Cheap and cheeky BF3 upgrade?

[-Ad-]

Well I have a Q6600 still but my silly old mobo doesn't allow it to get stable at around 3Ghz. Plus my 5770 won't cut it so I'm, looking at upgrading to either:

1
~£50 - New 775 X-fire mobo off MM - Bad Axe 2 for example
~£80 - 5850 1Gb and maybe getting a 2nd.

With this I could clock my Q6600 (G0) nice and high towards 3.5Ghz and improve my ability to play BF3 with High/Ultra settings (1680x1050 res). Only issue is my Corsair 520W PSU which I'm not sure would cut it and what's this about PCI-E @ 8x,8x in x-fire is that bad?

2
Man up, sell the Q6600, Cooler, Mobo, Ram, 5770, PSU and buy:
- 2500K, 8gb Memory, some mobo that overclocks well (not too ££), Single/Dual 5850, 650W PSU.

I enjoy playing games, but still lots of CSS, L4D2, TF2, many other older and cheap steam games (~20+ I haven't even installed yet from all the sales), plus I'll be playing BF3 for many months. But overall I don't play games THAT much so I'm not sure spending many hundreds and going through the hassle of essentially a new build will really be worth it for the time I spend using the new fangly bits.

Ideas guys?

 

[mp260767]

due to you not playing that often i'd go with option 1.

do you already have a 3rd party cooler for the quad ?

x-fire x8 x8 is fine.

 

[-Ad-]

due to you not playing that often i'd go with option 1.

do you already have a 3rd party cooler for the quad ?

x-fire x8 x8 is fine.

Not that often and normally older games with only BF3 as a new game. I know upgrading is fun, but spending money just to have a slightly faster PC in some ways is a waste, especially if I'm not gaming that much. better to just buy some more games and enjoy it

I use a lapped Tuniq tower, Liquidmetal pro conducive paste and twin 120m fans on the tuniq so temps arn't a problem.

Nice one on the x8,x8 I guess that is standard when in xfire. Also do the cards (say 5850) come with the xfire bridge jobby thing?

One last thing, overclocking a quad and playing with x2 5850s I'm guessing would require a more beefy PSU?

 

[TwsT]

i run SLI 460's in X8 and they played battlefield no problem.

What you have to think about is how much longer with the set up hold out with the extra 130.

you could still get some resell for those bits. but in a year they will be off the chart cheap.

as for the 5850 check the box and specs online make sure they xfire and if they do then they will come with a bridge.

 

[-Ad-]

i run SLI 460's in X8 and they played battlefield no problem.

What you have to think about is how much longer with the set up hold out with the extra 130.

you could still get some resell for those bits. but in a year they will be off the chart cheap.

as for the 5850 check the box and specs online make sure they xfire and if they do then they will come with a bridge.

Don't we always think about just upgrading everything

In the GFX forum everyone goes on about buying the best new single card, selling your current one rather than going xfire/sli and saying go xfire/sli when they are much cheaper. Then 1yr+ down the line people repeat the same thing rather than saying get a 2nd card. The endless loop of gfx card upgrades

I could still get some money for my setup, but in general the PC is fast enough and with a clocked Q6600 and 5850 it would run games for at least another year with ease. If I was to sell now and get an i5 system I would look at spending about £450+ for a new setup then go through the hassle of trying to sell all my old stuff. That's a lot of money to play games a little bit faster and think of the future as we always do as gamers.

Think my mind is made up now and a clocked Q6600 will be fine with a new 5850 for the time being as I relaly don't game that much, I'm not into that many new sparkly lookign games and my lovely Dual 2007 Dells only do 1680x1050.

I can upgrade in 2yrs to a spanking new system when I'm rich

 

[mp260767]

Nice one on the x8,x8 I guess that is standard when in xfire. Also do the cards (say 5850) come with the xfire bridge jobby thing?

One last thing, overclocking a quad and playing with x2 5850s I'm guessing would require a more beefy PSU?

you can get x-fire and sli x16/x16 but the difference with that and x8/x8 in benchmarks i've seen is negligible.

being as you play at 1680x1050, and from the games you listed it would seem to be more about gameplay than graphics you should be fine with the 5850/q6600 for bf3.

if its a quality 650w psu then it should be able to cope with the 5850's and an overclocked q6600.

 

[-Ad-]

Thanks.

I would most likely get a Corsair PSU, but will research into power usage of my system and predict what it could go up to. Just a pity my 520W Corsair won't hack it at the moment.

Might just stick with the current PSU and run a single 5850 and Q6600, unless I can find x2 identical 5850s at a good price.