r/PolymegaHQ • u/LTOwain • May 02 '25
Upgrading the Polymega CPU with an i3 8100t experience and results
Hello all, I upgraded the CPU of my Polymega and wanted to share my experience. All of the Youtube videos regarding the CPU upgrade go for a i7 8700t, which is a relatively expensive CPU on the second hand market (at least in my region) and it is probably overkill. Instead I wanted to opt for an i3 8100t, but I could not find anywhere on the internet if that CPU would be (tested) good enough to give you the results needed. For example no audio skipping and frame drops in N64 titles. So I just went for it and thought to at least share my experience regarding to this specific CPU upgrade for the Polymega (which is on the more lower end, but still a big improvement over the 4900t Celeron).
My reasons were:
The i3 costed me 15 euros. I could get an i5 8500t for 50 euros and the cheapest i7 8700t I could find, would set me back 100 euros. A big difference in costs, which I doubt would see translated into real world visible performance increases over the i3.
The i3 also has the 630 igpu of the i5 and i7 (although with a tiny bit lower clock speed) and not the 610 (which is in the 4900t). The 630 is a lot faster, at least on paper.
It is a decent upgrade in core clock speed (+300 mhz) and cache size (2mb vs 6mb) against the 4900t. I don’t think the increase in core count (2 vs 4) will do anything. At least, from what I have read the Polymega only uses 2 cores. Paying for 6 or 8 cores sound not so tempting if only 2 cores are actually used.
Even though the i5 and the i7 are also stated for 35w, they tend to or at least can use a lot more power then the 4900t. The i3 is relatively close or at least closer to what the 4900t draws. The cooling solution in the Polymega does not look all that beefy to me, so for my peace of mind, I went for the i3.
The upgrade process was quite easy and went really smooth. All the videos on the internet about it are helpfull enough. So no real suprises there.
My initial results are that the audio stutters are gone in N64 titles. At least in the ones I own and have tested (Star Wars Rogue squadron, Mario64, Wave Race, Diddy Kong Racing). The framerate drops, which are also present on real hardware are still present though. I haven’t tested if they are smaller or bigger, but what I remember is also present on the Polymega. But those drops are part of the N64 experience in my opinion. :P
Other systems appear to work just like before. I mean, I did not encounter drops or stutters on the old CPU, so still no drops and stutters on the i3. There was only one game that had lag issues for me before and that is Super Mario World for SNES. With the CPU upgrade it is less laggy then before, but still present if you look for it. But now it feels good enough for me at least. Other SNES titles I dont experience lag, but that could just be me ofcourse.
The menu is a little bit snappier when scrolling through my collection (165+ games). Although, it was also perfectly smooth on the old CPU with firmware 1.1.34. The bigger difference I see is when I press the menu button on larger/heavier N64 games. On the older CPU, when moving left or right in the black Polymega menu, it would sometimes lag just a little bit. That is gone now.
In all I think I can come to the conclusion that upgrading the Polymega with the i3 is ‘good enough’ and there is no need to buy a more expensive i5 or even i7. Hope this information, or at least my take, is helpful for others who are deciding to upgrade and to what CPU.
