PC for Battlefield 3

M3tz · 4 Jul 2011 at 19:49

Hi guys,

I am after some advice on building a new computer for battlefield 3, my current choice of hardware is the following;
I7 2600k
Asus P8P67 PRO
Asus GeForce GTX 560
Corsair Obsidian 650D
OCZ Vertex 3 60GB
Corsair HX 750W
Corsair Vengeance 8GB
Corsair Hydro H60
Western Digital Caviar Black 750GB

My bugget is around £1200-£1400 but I'd also like to include a screen, I have a pretty old/poor 20" lcd at the moment.

anyway the dilemma I think I'm having is I'm not sure if I should hold off buying the gfx card for the nvidia 800 series closer to xmas, if thats the case then should I swap the p67 for a z68 and use the onboard gfx untill the new nvidia cards arrive? or maybe should I sli GTX 560TI? but I'm only going to use one screen

I dont get to spend much money on computers very often so it needs to be as "future proof" as I can make it (my gf wont let me spend money on computers very often)

I would like to have it built minus the GFX card before battlefield 3 open beta arrives.
the shop I will most likley buy from will be http://www.overclockers.co.uk/index.php

Any advice will be helpfull but would appretiate an explaination for suggestions aswell as I like to learn from others

Thanks in advance

stulid · 4 Jul 2011 at 19:58

should I swap the p67 for a z68 and use the onboard gfx untill the new nvidia cards arrive?

Yes, a ASrock Z68 Extreme4 will be perfect.

Your basketProduct Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor £173.99
(£144.99) £173.99
(£144.99)
Iiyama ProLite E2407HDS 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £149.99
(£124.99) £149.99
(£124.99)
Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £144.98
(£120.82) £144.98
(£120.82)
Corsair Obsidian 650D Gaming Midi-Tower - Black £142.99
(£119.16) £142.99
(£119.16)
Lepa G-Series 700W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £109.99
(£91.66) £109.99
(£91.66)
Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £90.98
(£75.82) £90.98
(£75.82)
Noctua NH-D14 Dual Radiator CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1156/LGA1155/LGA775/AM2/AM2) £69.98
(£58.32) £69.98
(£58.32)
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £50.39
(£41.99) £50.39
(£41.99)
Antec Kúhler H2O 620 CPU Watercooler (Socket Intel LGA 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AMD AM2 / AM3 / AM2+ / AM3+) £46.98
(£39.15) £46.98
(£39.15)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 32MB Cache - OEM (ST31000524AS) £39.98
(£33.32) £39.98
(£33.32)
OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
(£12.49) £14.99
(£12.49)
Sub Total : £862.71
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £20.10
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £176.56
Total : £1,059.37

• So that is everything apart from a operating system and a graphics card which you can get later on, just use the CPU's onboard core.
• A Antec Kuhler 620 is cheaper and performs better than a H60 - http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/03/10/antec_khler_h2o_620_cpu_water_cooler_review/
• A 2500K is as fast as a 2600K in games - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/287?vs=288
• The 8GB of RAM is currently the cheapest.
• And a modular cable "Gold" rated PSU - http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/04/06/lepa_g_series_700w_power_supply_review/

olivier renault · 4 Jul 2011 at 20:05

2500K 'should' perform similar to the 2600K in BF3.

CUDA-enabled GPU will no doubt be useful (still speculations).

Get standard 12800C9 memory. Expensive RAM not much impact on SB performance.

Get a standard 500GB / 1GB drive, not much point going to a 'black' drive, especially with a SSD in there.

8GB not that useful for games, but why not with cheap XMS3.

an example.

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 570 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £269.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £175.99
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor £173.99
1 x Iiyama ProLite E2407HDS 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £149.99
1 x Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £144.98
1 x Corsair Obsidian 650D Gaming Midi-Tower - Black £142.99
1 x XFX Pro 850W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £89.98
1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £62.39
1 x Thermalright Silver Arrow CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3) £50.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £28.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £1,329.38 (includes shipping : £20.10).

Best to wait until BF3 is out of the door to get a better idea of the requirements, and better value hardware.

With £1400, you should be able to slot in a 580 GTX with some compromises (no SSD).

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gainward GeForce GTX 580 "GOOD Edition" 1536MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £369.98
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor £173.99
1 x Iiyama ProLite E2407HDS 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £149.99
1 x Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £144.98
1 x Corsair Obsidian 650D Gaming Midi-Tower - Black £142.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive £90.98
1 x XFX Pro 850W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £89.98
1 x Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9) £62.39
1 x Thermalright Silver Arrow CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1366/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA775/AM2/AM3) £50.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £28.99
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
Total : £1,344.37 (includes shipping : £20.10).

