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AMD or Intel Bundle: main focus BF3 / BF4

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24 Oct 2007
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772
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My brother wants to be able to play BF3 and possibly BF4 once it is out. His current rig is an x2 AMD chip running at 2.8GHz (AM2), about 5 years old and it cannot even manage 25 FPS with a 460 768mb in Battle Field 3.

He has a £250 budget, how good would the current AMD CPUs be such as the AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6350?

I know it is not fair to compare a £100 CPU to a £150 Intel Core i5-4430 3.00GHz but basically will the AMD CPU be a bottle neck if at some point he gets a new graphics card with similar performance to an AMD 7950 at 1080p?

I will be ordering at some point tonight, any input would be a great help.
 
Current rig:

CPU: AMD X2 2.8GHz AM2 (not sure on the model)
RAM: 4GB DDR2 6400
GPU: NVIDIA 460 768mb
PSU: 520W Antec

He is gaming at 1080p which isn't great for the NVIDIA 460 768mb, all he wants do is play on BF3. It just isn't possible to play even on the lowest settings, the FPS will not rise above 30 even when dropping the screen resolution. He has a fresh install of windows, I am sure the CPU is a bottle neck.

I had a Core2 rig (same in sig), recently upgraded to an i5 using the same graphics card (ATI 5850) and I saw a massive increase in performance, sub 30 FPS to high 50FPS even online.

As his CPU is from the same time as mine (even slower I might add) I would have though he will be able to play BF3 even if he has to drop the settings down to Medium or Low?
 
Yes you are right, it appears to be £240 for an AMD FX 8320 including 8GB RAM and an ok motherboard.

I can go intel all in for £280 which is tempting (but I would be paying the extra :rolleyes:)



It is even worth going intel with a H87 chipset? Is there even a performance upgrade going from a 3.5GHz 8 core AMD FX 8320 to an Intel Core i5-4430 3.00GHz for Battle Field 3/4?
 
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I think I am starting to agree, doesn't make sense to get a low clocking i5, low spec motherboard. The AMD route I hope will give the same if not more performance :)

I might even add CPU cooler into the basket such as the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro to make sure he is at 4.0Ghz!
 
Is there really a difference with overclocking on the MSI 990XA-GD55 compared to Gigabyte 990XA-UD3? I know it is only a £10 difference but I would only overclock to just over 4.0GHz.

I assume this should be easy as the CPU is already clocked at 4.0GHz (8350), or is the 8320 drastically different?
 
So I am thinking about ordering the below, I'll stick with the standard CPU cooler for the time being, I assume AMD are using the same cooler on the 4.0GHz model?

AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £119.99

Gigabyte 990XA-UD3 AMD 990X (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99

Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (PV38G160C9K) £49.99

£260 all in, near enough on budget :D
 
Thank you all for your replies, I decided to go with the AMD spec from my previous post. It was really useful to get your opinions :)
 
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