MAMEWorld Forums - Hardware - Re: Building a MAME PC

> An i7 and liquid cooling for just MAME? Sorry, but that is absurd. Best of
> everything?? You have GOT to be kidding. Most any mid-level gaming machine (and even
> lower), will run MAME. If it was other emulators, like Dolphin, then yes, I could see
> spending some money to make it work, but with just MAME, you can easily get by with
> an old AMD XP chip, or even a socket 478 Pentium 4. Pair that up with at least a gig
> of RAM, and MAME will run just fine. Of course, that would be the LOW END on the MAME
> chain for system requirements and most people will probably be thinking something a
> bit faster like a core 2 duo or higher. Save the core i7 for 3D games on a high end
> PC.
I have a 2.0ghz Core2Duo with 4gb of ram and it runs 2d games like MK2 and Mk3 just fine. It does not run any 3d mame fighting games. I would say a core2duo is a minimum requirement depending on what you're wanting to run. I also have a core i5 with onboard intel graphics that runs the above fine and also runs ps2 titles without issue.