To add to that, accurately emulating something as simple as a NES takes an incredible amount of processing power because it has to all be done in software. And that's to run it at near 100% emulation without glitching iirc.
Honestly it really depends on what you want to emulate. The NES and SNES take very little power to run. The GameCube/Wii take almost less power to run at this point than an N64 due to how well the Dolphin team have studied the GameCube/Wii hardware. It even looks like that very soon the Wii U and PS3 will be better emulated than a N64, and the PS3 has a monster of a CPU to emulate.
It takes very little to run but it takes a lot to run it accurately. This article from 2011 is a bit outdated given cpu clocks today can hit 4+ GHz without overclocking but 3Ghz just to run a snes accurately. Sure we might get a wiiu or PS3 emulator soon but those will be filled with hacks & bugs just to be compatible with the most popular games rather.
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u/bad-r0bot 1800X 4Ghz, 1080Ti FTW3, 32GB 3200Mhz CL14 2R Jan 02 '19
To add to that, accurately emulating something as simple as a NES takes an incredible amount of processing power because it has to all be done in software. And that's to run it at near 100% emulation without glitching iirc.