advice on pc specs for a Hyperspin Cab

[strawdog]

Hi there,

First of all, i want to say,i have been looking through the forums and whilst i have found some great advice on what to buy/build, i didnt read anything that was very recent so i would love to hear if i am heading in the right direction.

I plan to buy a cabinet (from here http://www.recroommasters.com/32_Pro_Upright_Xtension_Arcade_Cabinet_Emulator_p/rm-xt-32-pro-ee.htm )

I am looking to play everything up to and including PS2, Dreamcast,Wii.

I understand that CPU speed is the main priority but i am also on a budget, i am not confident enough to build from scratch (happy to upgrade RAM and gfx cards etc)

Would one of these refurbs be good enough to get me running most games including 3D titles ?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA5YV1XU6189

thanks

[Aorin]

Hey pal, I just made a comparison here >http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Xeon-W3565-vs-Intel-Core-i5-2500K, against Core I5 (Which you would need most in Dolphin and PCSX2) Xeon Quad-Core W3565 3.2GHz is a little bit slower, but even though I believe it has enough horse power to run the 128 emulators.

Why do I affirm that?

I have a core i3 2120, 3,30 GHZ in my desktop and I assure you can play most GameCube games in 60 FPS (Not all) with mine and this Xeon seems quite faster than mine.

[strawdog]

Thanks aorin,

that helps a lot, sounds like this may be good enough for my needs, anyone else got any thoughts on this before i pull the trigger and buy the refurb'd Xeon ?

I am itching to get started on this project

[azzajess]

I cant contribute much on what I good computer is for the job, I can share what I have in my system.

i5-3470 CPU (Quad core 3.2Ghz)

16GB Ram

GeForce 210 Graphics Card

Windows 8 64-bit

multiple HDDs, one running the OS (1TB) and one running most of the Hyperspin (4TB)

This build is really doing well running most/all emulators/games fairly well including the Wii/PS2/Gamcube games surprisingly.

Although when it comes to some of the more modern games say like Street Fighter 4 and Mortal Kombat, the graphics card cant keep up and i will be upgrading when i see a good graphics card on special.

Any recommendations on a good graphics card for the price?

[strawdog]

cheers azzajess,

i did a comparison on your cpu and the one i might buy, seems mine will run a little slower but it should do the trick - and then i will upgrade the gfx card in the future to handle the newer games.

off to click buy on that Xeon now

thanks!

[marxkemp]

I bought a msi gfx750 ti 2gb gaming edition videocard

[Aorin]

strawdog, remember that the gfx card is not vital for emulation, CPU is what you focus for, if you plan to play newest modern PC games in your HS you'll need a faster gfx card, one of the best examples is SSF, this saturn emulator, even the system itself being a 90's 32 bits era console, is very hard to emulate, I only saw it full speed when Intel released 2 cores CPU and only after that, before, it never could run fluently, and even today, if you have, let's say, a 900 GTX gfx card from Nvidia and a Pentium IV CPU, you cold never emulate such heavy emulators, the processor would "hold" the system just like our HDDs do against the new SSDs, we have multi core CPUs, fast GFX card RAM and so, but our HDD didn't follow the same evolution.

[showstopper]

16GB is total overkill

[strawdog]

strawdog, remember that the gfx card is not vital for emulation, CPU is what you focus for, if you plan to play newest modern PC games in your HS you'll need a faster gfx card, one of the best examples is SSF, this saturn emulator, even the system itself being a 90's 32 bits era console, is very hard to emulate, I only saw it full speed when Intel released 2 cores CPU and only after that, before, it never could run fluently, and even today, if you have, let's say, a 900 GTX gfx card from Nvidia and a Pentium IV CPU, you cold never emulate such heavy emulators, the processor would "hold" the system just like our HDDs do against the new SSDs, we have multi core CPUs, fast GFX card RAM and so, but our HDD didn't follow the same evolution.

thanks mate,

nah, i have a gaming pc and ps4 so i wont use HS for modern pc games, i just want this HS cab in the basement loaded up with every retro system i can, so i am going with the Xeon Quad-Core W3565 3.2GHz with 8gb of ram. if it cant handle gamecube,ps2 then i'll upgrade the gfx card and hope that helps.

thanks for the help.

