Old i5-3570 or new i3-7100

[SentaiBrad]

Yea, but if you have a dual channel board, and you stick in 1 stick, it will perform worse. If it's a dual channel board, you really want to stick in 2. So I would just go with the 16GB and call it a day.

[THRobinson]

Got a snipe on 4x4GB dual channel corsair right now. 

Failing that I'll buy pairs... 2x4GB or 2x8GB

[THRobinson]

So... haven't bought anything yet. Been focused on other projects and torn between 2 designs for the cabinet.

But... I was looking at option C... for Celeron.

G4400 3.3Ghz is half the cost of an i3-7100, and doesn't seem too far off from one another performance and spec wise. Was thinking go cheap, get the G4400... but the board will accept up to a 7th Gen i7, so... 2-3yrs from now, grab a cheap used i5 or something.

Any feedback on the G4400?

Build - https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/THRobinson/saved/WBzVnQ

Side-by-Side - http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Pentium-G4400-vs-Intel-Core-i3-7100/3539vs3891

i3-6100 vs G4400

 

[SentaiBrad]

I wouldn't personally go any lower than an i5, especially with the i9 announcements. I don't know if they're dropping i3's all together, but when i9's hit the consumer level its going up. Benchmarks are good and fascinating, I like them too, but they don't tell a complete picture about the hardware. I don't think the Celeron's have hyperthreading or anything else like that.

[THRobinson]

No, no hyperthreading... but does that matter?

That's the thing, those CPU specs don't tell the full story, but neither does the LaunchBox about page.

I have no idea if LB gains anything from hyperthreading? multicores? which I think we established it doesn't a few posts back.

DOS76 - "Most emulators don't take advantage of core threading from what I've read."

NEIL9000 - "Dolphin only goes up to Dual core, and that's one of the more advanced emulators out there. So yeah."

i9 would be overkill I suspect. Depending what you play. As mentioned previously, I may add God of War 1 and 2 for PS2, but likely nothing else. I won't be playing STEAM games or controller games standing in front of an arcade machine. For me, it defeats the purpose of an arcade machine if not using the stick and buttons. 

For me, mostly stuff that would run on a RaspPi but, some stuff that doesn't run very well... tried some N64 games and lag was so bad I couldn't play. PSOne games same deal. I have a PSU that I fixed (bad fan) a 250GB drive and a GTX650TiBoost card. Looking for something better and flashier than the Pi, but not gonna spend too much on.

LGA1151 board on sale, $20 off and $25 mail-in, so $50CAD after all said and done. Future proofing wise, makes more sense to me to buy something new, than an old 3rd Gen i5, especially since I haven't found one under $350CAD yet for sale. Some decent ones out there for sale, but, paying extra for parts I don't need.

[SentaiBrad]

Actually, yes, LaunchBox does use multiple cores. I've heard Jason talk many many times about putting different operations in different threads. So yes, LaunchBox can take advantage of your CPU's multiple threads. I'm not sure how many, but. A lot of emulators wont, but that's to be expected. Some have options to enable multiple cores for use, and it can create some issues. Emulators are much much harder to get going multi-core. Hyperthreading was just the example I went to, but they're often Dual cores right? The i3 does have similar speeds, but they're in a class of their own. If it's a good deal though, and you want to go for it, then go for it! I'm just not sure the price difference is enough to make up for the complete lack that the i series gives. Remember, it also needs to power everything else your doing, not just a game. Part of the reason I don't like thos comparison videos is because they don't tell you anything about anything else, other than that single game, or maybe even a few games.

The i5, i7 and i9x series are certainly overkill. The i9x is a $2k enthusiast CPU that requires a special motherboard. All I am meaning by that, is the expectation is an announcement within the next several months about the i9 coming down to consume level. There is also an odd shift in hardware expectation. People assume that the GPU is the most important aspect, and to go for the top, and while the GPU is certainly very very important, the CPU is just as important. The last few years, CPU upgrades from generation to generation have been tiny, while GPU's have been making giant leaps. I notice very very frequently that people talk about poor performance, their GPU is good but their CPU is several generations old and an i3 or an i5. While the i5 is what I consider the bottom of the barrel for gaming, for which ever generation you have for your motherboard, the farther back you go the worse off it gets. It's not just about the amount of cores and the raw speeds, it's how many instructions per second it can get through, it's multi-tasking capabilities, and so on. This all obviously doesn't start to get near what you have for hardware lying around and what price point you want to be at, but that is how I feel about the hardware talk.

[THRobinson]

It's a hard topic... figuring out min. specs because of all the variables. Plus, hard to know if the advise is from someone like minded or someone who see's no problem in dropping $2k on a system build. 

I had a friend who use to spend $700 on a new video card every 6 months and sell the old one at a $200-300 loss each time. Just because something slightly better came out. To me that was nuts, to him it made total sense. I usually get a mid/high end card, GTX10604GB right now, and I'll keep that and skip the next gen before I upgrade it. If that guy was on here, I'm sure the min. recommendation of a PC from him would easily cost $2k.

