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Upgrading For The Awesome Battlefield 3

@ Psyoletic: 6gb would be a nice upgrade from 4gb, but you would need a triple channel kit and a supporting motherboard. Having 2 x 2gb on dual channel, then adding another 2gb stick will change it all into single channel... get another 2 x 2gb and make a full 8gb dual channel which will run smoother.

@ scottmc7000: thanks for the thumbs up on that post :P. Get Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit... Ok, its expensive at around £150. I have it and never turned back. I will never use Home Premium again. Runs memory and gaming better if you ask me. Also, just use 8gb ram, 4 x 2gb sticks, 8gb is all you need for the next 2 years or so, unless you do a lot of photo/video editing/encoding where 16gb may help.

Also @ scottmc7000: Nvidia have had BIG problems with over heating in previous generation of cards. i.e. 8800gt single slot... i had one brand new and ran VERY HOT! I had to fork out an extra 40£ on top of what i paid for it at launch for an after market cooler which did work a treat. The GTX4 series ran very hot too... unlike the GTX5 series which in the 560ti upwards uses the vapour chamber cooling design which is amazing, the GTX4 series ran ridiculously hot, therefore, many people had to buy after market coolers, including a few friends of mine. One OC'd his card without a cooler and fried the PCB. End of that card. ATI cards run cool like my XFX HD5770 Single Slot and I idle at 39C on 40% fan speed and when i game/under load, i have set it to spin at 100% and it never goes above 55C. ATI cards, ok have some driver problems, but so does Nvidia, but not as much (as stated by @TheMourningStar) ATI. But tbh, ATI cards are faster, more OCable, run cooler and dont require as much CPU/RAM power to run, as they dont depend on the CPU/RAM as much as Nvidia cards do.

@ C64: B3 will be next gen and everybody knows that, but the 6870 run it all day on high settings @1680x1050. Their is no point running games at full hd unless you have a high send card installed i.e. gtx580 etc. I use a hd5770 on a 19" monitor @ 1440*900 and i run everything on the highest settings with an average fps of 80. Big monitors are best, but you need the hardware to crunch the numbers and give you the best visual experience and frame rates and that comes at a hefty price, for which, some cannot afford.
 
Windows 7 64 Bit

SSD

GPU

That is all :)

SSD drive yes, but this is the real world where people have gas, electric, water rates, tv licence, internet/phone/tv bill, council tax, rent/mortgages etc to pay. People cannot always afford them. Yes they will get you into an online game quicker, but SATA3 is fast enough. I use SATA2 and get into my games fast enough. An extra few seconds isn't really going to make a difference.

Scottmc7000 has a good hard drive and doesn't need an SSD. It is not essential for B3 really is it?

Sorry dude ;)
 
@ Psyoletic: 6gb would be a nice upgrade from 4gb, but you would need a triple channel kit and a supporting motherboard. Having 2 x 2gb on dual channel, then adding another 2gb stick will change it all into single channel... get another 2 x 2gb and make a full 8gb dual channel which will run smoother.

Apologies mate, I forgot they went back to dual channel. Still on Tri Channel myself. Keep thinking its the latest thing :rolleyes:
 
1 - Overclock your 920 > 3.6GHz +

2 - A better GPU.

Thats all you need to upgrade, see my sig 920 at 4.2GHz > GTX 470 at 850:1700:2000MHz, got no worries about running BF3. ;)
 
Also @ scottmc7000: Nvidia have had BIG problems with over heating in previous generation of cards. i.e. 8800gt single slot... i had one brand new and ran VERY HOT! I had to fork out an extra 40£ on top of what i paid for it at launch for an after market cooler which did work a treat. The GTX4 series ran very hot too... unlike the GTX5 series which in the 560ti upwards uses the vapour chamber cooling design which is amazing, the GTX4 series ran ridiculously hot, therefore, many people had to buy after market coolers, including a few friends of mine. One OC'd his card without a cooler and fried the PCB. End of that card. ATI cards run cool like my XFX HD5770 Single Slot and I idle at 39C on 40% fan speed and when i game/under load, i have set it to spin at 100% and it never goes above 55C. ATI cards, ok have some driver problems, but so does Nvidia, but not as much (as stated by @TheMourningStar) ATI. But tbh, ATI cards are faster, more OCable, run cooler and dont require as much CPU/RAM power to run, as they dont depend on the CPU/RAM as much as Nvidia cards do.

