I have always had fun playing with emulation, so RPCS3 has intrigued me. The PS3 uses a very custom Power PC based processor called ‘The Cell’, so in order to emulate it on an x86 based processor it all needs to run at the software level. The developer recommends an Intel Core i7 or better to get games running decently, but I thought I would give it a shot with my cheap overclocked AMD FX-8320. It didn’t go well.
I couldn’t get games to run over 15 FPS, but I am guessing with a Threadripper or a an i7 I could have stabilized things a bit more. Some people are able to get amazing performance, but most of us are stuck in frame drop city. This is why it is incredible that the Xbox One is able to run un-recompiled Power PC Xbox 360 games so well, and even run some of them at 4K on the Xbox One X.
I am not condoning pirating, and if you are going to run emulators on your PC please buy the software first, and in RPCS3’s case, you can get a used PS3 for far cheaper than you can buy a PC that can run the emulator decently. Not to mention most PS3 games are pretty cheap themselves theses days. All in all, it is amazing what the RPCS3 team has accomplished, but don’t go thinking your bargain PC will be running PS3 games in a playable fashion any time soon.