- Joined
- Nov 28, 2001
This time around, its $100 for a A.M.D. cpu (stupid April first... 
) + motherboard. I missed out on the last sale, and really want to snatch something up to put aside for a future emulator cabinet project. So I pose the question; If you wanted a system capable of being able to run current emulators (mainly MAME), which of these would you get, -or-, would you recommend to not get any?
First, they have 2 CPUs to pick from:
Phenom II X2 560 Black Edition Boxed Processor
-or-
PHENOM II X4 840 Boxed Processor HDX840WFGMBOX
Either can be paired up with one of these 4 boards:
Biostar A780L3G AM3 760G mATX
MSI S785GTM-E45 Socket AM3/AM2+ 785G mATX
Asus M4N68T-M V2 Socket AM3 630a mATX
Gigabyte GA-MA78LMT-S2 AM3 760G mATX
I know for the most part, most games wont tax the CPU much in MAME because of thier age, but keep in mind that MAME is pretty much entirely CPU bound, and although they did add some multi-threading to it, its still primarily a single process program. Trying to run MAME on my laptop which sports a 1.4GHz Core2Solo results in nearly 1/2 the games running at less then optimal (those are games from the 90s), and some not playable at all.
Graphics aren't too big a concern with most emulators, as they all pretty much just rely on DX9, and are of course 2D. If they use any 3D capabilities, its mainly for resizing the output to full screen, so I think any of the on board videos on those boards should be adequate.
) + motherboard. I missed out on the last sale, and really want to snatch something up to put aside for a future emulator cabinet project. So I pose the question; If you wanted a system capable of being able to run current emulators (mainly MAME), which of these would you get, -or-, would you recommend to not get any?First, they have 2 CPUs to pick from:
Phenom II X2 560 Black Edition Boxed Processor
-or-
PHENOM II X4 840 Boxed Processor HDX840WFGMBOX
Either can be paired up with one of these 4 boards:
Biostar A780L3G AM3 760G mATX
MSI S785GTM-E45 Socket AM3/AM2+ 785G mATX
Asus M4N68T-M V2 Socket AM3 630a mATX
Gigabyte GA-MA78LMT-S2 AM3 760G mATX
I know for the most part, most games wont tax the CPU much in MAME because of thier age, but keep in mind that MAME is pretty much entirely CPU bound, and although they did add some multi-threading to it, its still primarily a single process program. Trying to run MAME on my laptop which sports a 1.4GHz Core2Solo results in nearly 1/2 the games running at less then optimal (those are games from the 90s), and some not playable at all.
Graphics aren't too big a concern with most emulators, as they all pretty much just rely on DX9, and are of course 2D. If they use any 3D capabilities, its mainly for resizing the output to full screen, so I think any of the on board videos on those boards should be adequate.