Hate to be pedantic but...

Firstly only first generation 8800GTs had cooling problems for the main part, nVidia revised the cooler a couple of months or so after release and the later ones didn't suffer the same. 4x0 series is nothing like as hot as the hype - granted they aren't as cool as some series but a small amount of common sense stops them from melting the PCB - which realistically is only gonna happen if you try and shove them in a shuttle chassis with no air flow.

nVidia generally top the benchmarks to are usually faster - at a price premium granted but still faster (aside from some areas i.e. ATI tend to have the fastest dual GPU cards) and also most of the time nVidia cards are far more overclockable. Any difference in the CPU/RAM requirements between AMD/ATI and nVidia cards is entirely negligible - your talking less than 0.5% difference.

Your posts come off more and more like some kinda shill tbh.
 
The only thing you are going to need to update is your graphics card. In its day, the GTS250 was a good card, like my HD5770, best sub £100 graphics card you can buy according to PC Format Mag.

I would update to either a 6870 or a GTX560ti which both some in just under £100:

+1
i just purchased a 6870 today infact to replace my trusty 5770. it defo is the best value card atm.

the 560ti will only beat it by a couple of FPS but that depends on the game as certain games are optimised for either AMD or Nvidia sometimes.

so maybe it is best to wait and see what BF3 brings to the table and then go from there.

but in my opinion i would defo get either a 6870 or 560ti :)
 
Will BF3 use a whole new engine or is it just BF2 with DX11 extras tacked on?

Major rewrite of the frostbite engine - supposedly written top down for DX11 functionality.

From a casual look at it, it would appear the engine uses multi-threading quite heavily for physics and even lighting so its likely to be important to have a decent multi-core CPU as much as a decent GPU for the game.
 
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As others have said wait till the release of BF3, none of us know what the recomended specs are, only speculation.

My guess is Minimum Requirements
Windows 7
Intel/AMD Duo Core - 3ghz
2gb Ram
GPU - ATI/NVIDIA 512mb GTX 2'' SERIES GPU

Recommended
Win 7
Intel/AMD Quad/Tri Core i3/i5/i7 (just brought myself i5 2500k Sandybridge, runs BFBC2 like a knife through hot butter)
4GB Ram
ATI/NVIDIA GTX 460 AND UPWARDS. (GTX 460 1GB version is an amazing gpu for the performance it delivers, a GTX460 SLI out performs GTX560ti and 6570, but runs hotter and uses more power consumption)
 
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GTX560ti is a capable card, and will give great results for a few years.

I use an hd5770 and not had a problem with it in any way and love it. I aint got much money, so upgrade on what i need, but i am saving at the moment to build a bulldozer rig with a 6950 in it...

other reasons for picking ati over nvidia is price (nvidia cards are ALWAYS over priced, especially their newer cards i.e. 6950 on OCUK around 200, gtx 570 going for around 250+... i know the 570 is faster, but the 6950 out trumps the 560ti by a bit of a margine...

I would go ATI, and with their monthly driver releases, the cards will get faster and faster with improved drivers and better overclocking capability.

They ain't as bad as they used to be you know xD

This isnt neccesarily true.

I remember reading an article where they looked at gaming performance for the year of 2010 (10.1 - 10.12) with drivers and the 5870.

Over the year on average drivers increased gaming performance (thats pure speed) by 6%.
 
