CPU for emulation rig question

[GordosTacoShop]

I'm wanting to make a dedicated emulation rig, and have both an i3 7350k and a ryzen 3 2200g with mobos (B350 and Z270) in storage.  What would be better for emulation? The i3 OCs to 5 GHz, but I'm not sure what the Ryzen is capable of.

I'm scouting for a cheap GTX 1060 right now to go with the build, so the iGPUs are irrelevant for me.

Up-res PS2 and 3DS are my high priorities.

Are emulators still single-thread heavy, or have they all moved to multi-thread back ends? Would the straight quad-core zen be a better option now?

Thanks for the help!

[vanished]

I believe that i3 will be better, but it depends on the emulation software you're using.  Generally speaking it is extremely hungry for single-threaded performance and can only use a few threads at most, so a very fast dual or at most quad core is probably your best bet.  Trading speed for cores will generally not help with emulation.  I believe the Intel and AMD CPUs in this case have relatively similar IPC, but the Intel CPU can reach 4.2 GHz (and apparently up to 5.0 based on your post) while that Ryzen chip is only hitting 3.7 GHz, with hope for up to 4.0 at most in all likelihood (this is generally the cap for first gen Ryzen).  If you already have all the hardware though, I would advice just trying your emulator on both systems to see for yourself which is better.  If you already own everything you need, it's free to just try stuff and you never know what you will learn

[GordosTacoShop]

I figured.  I planned to do that anyway... I just don't have a GPU available to test with. (Save a 1 gb hd 7770 I have as a decorative item.) 

I might just be able to get a baseline though.  Thanks for the insight.

[vanished]

2 minutes ago, GordosTacoShop said:

I figured.  I planned to do that anyway... I just don't have a GPU available to test with. (Save a 1 gb hd 7770 I have as a decorative item.) 

I might just be able to get a baseline though.  Thanks for the insight.

I suspect either of these systems should be enough for the consoles you mentioned, but if for some reason they're not enough, or you want to try something more demanding in the future, an update to a very high clocked 9th gen Intel or Zen 2 CPU might make the difference if you only need a few more frames, but these things tend to be more of a pass/fail situation.  As in, it will work, or it'll run at like 10 fps - not a small margin you can resolve with hardware changes.  In these cases, there's no choice but to simply wait for software optimizations.

[1van]

2 hours ago, GordosTacoShop said:

I'm wanting to make a dedicated emulation rig, and have both an i3 7350k and a ryzen 3 2200g with mobos (B350 and Z270) in storage.  What would be better for emulation?

CoffeeMod your LGA1151 board (link in my signature) and install something like i3-8350K there, then OC it.

I read emulation requires a few, but fast cores.

[DeadnightWarrior]

5 hours ago, GordosTacoShop said:

I'm wanting to make a dedicated emulation rig, and have both an i3 7350k and a ryzen 3 2200g with mobos (B350 and Z270) in storage.  What would be better for emulation? The i3 OCs to 5 GHz, but I'm not sure what the Ryzen is capable of.

Hmm...
The i3 is 2 cores / 4 threads.
The Ryzen is 4 cores / 4 threads.

 

But I suspect the i3 would be a better choice for now, as it has a clear clock speed advantage.

[GordosTacoShop]

So, update.

The i3 runs my emulators significantly better than the 2200g except for ps2, which is identical performance at 1080p. 4k may be different, but I'm using a 1050 ti for testing, so thats out of reach until I get a 1060/1070.

 

The same is true for native PC games, though the frames seem more stable with the ryzen. 

 

I'll update when I get a  new GPU.

[Mark Kaine]

I have a laptop with i5u / 940mx 

definitely runs emulation better than my old 2200G / 1060 combo...  I just couldn't get most games to run smoothly... No such issues on the laptop (mostly PS2  games) 

 

Haven't tried with my new 3600 / 1060 combo yet but I hope that will be better. 

 

Definitely Intel for emulation tho,  it's just better supported. 

 

 

Although,  I asked the creator of RPCS3 and he said 3600 would be totally fine so it depends in the end,  RPCS3 is a much more modern emulator than most others though. 

 

Edit:

1 hour ago, GordosTacoShop said:

for ps2, which is identical performance at 1080p

 

Lol wild!  For me on the i5u way less input lag and smoother framerates 

Though I have to say it really depends on the games too. 

Namco fighting games (which I played mostly) definitely on the laptop,  something like Fatal Frame I could play at 2k resolution super sampled with no issues whatsoever on the 2200G / 1060.

 

But while that obviously looked great (actually that game aged incredibly well)  I'd still give the Intel the performance edge overall. 

[vanished]

1 hour ago, GordosTacoShop said:

[...]

The same is true for native PC games, though the frames seem more stable with the ryzen. 

 

I'll update when I get a  new GPU.

Understandable, this is something we saw when first gen ryzen launched with lower clockspeeds vs Intel but higher core counts.  The average framerates achieved were lower, but the 1% and 0.1% lows were higher, meaning that it was arguably a better experience.  Following that Intel started releasing high core count CPUs and these days they're both excellent for games, and most games will suffer quite noticeably if given only a dual core. 

[GordosTacoShop]

1 hour ago, Mark Kaine said:

I have a laptop with i5u / 940mx 

definitely runs emulation better than my old 2200G / 1060 combo...  I just couldn't get most games to run smoothly... No such issues on the laptop (mostly PS2  games) 

 

Haven't tried with my new 3600 / 1060 combo yet but I hope that will be better. 

 

Definitely Intel for emulation tho,  it's just better supported. 

 

 

Although,  I asked the creator of RPCS3 and he said 3600 would be totally fine so it depends in the end,  RPCS3 is a much more modern emulator than most others though. 

 

Edit:

 

Lol wild!  For me on the i5u way less input lag and smoother framerates 

Though I have to say it really depends on the games too. 

Namco fighting games (which I played mostly) definitely on the laptop,  something like Fatal Frame I could play at 2k resolution super sampled with no issues whatsoever on the 2200G / 1060.

 

But while that obviously looked great (actually that game aged incredibly well)  I'd still give the Intel the performance edge overall. 

I also have an Intel/NVidia laptop (i5 7300hq and 1050ti) that runs most ps2 games flawlessly.  The issues come up when software rendering is required (Ratchet and Clank; Gran Turismo 4) and the lower clock speed cant keep up with the demand. 

So, with the 2200G- I didn't over clock it, or the RAM (only DDR4 2400) I'm sure that wasn't doing me any flavors with my testing, though my software rendering runs were fine at native resolution. 

 

46 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Understandable, this is something we saw when first gen ryzen launched with lower clockspeeds vs Intel but higher core counts.  The average framerates achieved were lower, but the 1% and 0.1% lows were higher, meaning that it was arguably a better experience.  Following that Intel started releasing high core count CPUs and these days they're both excellent for games, and most games will suffer quite noticeably if given only a dual core. 

Yeah... Witcher 3 and Gears 5 didn't take too well to 2c/4t setup when it was stock, but stutter was eliminated at 4.9GHz.  The Ryzen needed no OC to run stable though.