Ok, then how much ram do I need to run the emulator? And yes, I do have a Wii, but I want to experiment, too, as well as play it in HD.
About 4GB will be all you need (some systems come with up to 6 standard and that's fine, but more is almost always wasted). In general emulators aren't RAM-heavy, Dolphin only uses 300MB when emulating a 2-character game of Brawl in the Lylat stage, as a quick test. The main points are having a semi-decent GPU, and a powerful CPU.
^ I mean
High Definition.
Edit: OK, now I went to Newegg, and Ive been debating myself between these three builds:
http://www.newegg.co...8^83-229-288-TS
Any recommendations, guys?
Going with a machine that focuses on the processor more while still having a baseline level of graphics will net you better performance. This is sort of the opposite of normal gaming, which focuses mainly on the GPU with the CPU as secondary.
The CPU is going to be the first concern, and the first computer looks to be the worst
at first glance... but that's because the second two show up as way more powerful on benchmarks, though that's likely because they have way more cores so things that are highly-threaded (such as benchmarks of total performance) will show a large increase, but emulation is still generally single or dual-threaded (as far as the threads that concern performance) so for performance in few-thread situations it looks like the Core i3 machine will be more powerful, though that seems to go against what people normally think of. That particular Core i3 model seems to out perform many of the first Core i5 series anyways since it's from a later revision.
Then considering the GPU second... the first machine has the worst. When talking about actual emulation speed the CPU is key, but when talking about upscaling the video rendering, that's passed right onto the GPU so you'll want a certain level of performance there. The 7450's kinda' weak, I wouldn't count on it for much.
This one looks to be your best bet below 1K.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229283
Otherwise, this one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229284