Help with PC build

JurgaBurga

Honorable
Jun 26, 2013
6
0
10,510
Hello. I am thinking of making an emulation PC to run on my 1080p HDTV. My budget is 800 dollars. The computer will souley be for running emulators.The emulators I want to run are: NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, prob wii, gameboy, gameboy color, gameboy advance, DS, Sega Genisis, and PS1.
Most of my roms will be the Nintnendo home consoles. I do have some requirements though. I need at least a 1TB hardrive and A VERY GOOD PROCESSOR. I am decently familiar with all the parts of the computer. I was also thinking if you can include a wifi card in my build. Also, I don't want an expensive case or PS. I also don't want liquid cooling. Thank you! :)
 
I stated it in my info. This computer is mainly for emulator use. I should add more info to that. I want to also watch HD videos and movies from the computer aswell as mildly edit my gameplay commentary videos with programs like Corel Studios X5 and windows movie maker live.
You said that the emulators I listed don't take up alot of processing power. That is false. Each video game console has a special processor and GPU dedicated to playing the games on that console. The CPU on a, for example, a gamecube, is basically a foreign student. Think about it like that. The american person talking to the foreign student must try harder to understand the person. It takes an ICore 5 processor more power to decode the language in the gamecube. I hope that made sense. That is why I said I wanted a very good processor.
 
I don't see any emulators in the OP, just consoles. If you have an emulator that does eat CPU resources, it means you're running one using an interpreter version, instead of a recompiler version. The interpreter process itself is what eats your CPU resources. Every emulator goes through this stage of development. The initial emulators will use an interpreter (easy to write), then after a while a recompiler version will get published. When the newer emulators get to that stage, the system requirements will drop dramatically. To use your example, The leading gamecube emulator right now (Dolphin), uses an interpreter.

Just because it takes a generalized CPU more processing power to run an emulator than the CPU processor on the console itself doesn't mean that it takes a *lot* of processing power on the general CPU. All the recompiler versions of emulators run quickly even on old hardware. If you want to save money, you can wait for those versions of GC emulators, or you can splurge now.

If you'd rather spend the money on a powerful system now, you can take a peek at the $600 build in my sig as a starting point. swapping in a 1TB HDD and a wireless adapter would bring it to ~$650
 
Here's the build with wifi & 1TB

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($189.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: MSI B75MA-E33 Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($59.91 @ Amazon)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($52.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($64.98 @ Outlet PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card ($179.99 @ Newegg)
Wireless Network Adapter: Asus PCE-N10 802.11b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($19.35 @ Amazon)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 370 ATX Mid Tower Case ($33.78 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224BB DVD/CD Writer ($16.98 @ Outlet PC)

Total: $637.95
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)