Battlefield 3 PC upgrades

ArranJ

ArranJ

ArranJ

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22 May 2009
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So, I was thinking (dangerous).

Since BF3 is coming out soon and my pc is starting to age slightly, by slightly I mean it's a 3 year old build at the moment.

Current spec is:

Asus P5K pro
Q6600 g0 @ 3ghz
4gb Geil ddr2 800mhz
Radeon HD4850 512mb

I've not got the ready funds to do a complete upgrade so I was looking at upgrading my Ram and Gfx card.

I was thinking as my Mobo can only support DDR2 is it worth buying 8gb for £80ish or just buying a 4gb set and making it run with 6gb ram?

On the Gfx card front I was looking at the Sapphire 6950 Toxic edition, with the dual bios.

Judging by the minimum specs that they are showing currently for BF3 will that be enough do you recon to get a decent framerate? (also looking at upgrading to 120hz panel from my Benq G2420HDBL, so ideally 120fps)

Cheers for any help guys.
 
Hi if it was me i would just keep your Ram, sell your q6600 & GPU then get a E8400 and overclock it to 4Ghz, and yeah go with the 6950 and unlock it.. :)
 
Crezzlin said:
Hi if it was me i would just keep your Ram, sell your q6600 & GPU then get a E8400 and overclock it to 4Ghz, and yeah go with the 6950 and unlock it.. :)
Click to expand...

whut? go from a quad core to a dual core? does not compute :confused:
the only dual core that would be an upgrade to a Q6600 would be the i3 2100 series. the Q6600 isnt too bad a chip if you get an overclock on it. (which the OP has)

what would you say your budget for an upgrade of the tower and monitor was?
also, what make and model PSU + case do you have?
last question is are your DVD drives and hard drives IDE or SATA?
 
Yeah I thought that when I read it...E8400 instead of Q6600???!

What my plan is really to kind of drip the upgrade out over a series of months, obvious mobo cpu and ram will have to be a purchase together, I just want to try and live it out a bit!

PSU - Enermax Noisetaker 600w - old but stayed true to me.
Case - Coolermaster Centurion 5 - Also old but works, just about.

All drives and DVD are SATA.

Cheers
 
fantastic. since they're SATA you'll be able to recycle your old DVD drives and DVD drives if you move to sandybridge.
PSU is excellent, cant go wrong with enermax
also, i think im right in saying that the centurion 5 was a fantastic case in its day and is still pretty good now.
looks like someone did their homework choosing this PC :)

as for upgrades, the first thing you'll want to upgrade for BF3 is the graphics card. if your likely to go for eyefinity (gaming on 3 screens) then the flex or the toxic look like a good route to take because you wont need a ~£30 active mini displayport adapter. if not then i'd go for the twin frozr 6950 or a GTX570 (i prefer Nvidia myself but i get the feeling you prefer ATI)

after that i'd go for the sandybridge upgrade. if you go for an asrock motherboard you'll also be able to reuse whatever cooler you currently have.

doesnt really matter when you do the monitor upgrade though
 
Keep everything and get a 560Ti or HD6950. Also, can you not stretch your OC to 3.6GHz or 3.2GHz at the least? That would help scale with your new GPU much better.
 
Reaper:
Aye, all should be fine to move over, just finding the funds to do it.
Noisetaker blew up on me once, but Enermax replaced it without even receiving the original lol
Centurion 5 actually must be nearer 6 years old now, as I upgraded since getting that, as well as the PSU :)

Well I will be aiming to game competitively really, so three screens is not really an option, I'll be sticking to the 1 screen at 120hz. Other than the three screen route, why would you pick the frozr over the toxic? Does the frozr also have twin bios with the possibility of switching to 6870 successfully without bricking it?

Motherboard upgrade, as I have a Thermaltake Ultra 120 Extreme I should just be able to use the alternative backing plate (if I can find the box) or alternative buy one, so any mobo should be an option when it comes to it?

Lelouch:
I could yes, but I struggle trying to get my head around voltages etc, I can just about work the multipliers and found this is stable :P
If push came to shove I am quite sure I'd be able to find the time to read a little and do it properly.
 
i chose the twin frozr because it has the best cooler on it. i didnt realise the toxic had the bios switch option on it because pretty much no cards can be flashed into a 6970 any more. the twin frozr certainly cant. if the toxic does have the switch on it then go for it over the 6950

*edit*
yep, i'd definitely go for the toxic, but theres a little bit of info you'll want to read about it. if you google "Sapphire 6950 TOXIC review" without the quotes and click on the second link (the one that rhymes with lexus that i cant link to here). you'll see some stuff you'll have to do to make it into a 6970. this might have been fixed with later revisions of the card though
 
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Yeah the Q6600 is a good chip but the E8400 is much better for games ie BF3 I have a Q6600 & E8400 and have done lots of Benchmarks over the yrs, you can see the difference in games.. But if your able to get 3.6 out of your Q6600 it would help, you will need a good cooler as they run hot under volts..
 
That's what I was thinking.
Just read the Review that rhymed with Lexus and indeed, seems a few extra steps will need to be made for it to work properly, but still seems to be the better choice.

So we've come to the conclusion that a GFX card upgrade is definitely a necessity, and after that just a pure CPU/MOBO/RAM/SSD/EVERYTHING upgrade will be necessary?

I'd better get saving...!
 
yep, pretty much. however, if you want a cheap CPU upgrade once you get the new graphics card you could always get a better cooler and overclock a bit more.

i would have thought you could get the Q6600 to ~3.6Ghz on a decent cooler
 
What you don't think the Thermaltake ultra 120 extreme will be able to take the cpu up to 3.6? What would you recommend then?
 
Nothing wrong with that TRUE. I have one on my 2600k now and before that it was on a Q6600. It will cope easy especially with a couple of good fans in push/pull.

How can a 8400 dual be better than a 6600 quad?
 
Atom said:
Nothing wrong with that TRUE. I have one on my 2600k now and before that it was on a Q6600. It will cope easy especially with a couple of good fans in push/pull.

How can a 8400 dual be better than a 6600 quad?
Click to expand...


E8400 is dual core using the 45nm technology. This allows it to use less energy / heat which also allows it to be overclocked higher

Q6600 is quad core using 65nm technology.

Both are very good processors BUT most current tests
(especially with games) are showing that the E8400 outperforms the Q6600.
Reason: The E8400 has a higher clock speed
 
Crezzlin said:
E8400 is dual core using the 45nm technology. This allows it to use less energy / heat which also allows it to be overclocked higher

Q6600 is quad core using 65nm technology.

Both are very good processors BUT most current tests
(especially with games) are showing that the E8400 outperforms the Q6600.
Reason: The E8400 has a higher clock speed
Click to expand...
ahh, fair enough. looking at benchmarks despite the higher clock speed it doesnt look like it would be much of an upgrade, although i am very surprised at its performance:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/53?vs=56
better to wait for a sandybridge upgrade IMO

also, i must have missed your post on the cooler, because its still a very capable cooler
 
I wouldnt reccomend an e8400 if bf3 is a game youll play a lot off, a quad is a must for this game. Also, the TRUE is an excellent cooler, used one with the spec in sig, which will run hotter than a q6600 or a newer sb setup.
 
I really wouldn't recommend a rig for a game that has not been properly played.

It could vary massively from the Alpha - Chances are it runs better but they could up the texture resolution or increase the view distance which would hurt anyones fps.
 
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