttery smooth on all emulators I have tried, it's not worth the hassle to bump it further...

[LSDguy]

Dude this is awesome! Thanks so much for your effort! I'd be really interested to see how it hand ZOE 2nd runner. Particularly Anubis first encounter. About an hour into the game. I get major slow down. I have a i3 3240, @3.4ghz with TX 660ti direcuII and I get major slowdown at 2x resolution!!! Could this be possibly better for me?

[urbangangsta101]

I will give it a try when I get time, it's not a game I have played before. But yes, there would be a massive improvement over your i3

[LSDguy]

Really! How does that work brother? Does it have more cores or just a higher clock? I'm genuinely curious! I've been toying with getting an i5 or Xeon 1230v2 but obviously cost is a factor. Thanks for all the info and input.

On a side note thank you so much for your Xbox360 preset controls! Big help!

[lovemaker72]

Dude this is awesome! Thanks so much for your effort! I'd be really interested to see how it hand ZOE 2nd runner. Particularly Anubis first encounter. About an hour into the game. I get major slow down. I have a i3 3240, @3.4ghz with TX 660ti direcuII and I get major slowdown at 2x resolution!!! Could this be possibly better for me?

Nah. Benchmarks place the haswell version of i3 above this chip for almost everything. If you could run it on a high overclock for an extended period, it might be OK. What are you having trouble emulating?

[LSDguy]

Slowdown on PCSX2 ZOE 2nd runner and MGS: Sons of Liberty. Mario Sunshine also suffers some slowdown as well here and again with some graphical issues. This is all at 2x resolution or 1080p. But, my mobo and i3 3240 cannot be overclocked. Thats why I want to get the Xeon 1230v2 it's pretty much between an i5 and i7 with no onboard gpu. Of course it costs more. I don't want to hijack this thread here so look it up on Newegg.

[urbangangsta101]

Nah. Benchmarks place the haswell version of i3 above this chip for almost everything. If you could run it on a high overclock for an extended period, it might be OK. What are you having trouble emulating?

At stock speeds yes, Overclocked no, this is much faster. Who would buy a cheap unlocked CPU and keep it stock? It will be fine Overclocked 24/7 as long as it's cooled adequately.

@LSDguy - higher clock speeds = better emulation. 4GHz+ is needed for full speed, this is the cheapest unlocked Intel CPU that will allow for overclocking so it's ideal. It's only 2 cores but that doesn't matter for emulation.

[Gerurver]

Impressed by the Results:top:

Only 1 thing i cant understand. You say 2 cores are enough, do i understand that à quad core is à waste of money?

So i can beter buy à quicker clock speed? Even for demul and dolphin?

And i am looking here in the country for this chip. But still not found:-(

And for my bartop i doubt, because i read something like ITX and watercooling. (What Will give à nice effect with fish when i got à leak in it:-) my first watertank bartop

[ghutch92]

dolphin and pcsx2 can use three cores

[urbangangsta101]

dolphin and pcsx2 can use three cores

True, but only for Audio processing, doesn't make a huge difference if any.

Also, PCSX2 can use more than 2 via a speed hack, but it's not advisable for some games as it has a negative effect on performance.

I'm not saying to buy this over an i5 or i7, but it's impressive for the money. Just wanted to try it for myself and share the results...

[SIMPLYAUSTIN]

I must say it does fall into the emulation category very well due to its setup. An excellent find and a great review too. To be honest if you want a budget build or want just pur arcade emulation in a cab it seems the perfect choice unless you like blowing the extra dolla for future proofing.

On a side not... someone said something about 360 controls!?!?!?! Im in dire need of sorting my controls out (Sorry for yet another hijack)

[urbangangsta101]

On a side not... someone said something about 360 controls!?!?!?! Im in dire need of sorting my controls out (Sorry for yet another hijack)

I posted some for Sega Model 2 & 3 a while back. Check my FTP folder for Model 2 and the following thread for Model 3:

http://www.hyperspin-fe.com/forum/showthread.php?31661-Pre-Configured-Xbox-360-Controls-for-SuperModel3-(Sega-Model-3)-Emulator