> So my desktop system is now over 7 years old and I figure it might be time to invest > in something that can do better on the more heavy-duty games in MAME. >
Definitely Intel kaby lake or greater, they have better speed, memory performance, and less power usage (==quieter). Definitely I7 (>= 4cores) for compiling speed. I think the current performance sweet spot is the i7-7700k which unfortunately is not part of any Dell system builds that I could see. There is also the new coffee lake i7-8700k that has 6 cores available and the X-series if you really want a lot of cores (up to 18).
For MB: Any compatible ASUS board that has an Intel NIC on it, I have had several issues in the past with Realtek NICs so I avoid them whenever possible.
For Disk: Make sure you get a NVMe (PCIe) drive. Stick with Intel or Samsung. For Graphics: Any midrange NVidia based card. You might want to up your spending here if you are think about getting 4k montiors anytime in future. There may also be some better photoshop acceleration here as well.
Edited by tedgreen (10/11/17 06:21 PM)
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