Alright, so I should first start off by listing a bit of back story in regards to my computer:
My emulation days using Dolphin started off with using a ASRock A55 Pro, and an AMD A6-3670 processor, with the current Kingston 8 GB RAM that I have in it, my current 750W power supply (Figured I would mention it to keep a note on my max wattage, as I am not really looking to upgrade my power supply unless absolutely needed), and a small wimpy ASUS GT 610. For the most part, I could do some games, however playing something like Super Mario Sunshine was unbearable. Gaming was impossible with the current graphics card I had in it, so I invested in one that I believed would get the job done for what I needed it for, the ASUS GT 630, however, as I soon found out, it still was too weak. If I kept the resolution at about 1x, I would probably get around 15 FPS, enough to manage, but not anywhere near what anyone here would want. The same could be said with Beyblade: GT Force, however, my real issue came with playing the game I want to get working the most: Twilight Princess (Legend of Zelda, for those who may or may not know). Just entering into the cutscenes gave me around 20 FPS, and attempting to play the first five minutes of the game at around 5-10 FPS was not cutting it. I benchmarked it myself and found that my CPU was getting completely maxed out, so I decided to upgrade that.
Now we are at my current build.![Tongue]( "Tongue")
At the moment, I am running an Intel Core i7-4771 inside of the ASUS Maximus VI Hero, the original Kingston 8 GB RAM that I had, my current 750W power supply, an OCZ Technology 60 GB 3rd-Gen SSD, a Western Digital Blue 1TB for my data storage, my ASUS GT 630. Working with this, I can actually get a stable 30 FPS playing Twilight Princess at about 1.5-2x. However, there are a few instances where I enter certain points in the game, and watching my GPU, that I completely max out my GPU processing power. Everything else is humming and buzzing along fine, but just something in the game or how it needs to run at a proper frame rate is just not working with my current graphics card. So, that brings me to my current issue, with upgrading my graphics card. I've done some researching on my own and was looking between the ASUS R9 270X and R9 280X. Either one of these I would imagine would hold no problem doing 4x frame rate and handling anything the game has to deal with it, and considering I wanted to use it for mining in my off time, I figured they would be great buys. I didn't want to stop my search there, and I thought you guys here might be able to give me a good idea of what kind of GPU I can look into that would be sustainable and perfect for Twilight Princess at max resolution (I figured if I can find a graphics card that can handle that, then everything else would most likely be child's play). It doesn't even really have to be a specific graphics card. I more just want an idea of what I need to look for in a graphics card to get the best settings (I'm swinging more towards AMD cards at the moment because of mining, but if I can find a great deal on an NVIDIA card that will do beautifully, I wouldn't pass up the offer either).
And eventually, after the graphics card upgrade, I want to upgrade my RAM to Kingston HyperX Beast 16 GB 2133 PC3-17000, and a Samsung 840 PRO 128/256GB SSD, just to put this next generation gaming PC build to its optimal level of performance. From most of my research (and given that I work at a computer store, watching parts come in and having to have a VERY good idea of what is good for customers for their budgets and what is top of the line for those who wallets seem to never empty), I determined these two to be the best for my budget/needs, but as with the graphics card, I am definitely open to something better.
Any and all help is sincerely appreciated, and for taking the time to read my massive wall of text is even more appreciated.![Smile]( "Smile")
My emulation days using Dolphin started off with using a ASRock A55 Pro, and an AMD A6-3670 processor, with the current Kingston 8 GB RAM that I have in it, my current 750W power supply (Figured I would mention it to keep a note on my max wattage, as I am not really looking to upgrade my power supply unless absolutely needed), and a small wimpy ASUS GT 610. For the most part, I could do some games, however playing something like Super Mario Sunshine was unbearable. Gaming was impossible with the current graphics card I had in it, so I invested in one that I believed would get the job done for what I needed it for, the ASUS GT 630, however, as I soon found out, it still was too weak. If I kept the resolution at about 1x, I would probably get around 15 FPS, enough to manage, but not anywhere near what anyone here would want. The same could be said with Beyblade: GT Force, however, my real issue came with playing the game I want to get working the most: Twilight Princess (Legend of Zelda, for those who may or may not know). Just entering into the cutscenes gave me around 20 FPS, and attempting to play the first five minutes of the game at around 5-10 FPS was not cutting it. I benchmarked it myself and found that my CPU was getting completely maxed out, so I decided to upgrade that.
Now we are at my current build.
At the moment, I am running an Intel Core i7-4771 inside of the ASUS Maximus VI Hero, the original Kingston 8 GB RAM that I had, my current 750W power supply, an OCZ Technology 60 GB 3rd-Gen SSD, a Western Digital Blue 1TB for my data storage, my ASUS GT 630. Working with this, I can actually get a stable 30 FPS playing Twilight Princess at about 1.5-2x. However, there are a few instances where I enter certain points in the game, and watching my GPU, that I completely max out my GPU processing power. Everything else is humming and buzzing along fine, but just something in the game or how it needs to run at a proper frame rate is just not working with my current graphics card. So, that brings me to my current issue, with upgrading my graphics card. I've done some researching on my own and was looking between the ASUS R9 270X and R9 280X. Either one of these I would imagine would hold no problem doing 4x frame rate and handling anything the game has to deal with it, and considering I wanted to use it for mining in my off time, I figured they would be great buys. I didn't want to stop my search there, and I thought you guys here might be able to give me a good idea of what kind of GPU I can look into that would be sustainable and perfect for Twilight Princess at max resolution (I figured if I can find a graphics card that can handle that, then everything else would most likely be child's play). It doesn't even really have to be a specific graphics card. I more just want an idea of what I need to look for in a graphics card to get the best settings (I'm swinging more towards AMD cards at the moment because of mining, but if I can find a great deal on an NVIDIA card that will do beautifully, I wouldn't pass up the offer either).
And eventually, after the graphics card upgrade, I want to upgrade my RAM to Kingston HyperX Beast 16 GB 2133 PC3-17000, and a Samsung 840 PRO 128/256GB SSD, just to put this next generation gaming PC build to its optimal level of performance. From most of my research (and given that I work at a computer store, watching parts come in and having to have a VERY good idea of what is good for customers for their budgets and what is top of the line for those who wallets seem to never empty), I determined these two to be the best for my budget/needs, but as with the graphics card, I am definitely open to something better.
Any and all help is sincerely appreciated, and for taking the time to read my massive wall of text is even more appreciated.