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^^ Depends a lot on the GPU from my experience i.e. some models seem to see bigger gains from drivers overall than some other models - the 8800GTX and GTX280 probably only saw about 6-7% increase from drivers whereas the 8800GT and GTX260 easily run around 15% faster overall nowadays with the latest drivers compared to the drivers around release time.
 
As others have said wait till the release of BF3, none of us know what the recomended specs are, only speculation.

My guess is Minimum Requirements
Windows 7
Intel/AMD Duo Core - 3ghz
2gb Ram
GPU - ATI/NVIDIA 512mb GTX 2'' SERIES GPU

Recommended
Win 7
Intel/AMD Quad/Tri Core i3/i5/i7 (just brought myself i5 2500k Sandybridge, runs BFBC2 like a knife through hot butter)
4GB Ram
ATI/NVIDIA GTX 460 AND UPWARDS. (GTX 460 1GB version is an amazing gpu for the performance it delivers, a GTX460 SLI out performs GTX560ti and 6570, but runs hotter and uses more power consumption)

when i got invited to the alpha i got email off EA with only one set of requirements.

RECOMMENDED PC SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

OS: Windows 7 or Vista (SP1)
Installed: Origin CPU:
Quadcore @ 2.0 GHz or faster
RAM: 4GB or more
Hard Drive: 7.25GB free
Video: 512 MB or greater DirectX 10 or 11
compatible card with latest drivers (AMD 11.5 or later, nVidia 275.33 or later)
Sound: DirectX 10 or 11 compatible card
Internet: broadband connection


i know the alpha didnt have all the eyecandy present and such but it still looked really nice to me. id say with optimisation and such before release of the game id base your system off this. and who nowadays still uses a 512MB GPU??
 
I'm gonna go out on a limb here - especially as the alpha test min is a quad, that realistically your gonna need atleast a quad core to get the best out of BF3 - the physics and lighting engines - especially some of the software side of the radiosity API are quite multi threaded CPU heavy - a dual core is probably going to struggle.
 
@ Opethdisciple: I agree with you on that statement about drivers increasing the speed. The HD5770 has increased speed by 20% thanks to monthly driver updates etc. ATI are amazing for bringing out new drivers and making their cards go faster over stock.

@ Dave1983: Specifications for Battlefield 3 are on gamesystemrequirements.com. I have provided the link herehttp://bit.ly/nO9VLD. They are pretty high. Looks like I am going to have to invest in something a bit more powerful than my HD5770. Though I have it clocked at 5850 speeds.
 
@ kegz665: Please do not copy my signature type. It was not like that the last time I signed on this morning. You may have similar specifications to myself, but please do not copy my signature. Thanks ;)
 
@ Opethdisciple: I agree with you on that statement about drivers increasing the speed. The HD5770 has increased speed by 20% thanks to monthly driver updates etc. ATI are amazing for bringing out new drivers and making their cards go faster over stock.

@ Dave1983: Specifications for Battlefield 3 are on gamesystemrequirements.com. I have provided the link herehttp://bit.ly/nO9VLD. They are pretty high. Looks like I am going to have to invest in something a bit more powerful than my HD5770. Though I have it clocked at 5850 speeds.


thats not official Requirements its been like that for months its just a guess. but id say it looks likely that the official requirements will be around there somewhere.
 
I'm pretty sure BF3 is going to push the latest and greatest cards to the limits and beyond, might even be the case that you'll need a 28nm card to get full detail @ high res.
When BF2 was released back in 2005 it kicked the ass out of my 9700pro which was cruising through all the games back then.
It kinda depends what you count as full detail and what res you play at.
I have been waiting for this game for so long, buying every BF game for the last 6yrs hoping it would match BF2.... they haven't!
I for one hope this requires me to upgrade to a 28nm card for full detail or I think EA have missed a trick.
 
Battlefield games always push the latest cards the limits. The GTX580/6970 will play the game easily, but lower cards will struggle. DX11 is the main graphics of the game and with the amount of detail in the game, even my budget quad machine will struggle to play it...
 
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