You Can Build An Awesome Emulation PC For Under $100!

Equipment I Use:

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ETAPRIME
12520 Capital Blvd Ste 401 Number 108
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[linoleum]

OMG! I've got the EXACT SAME setup and been rocking this machine for a little more than two years now. Best bang for the bucks.

[gvanderlee]

I got this exact machine with the GT 1030 ddr5 version. Highly recommended it for the price It can even handle most Wii u games like Mario Kart and Mario 3D World

[BearyCoolDude]

Dude you are just cranking these videos out! I love it. Your channel has always piqued my interest what with my fascination with emulation since I was a kid and now is the perfect time to get into it with the techpocalypse happening still.

I hope your channel is doing great, it’s a good time for cheaper emulation systems to thrive.

[Mangomesh]

I have to be honest, I love videos like this.

[singletona]

I love these old off lease machines. They're cheap and you can get a lot of bang for the buck. Add in some more ram, an ssd, and a budget graphics card and you've got something that'll serve most people's needs.

[blutarheel]

Thanks ETA Prime. My fav videos are budget builds for emulation up to PS2 and PS3.

[Akerfeldtfan]

Really cool to see this, I more or less made this build a few years ago. It works pretty well, but PS2 is a definitely struggle depending on the game. Gamecube and wii are a breeze, though, probably owing to Dolphin being awesome. Mine is running linux, too, so it doesn't have access to the same opengl features, which probably doesn't help.

[BeardTech]

There's so, so much fun to be had doing emulation on a PC and dedicating it to ONLY doing retro gaming. Super rad idea

[JandroTheMan]

Awesome build. I recently used the same case (but the 7010 version). Installed an SSD drive. Swapped the processor to a 3770K. Upgraded the ram to 16gb DDR3 1600 MHz running in dual channel, and threw in a GeForce 1050ti. My build cost didn’t land on 100 bucks though. But Im so impressed. Besides emulation that puppy can run modern games at 1080p with a solid 60 FPS or higher. Even on medium to high settings. It’s nuts.

[lahojaqueflota]

I was trying to find the best way to repurpose old parts from an old build and this is perfect. Thanks for the video. I just lucked out and picked up an open box 450W PSU and an open box GT 1030 (DDR4 sadly), for just over $100. Super excited to get it up and running

[金田一天馬]

the x86 cpu crushes the rpi4's arm based cpu. This is a nice budget build

[WackyT]

I picked up a nice Dell Optiplex 960 from a refurbishing shop for $80 w/ a Core2Quad 2.66GHz and 4GB of memory that runs Ubuntu really well. I replaced the old 500GB spinner hard drive w/ a 64GB SSD and installed an old PCI-E AMD graphics card and a wi-fi card.

[ionamygdalon]

You are one of the YouTubers that I press the Like button prior to watching the video... and have never regretted doing so 😎

[JVHShack]

I did just upgrade my main system, so thanks to this video, I still have a use for my old i7-6700k with 16GB of RAM and a 4GB Radeon 380x. It'll probably knock the PS2 emulation out of the park.

[OtakuboyT]

I got one from my old library with an i5-4570 for free. I upgraded to 8GB, controller, and a 1TB using used parts in my bin. I spent $60 for a RX550.

ChimeraOS, Runs even Shadow of Mordor at 60FPS high. Plus I can stream from my main PC.

[murderdoggg]

Great advice. You could even save more by going to a big office building and ask one of the maintenace or cleaning managers for access to the electronic recycling container. I find clients with i5-4460s and 8GBs all day. Just as many Xeon workstations (wich have really great power supplies), monitors and cables. All the cables.
I made a Batocera box and could give some frinds small client sized PCs for when their kids are there.

[JosephFrietze]

I would love a comparison of graphics cards in this range so we know what to look for on eBay.

[TheDude-kjks]

That opening with the robot at the end of the bed, dimly lit room and the dark rain filled sky always hits a spot with me. Hits me right in my feels...

[Chexr]

So after purchasing and testing the GT 730 that was recommended in this video, I can say that Batocera was not actually using the GPU during your tests. When you install an NVIDIA GPU in Batocera you have to enable the drivers over command line and then plug the cable through the GPU. In the menu it will show NVIDIA instead of MESA in the OPENGL System Information Line. When I enabled the GT 730 I saw noticable performance drops in even the menus and Gamecube/PS2/Wii were not playable at all. When running integrated graphics on my system, GCN/Wii run at 1x and PS2 at 2x resolution just fine. Just a heads up for anyone who was thinking about purchasing one of these cards. Don't waste the $30 and get a more powerful card or better CPU.

[nathanhamman]

Back in late 2019, i bought 4 of these for a total of $120, 320gb mechanical drives, 4gb ram and i3 3220. Upgrading to dual channel allows them to play some gamecube at full speed, though they don't support graphics cards, they're the usff models.