Time to upgrade for battlefield 4

yes a radeon 290/290x is a good bet, get a custom cooled one if your worried about cooling. i went from a 6950, same as op to a 290 and my fps in bf4 went from struggling to maintain 30 fps on ultra 1080p with reduced aa and ssao, to the game completely maxed out and running at 50-80 fps, your slightly better cpu will mean you get a bit more than that. When mantle hits you will probably gain a further boost!
 
Well I made my decision this morning and ordered an EVGA 780 Classified from ocuk. Feel a bit mad spending that much on a gfx card but I will get plenty of use from it. I can probably cope with the 128gb SSD I have now it just means I'll have to put any new games on my HDD.
 
You may want to upgrade CPU as well as i5 is not efficient (and some say "smooth") as i7 in BF4. i7-2600K (new) costs about 195 pounds new on "auction site" and it's not an ad as OcUK doesn't sell it anymore. Alternatively i7-3770K for 240 quids, or cheaper used on auction site as well. Estimate yourself if it's affordable for you once selling i5-2550K gives back about 110 pounds.
To maximise your performance you may consider buying faster RAMs as they make difference in BF4, too. Looking to your preference (not to buy something more expensive & not so more efficient) it might be that RAM:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-052-TG&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1387
 
If you were worried about the CPU capability then AMD graphics may have been the better choice, as Mantle helps lower CPU requirements significantly. However, as yet we don't know how much 'significantly' translates to and the 2500k is still a great CPU, I'm sure it'll work well for you :) the classy is a great card.
 
While AMD Piledriver cpus are really great, unfortunately Intel CPUs still edge them in most common scenarios, and day to day gaming unless the software has been written to use all cores available.

But with that said you cannot beat the price of AMD cpus and the day more software takes advantage of all those cores available then you are onto a winner with an AMD Cpu. I recently bought a 4770k upgrade from i5 2500k after toying with the idea of a long while to buy an 8350, believe me i almost pushed buy a few times on an AMD build but common sense dictated that id get more performance out of the 4770k with the games i play currently.

With that said should there come a time when the 8 core AMD chips start to be the overall better option, then i can imagine selling a 4770k will pretty much pay for a Piledriver and a good bit towards a mobo. So smart investment to go with Intel for now if your going down the 4770k route methinks.
 
Whatever Mantle does, an overclocked 2500k and a 780 Classified will eat up anything Battlefield 4 throws at them. There is no reason to upgrade the CPU at the moment.
 
^^ also very very true, your going to be hitting high fps anyhow with that setup regardless of mantle, and if your going for a current 290x or 290 reference design then your going to get a card that needs tweaking to suit your tastes with regards to noise and heat. Nvidia option will be cool and fairly quiet out of the box. Both will run BF4 on Ultra without a struggle.

I see AMD 290 as more of an enthusiasts card, if your willing to mod it yourself and spend some time overclocking and setting up fan profiles etc, or going to put it under water then its the obvious choice really. Pound for pound the best card you can buy on a pound vs power ratio.

If you just want to lob a top notch gfx card in and forget about it, then currently the Nvidia cards are better, unless you specifically want to wait for a non ref AMD 290/X etc
 
What's your ram at just now? Short answer though is no.

Also Si: I wasn't suggesting AMD for a processor, but if mantle does what it claims then you'll see reduced CPU load with your existing processor, be it Intel or AMD. Still, as Fulax observed a 2500k OC'd with a 780 Classy is fine anyway :)
 
I think you will find gtx 780,780ti, 290 Nd 290x will all classed as enthusiast cards setting up a fan profile to make something bearable does not class it as an enthusiast card.

On another note. My current setup is a i52500k @4.7 with a 780gtx, 16gb ram @ 1600mhz and I play on 2560*1080 with above 75fps all the time using nvidia experience recommended settings as far as I remember it's all ultra
 
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Ah ye if your running a GPU that has GCN to take advantage of Mantle instructions then yep your going to removing the cpu as a factor or reducing it anyhow, so yeah amd cpus will or should excel in scenarios where mantle can then utilise all of their cores, this is one of the things i was wrestling over when making my decision for a new cpu.

long and short of it, if mantle is adopted by many games, and if it does actually place all of the main processing onto the gpu and frees up the cpu for other bits, and then the programmers do decide to utilise all of the spare cores on a cpu, then clearly amd is winning the battle for gpu and cpus for gaming :)
 
systemerror said:
I think you will find gtx 780,780ti, 290 Nd 290x will all classed as enthusiast cards setting up a fan profile to make something bearable does not class it as an enthusiast card.

On another note. My current setup is a i52500k @4.7 with a 780gtx, 16gb ram @ 1600mhz and I play on 2560*1080 with above 75fps all the time using nvidia experience recommended settings as far as I remember it's all ultra
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true enough but i think we can all agree most people buying a 290 now will know beforehand unless you tinker with it, that its going to be hot and loud to a degree, infact most people buying them understand they will probably need to put some form of aftermarket cooling on them asap or live with the noise and heat.

Anyhow this is now derailing the original topic :)
 
SiDeards73 said:
As i can see you have a 7950 im guessing you dont own a 290, i do, they are hot, but this is controllable, mine averages mid 80's, as for loud, fairly, i run mine at 47% fan speed, its fairly audible but nothing i cant drown out with my headset. As for rubbish? ummm yeah ok.....
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The cooler is rubbish.
I run mine at -0.75v and still it needs to be at 50% fan to maintain none throttling temperatures.

47% will throttle if you're thrashing the card for a good hour constantly maxed out.

When I've ran it with Vsync, I've had no problems, but that was when I was playing Bioshock, where 60 FPS is nothing for the card, but take Witcher 2 fully maxed out, I'd love to see a 47% fan profile keep that for any prolonged period of time on a completely stock card.
 
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You could upgrade the cpu to the 2600/2700 if you want/can find a good deal for one, from what I've read the extra threads of it will be good for bf4 and newer upcoming games.
 
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