That's all I'm trying to establish... what will work just fine, vs what will work totally maxed out.

Those comparisons are good for 1 thing though... the same reason you didn't like. Same hardware, same game, what difference would you expect to see. There's another vid that's the same thing comparing 5 games and really, that's exactly what you'd want. If I were making a system to play games and all the side-by-side game videos showed almost no difference, to me that would be the whole story. It would be different if I was looking for a home system, because I'd also need to see comparisons for other apps like Adobe suite software. If those vids were showing LaunchBox/games and the comparison looked like that, difference of a measly 3fps... decision would be done.

Well... bought the motherboard, was on sale from about $100CAD down to just under $50CAD. Seemed a good deal. LGA1151 MicroATX. Had a slot for the GPU and 2 slots for dual channel ram... don't really need much more than that. Can't say I miss the old days when you needed a slot for your GPU, soundcard, modem, SCSI card, etc... Figure I'll add sales alerts for the parts I want... CPU is still in the air for me. i5 would be preferred, but, again... not sure how many modern games I'd be playing. I'm sure the G4400 would play NES just as well as the i3 or i5... it's when I hit games newer than 2000 where it's iffy. 

[SentaiBrad]

Sure, the comparison videos are great when comparing a bunch of different games together, but it doesn't tell the complete story. Chances are, your system, or any other system, is setup that way. So you have to consider what OS you're running, and other software you need and use. Completely perfect NES emulation (100%, etc), will require a decent CPU surprisingly. The SNES for example, Bsnes Accuracy (RA or otherwise), requires about a 3Ghz CPU, and that's just for that. Again, the full environment, OS and other software require some CPU power to. So a 3.4Ghz + would be my minimum there. To be honest though, I don't know if that 3Ghz spec assumes your PC, and means 3Ghz total, or if it's just 3Ghz required for just that. I would assume they don't assume the rest of your PC setup cause that seems impossible. While most emulators don't take advantage of multipe cores, quite a lot of software and your OS does, so it would be best to go for a Quad core. At a certain point, even if the Emulator requirements are not as high, you still gotta make sure the OS, LB, etc, have room to breathe a bit. When you start hitting your limits, the system starts to become unstable. I've ran out of RAM a lot while editing and rendering, and everything on my system comes to a crawl. If you found hardware that works for you, the system runs reasonably well, then it doesn't really matter in the end. I just know what I see people complain about all the time in regards to performance. There are certainly times where it's an issue with the software, or a bug, like this new potential 0 byte image bug that may be causing crashes that @syntax_X randomly found. In most other cases though, it's usually down to hardware and software. I am cautious when it comes to this subject too, because people feel attacked or like they made a bad decision and they spent money on it, but PC's just work this way. My 970 was already not the best, the 980 was out, then the Ti variants followed 2 months later, then 4 months later the 1060-1080 line was announced.

[syntax_X]

I think a lot of people see products like the retropie and automatically assume setting up LB on their pc will give the same experience, but they don't realise that every emulator and the entire OS was built around using those units to game on.

Hardware wise every unit is basically the same, they will perform the same, compatibility will be the same ect.
 

Then you have LB going out on thousands of uniquely built computers with different OS. I have 2 systems running the same copy of windows 10 and I can tell you now they both do random different stuff to me all the time, one would think it would be exactly the same.......

 

In reality there's a big difference in the quality of gaming between a built pc running LB and some tiny Arduino running a Linux based frontend.

Load times, image quality ect. These things send me crazy on the smaller units. But when you can build one for $80 why not hey?
Because they suck, Ive been there, Emulating on an NUC unit was even worse. If you like choppy frame rates go for it.

Personally I have a decent gaming rig in another room and wanted to build a media/emulator centre that would still be able to play current games at close to 60fps (PUBg 40fps). It was important for me that the hardware for this could dual boot xp so I could run 95/dos games natively but in the end everything's working on 10.

If I could I would probably upgrade the GPU before I drop more ram in it but to me this is the smallest/cheapest system I would run Launchbox on when emulating past PS1/N64

Windows 10 64-bit
i5 3570 3.4/3.8 Ghz
8 Gigs ram
Nvidia GTX750ti 

I don't think any of that is available new anymore

If your going any smaller just get a retropie unit and call it a day, under $80 AUD to build your own unit.

 

Edited June 10, 2017 by syntax_X

[THRobinson]

2 hours ago, SentaiBrad said:

requires about a 3Ghz CPU, and that's just for that. Again, the full environment, OS and other software require some CPU power to. So a 3.4Ghz + would be my minimum there. To be honest though, I don't know if that 3Ghz spec assumes your PC, and means 3Ghz total, or if it's just 3Ghz required for just that.

What do you mean by 3Ghz? There are a lot of 3Ghz CPUs... like a 15yr old socket 478 P4 3Ghz? a G3950 is 3Ghz and slower than the G4400 I was mentioning.

 

[syntax_X]

  Decent read

 https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one-mans-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator/2/

[THRobinson]

I see in the comments a few people are asking the same thing I am... what does 3Ghz mean?