Well, smaller SSD...

opethdisciple · 4 Jul 2011 at 20:09

Defo save the money on the 2600k by getting a 2500k, and spend what you save on something better than a 560.

The 570 would be better but the lack of vram has me pointing towards the 6970.

Then again at this point, I would wait untill th game launches in October and see what cards deliver the performance.

olivier renault · 4 Jul 2011 at 20:14

Yeah, There are some 570 2.5GB already knocking about. Best wait and see. Dunno if CUDA / PhysX will influence choices, but Dice has always been good to ATI as well.

daveash · 4 Jul 2011 at 21:03

If you're willing to wait for BF3's release before buying a GFX card, then I'd go the whole hog and wait til then to buy your whole system. Bulldozer may have been released by then (that's if it's ever bloody released) and by waiting a few months you're guaranteed to get a better system for your money.

M3tz · 4 Jul 2011 at 21:30

Wow!
thanks for the responses, amazing..

cant beleive the advice you guys have given!

I'll take a look at the suggestions in a hour or so "trueblood" then I'll come back with more..

more meaning more questions

GTA767 · 4 Jul 2011 at 21:33

gpu is very importan 2500k to 2600 k wont give even 1 fps

but from 560 to 570 fps will be more than 15 also little oc and viola u are ready to eat bf3

M3tz · 5 Jul 2011 at 00:41

Thanks again guys..

so the i5 is almost as fast and better for the money but what about a year from now?

so I'm leaning now towards
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor £173.99
1 x Iiyama ProLite E2407HDS 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black £149.99
1 x Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £144.98
1 x Corsair Obsidian 650D Gaming Midi-Tower - Black £142.99
1 x Antec Kúhler H2O 620
Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX8GX3M2A1600C9)

I wanted a Modular PSU as I'm new to making the inside of a PC look tidy, if you could see my pc now it has sellotape holding wires and so on.. I wanted to give it a go..

Can I ask why you suggested the Crucial RealSSD M4 over the vertex 3 agility?

the Antec Kúhler H2O 620 looks good, I can change the corsair for that. Does it blow hot air out or suck cool air in? dont worry to much about answering that I can google it

I live in a top floor flat and in the summer it gets VERY hot, would the antec kuhler be quieter than the silver arrow?

I'm so tempted to just wait until a week before release to buy the 3dcard, I wonder how the onboard will run it for a few days lol maybe the 580gtx will drop more into my price range

also how is Asrock for reliabilty I have had 3-4 PC's now built by me with asus motherboards and not one has gone wrong, I dont really want to switch if there is a slight question over the reliability

Thanks again for all you help and advice
I hope you dont mind all these questions I just like to learn

stulid · 5 Jul 2011 at 00:43

but what about a year from now?

A year from now you will have Socket2011 boards, quad channel RAM and Sandybridge-E cpu's

Can I ask why you suggested the Crucial RealSSD M4 over the vertex 3 agility?

To many horror stories of BSOD with the OCZ SSD's, they need a firmware fix or something.

the Antec Kúhler H2O 620 looks good, I can change the corsair for that. Does it blow hot air out or suck cool air in?

The fan has a little arrow on it to show direction of flow, I know Corsair say to have the H60 etc sucking in, but they are being silly.

would the antec kuhler be quieter than the silver arrow?

Should be just as quiet, the impeller of the pump/CPU head will make the most noise and even that will be quiet.

also how is Asrock for reliabilty I have had 3-4 PC's now built by me with asus motherboards and not one has gone wrong, I dont really want to switch if there is a slight question over the reliability

ASrock were taken over by ASUS a while ago, and it now shows, the Z69 extreme4 is the board of the moment, extremely reliable, great features, amazing overclocker.

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/4074/asrock_z68_extreme4_intel_z68_motherboard_review/index.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/395-asrock-z68-extreme4/
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews...p8z68-v-pro-gigabyte-z68x-ud3h-b3,2939-2.html
http://www.kitguru.net/components/m...k-z68-extreme-4-intel-z68-motherboard-review/

And the support thread - http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...d.-Share-your-experiences-OCs-amp-tech-issues!

olivier renault · 5 Jul 2011 at 08:45

Yeah, Antec Kuhler is good, silver arrow is better overall, but not sure in hot environments.

Jimz · 5 Jul 2011 at 09:33

I would wait it out as long as possible, prices are dropping ALL the time and even waiting just a week before the game comes out you could get a totally different system

Voltage · 5 Jul 2011 at 10:13

wait closer to release

4 months away still.

Im going to go for a new base unit come October

CPU
H2O Cooler
Memory
GFX
Motherboard

I think its a bit too early for building a PC for BF3 as closer to the time you might get a better pc for same money