[dark13]

That system has a quadro gpu... quadro and firegl are usually a mess with gaming, just like gaming videocards have problems with some CAD.

The "budget way to emulation" is intel G3258 with a z97 overclockable motherboard and a decent heatsink. Some forum members did tests and, clock per clock, that 60$ cpu is really close to a 350$ 4770k

[strawdog]

one other question ..........

i am thinking of running HS from a usb 3.0 external 4tb drive (so i can pull it out of the cab and connect it to my pc in the office whilst i update so i am not down in the basement for hours) will this work?

-i will install hypersync and a wifi connection in the cab pc though so it can update.

[strawdog]

That system has a quadro gpu... quadro and firegl are usually a mess with gaming, just like gaming videocards have problems with some CAD.

The "budget way to emulation" is intel G3258 with a z97 overclockable motherboard and a decent heatsink. Some forum members did tests and, clock per clock, that 60$ cpu is really close to a 350$ 4770k

ah ok thanks,

as i mentioned before, i am useless at building this pc myself, any chance you can point me to any sites selling this kind of rig?

would this be a better option ?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229594&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC-_-pla-_-All+Desktop+PCs-_-N82E16883229594&ds_e_ad_type=pla&gclid=Cj0KEQiAn9-kBRDloNeUw7Pe_YwBEiQA4HXMU1TKeAZRQ1PsRHtJVH6tI8SLENp5NimmFe2Ca6Ui6koaAu_c8P8HAQ&gclsrc=aw.ds

[dark13]

The fact is you need a decent motherboard to overcock the cpu and usually pre-made rigs do not have OC capabilities. There are some cheap motheboard that allows oc, read this http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pentium-g3258-b81-cheap-overclocking,3888.html

Maybe you should ask about shops to americans, I could give you some websites but they are italian

[Aorin]

thanks mate,

nah, i have a gaming pc and ps4 so i wont use HS for modern pc games, i just want this HS cab in the basement loaded up with every retro system i can, so i am going with the Xeon Quad-Core W3565 3.2GHz with 8gb of ram. if it cant handle gamecube,ps2 then i'll upgrade the gfx card and hope that helps.

thanks for the help.

I believe you won't need a new gfx card for that, go ahead, be happy with your HS setup. I'm having fun in the journey setting up HS, adding system by system, hope you have fun with it too, feel free to add me if you will.

[strawdog]

The fact is you need a decent motherboard to overcock the cpu and usually pre-made rigs do not have OC capabilities. There are some cheap motheboard that allows oc, read this http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pentium-g3258-b81-cheap-overclocking,3888.html

Maybe you should ask about shops to americans, I could give you some websites but they are italian

yeah thanks, any US east coast sites anyone?

to be honest, everytime i have tinkered with my motherboard in the past i've blown something !

i may just accept this rig, maybe use some safe overclocking software and see if it increases performance but to be honest, this machine is probably going to be playing mame and psx mainly so it should be cool as it is.

[Aorin]

one other question ..........

i am thinking of running HS from a usb 3.0 external 4tb drive (so i can pull it out of the cab and connect it to my pc in the office whilst i update so i am not down in the basement for hours) will this work?

-i will install hypersync and a wifi connection in the cab pc though so it can update.

Actually, I use my HS exclusively in a 3TB external 3.0 USB and it works like a charm, as you unplug it and put in other PC, remember to keep the same drive letter, so everything will work every PC, if "H:" in PC 1, in PC 2 it still must be "H:" and so on.

[strawdog]

thanks for the tip, OK i cant wait any longer, i have looked into it and there is a chance i can overclock that pc, so i'm buying now. let the fun begin!

[azzajess]

16GB is total overkill

Your probably right, but this system i have was bought already built and the price was pretty good for what i got it for (Although i cant remember the price )

8GB should do plenty i reckon, considering most modern budget PCs use 8GB as a standard.

[azzajess]

Wish you all the best with your build