Because a 15yr old P4 3Ghz processor is definitely different than a 7th Gen i7 3Ghz.

If all I need is "3Ghz"... why is everyone recommending a 3rd Gen i5? I can just grab a used DELL Optiplex 780 with an E5700 in it for $55CAD.

That's what I'm getting at... I've seen people say before to get a 3Ghz system, but 3Ghz is way too vague given how many generations there are.

[SentaiBrad]

Because that's the number thrown around, but the CPU does much more. The speed is the same, but how many instructions per second, and various other details and capabilities are something you have to dig to read. You also need to look at needing a GPU for sure with some CPU's. Some variants don't have integrated graphics, and some low cost builds go that route. You'd want a slightly beefier CPU to offset the double load too. A CPU from 10 years ago will one only fit in a motherboard of that era, and also cutting down on everything else like RAM, but it's absolutely not the same. Those frequencies are the same, but the speed at which it does everything does not compare. It's the same with RAM, the amount is one part of the equation and how fast it is is the other. DDR3 to DDR4 too, even if you found the "same frequency", we're talking about two completely different things here. The same "speeds" don't mean anything in this scenario. Realistically, no, you don't need a top of the line CPU, and that's not what I am trying to get at either, it's left up to the user and your needs. However, if you want to emulate some newer stuff, potentially do some gaming, or you want your computer to be somewhat future proof and have use for the next few years, then you don't want to settle, necessarily, for the cheapest option. It's like going 80MPH in a Porsche, or going 80MPH in a Pinto. Same speeds, completely different experiences.

[THRobinson]

Mine's a Xeon e3-1231v3 3.4Ghz, without integrated graphics... spec wise it was about the same as an i7 plus lower power consumption, error/redundancy checking, designed to run 24/7 and a good chunk cheaper. Figured why pay for the integrated graphics if I have a GTX1060. But I think now, they separated them... so a server cpu needs a server board, can't put it on a consumer board, which sucks.

Futureproofing is something that I always try to do. That's why I suggested the G4400... because new, it would be cheaper than a used 3rd Gen i5 (after shipping and stuff the i5 3570 is almost double the price) but the board the G4400 uses will handle up to a 7th Gen i7... so it would be settling for a cheaper option knowing in 1-2yrs I can buy a used CPU and upgrade easily enough if I find that the G4400 isn't handling things well enough.

The whole 3Ghz thing though, I wish people would stop saying because again... someone may read 3Ghz, look at their current rig which is an E5700 and be greatly disappointed when they try running a PS2 game. When someone says a 3rd Gen i5... that narrows it down a lot.

Edited June 10, 2017 by THRobinson

[cammelspit]

It may be slightly more than the  i3 but you could also consider a Ryzen chip. For the price, you simply cant beat the performance. Since thread ripper is coming so soon they just dropped the price of all of Ryzen lineup. You can get a 4 core 8 thread 1500X for about $180 which beats an Haswell mainstream i7 hands down and is almost equal IPC wise to a Skylake chip. Just a thought.

[SentaiBrad]

I personally would never touch an AMD product, but hey, if it's working for you.

Server hardware is a bit trickier, consumer levels and server levels are a big distinction and hardly work together anymore. The 3Ghz thing is annoying, but no one's ever said an era of chip to aim for. When you look at min specs on Steam games for example, it will tell you the era or area to start from, with the speeds. That's not common with emulators sadly, and it creates uneven expectations. I see it all the time here, which is why we generally ask for full specs.

[THRobinson]

Plus already mentioned that I just bought a board so... AMD isn't an option.

[THRobinson]

1 hour ago, SentaiBrad said:

The 3Ghz thing is annoying, but no one's ever said an era of chip to aim for. When you look at min specs on Steam games for example, it will tell you the era or area to start from, with the speeds. That's not common with emulators sadly, and it creates uneven expectations. I see it all the time here, which is why we generally ask for full specs.

Yup... 3Ghz on it's own, is kind of a useless spec. Going back to the car analogy brought up earlier... it's like saying a 6 cylinder engine is fine for streetracing.... my old '47 Dodge had a 6 cylinder, inline 6... and no way you'd beat a golf cart with it. 

[THRobinson]

Finally ordered the rest of my parts... debated between 2x4GB and 2x8GB, finally ended up getting 16GB total. More than what I was hoping to spend, but, figured with all the work done so far, and even more when I actually build the thing, I didn't want it to suck. Ideally, I'd have a better GPU, regret selling my GTX960 when I upgraded to the GTX1060... but, hopefully the old GTX 650 will do.

Build will be some old and some new parts...

• ASRock H110M-HDS mATX
• Intel i3-7100 3.9Ghz
• G.Skill DDR4 2133 2x8GB Dual-Channel
• 1TB Seagate Barracuda SataIII 7200rpm (old)
• Asus GTX650Ti OC Boost 2GB Video (old)
• BFG 550w PSU (old)
• Win7x64

 

Edited June 17, 2017 by THRobinson