Upgrade advice?

Prophecy

Prophecy

Prophecy

Permabanned
Joined
26 Jul 2012
Posts
9
Hello,

New to PC GAMER and a bit of a novice when it comes upgrading/building a gaming PC, so your help will be appreciated.

I am basically looking to upgrade enough to play Battlefield 3 on high/ultra and have a good and consistent fps, here's my current setup, oldish now, nut was good when I got it.


Operating System
MS Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit SP2

CPU
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 @ 2.66GHz (OC to 3.2 but gets to about 65+ degrees)
Yorkfield 45nm Technology

RAM
4.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 533MHz (7-7-7-20)

Motherboard
Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. X48T-DQ6 (Socket 775)

Graphics
HP L1910 (1280x1024@75Hz)
1024MB GeForce GTX 280 (BFG Tech)

Cooling/power
Liquid cooled, cool master 650W


Now I'm aware this is a fair re-haul, I was advised on a EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 SC 1GB GDDR5 HDMI Graphics Card PCI-E, along with a i5 3570k, z77 motherboard.

Now I'm not 100% on these upgrades, but if you have any advice on what to upgrade, if the power supply needs upgrading, and any links to components that will help a lot, I have a modest budget.

Thanks, Proph.
 
I was wondering, if i purcahse a Gigabyte Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 TI OC / 1GB DDR5 / PCI Express 2.0 / Graphics Card, will i be able to run it with my current power supply of 650w, and if i disable the OC back to 2.9GHz from the 3.2GHz it is OC'd too, will i be able to run BF3 on high with a good fps? My CPU runs at 65 degrees on idle when OC'd but goes to around 45 when OC is disabled.

Finally would i need to upgrade to windows 7 from vista 64 bit, does that make a big difference?

Thanks ( and sorry if this double posts, the forum wasnt loading).
 
Your psu should be fine as i run a i5 2300 and a radeon 6570 of 430W no problems. the i5 3570k and a Z77 board is a good combo. I'm not sure about Nvidia cards but the Ati Radeon 7850 series of cards need a minimum of around 500W so your Psu has alittle left in reserve for other upgrades you may wish to make.

Windows 7 is so much better then Vista as that was a resource hog
 
Zanpakuto said:
Your psu should be fine as i run a i5 2300 and a radeon 6570 of 430W no problems. the i5 3570k and a Z77 board is a good combo. I'm not sure about Nvidia cards but the Ati Radeon 7850 series of cards need a minimum of around 500W so your Psu has alittle left in reserve for other upgrades you may wish to make.

Windows 7 is so much better then Vista as that was a resource hog
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So should i first off go with the graphics upgrade? would i get the desired performance then? or should i go with a windows 7 upgrade? or Z77 and i5 3570K, along with a gfx card, and windows 7? any links would be usefull so i know what im buying will be compatable?
 
Personally I'd say push out for a Sapphire 7850 instead of the 560 if you can afford it. Your PSU should be fine.

Definately look at upgrading to W7, or wait until W8 is out in october (I think?) and get that, vista is horrible..

A RAM upgrade would be great, although 4GB is just about enough atm, yours is very slow. 8GB of 1600MhZ RAM will be great for now and last a while, and be cheap to expand on.
 
Zaruz said:
Personally I'd say push out for a Sapphire 7850 instead of the 560 if you can afford it. Your PSU should be fine.

Definately look at upgrading to W7, or wait until W8 is out in october (I think?) and get that, vista is horrible..

A RAM upgrade would be great, although 4GB is just about enough atm, yours is very slow. 8GB of 1600MhZ RAM will be great for now and last a while, and be cheap to expand on.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your input, i was looking at a ram upgrade, yes the ram is slow, can you explain the difference in speeds and how it helps performance?

I will get a ram upgrade and the gfx card upgrade, and see how that fairs before a mobo and cpu upgrade.

How is the CPU speed? is 2.9 stock on a quad core sufficient at the moment?
 
Prophecy said:
Thanks for your input, i was looking at a ram upgrade, yes the ram is slow, can you explain the difference in speeds and how it helps performance?

I will get a ram upgrade and the gfx card upgrade, and see how that fairs before a mobo and cpu upgrade.

How is the CPU speed? is 2.9 stock on a quad core sufficient at the moment?
Click to expand...

depends on what you class sufficient as. For general usage/mid settings, it should be fine. But, as you said you want to run BF3 on max, I would say, if you can afford it, definately upgrade to an i5 aswell, you would benefit a lot from it.

As for the RAM upgrade, the MhZ is basically the speed, so the 1600MhZ would basically be 3 times faster, and would speed up all processes a lot :)
 
Zaruz said:
depends on what you class sufficient as. For general usage/mid settings, it should be fine. But, as you said you want to run BF3 on max, I would say, if you can afford it, definately upgrade to an i5 aswell, you would benefit a lot from it.

As for the RAM upgrade, the MhZ is basically the speed, so the 1600MhZ would basically be 3 times faster, and would speed up all processes a lot :)
Click to expand...

Thanks again, and upgrading to cpu would mean a mobo upgrade too, or would it be compatible with my current?
 
bf3 is a b.... bcos its needs cpu speed aswell as gpu a lot, tho ive only played it a little, i play tribes more

so erm getting a awesome gfx card isnt going to help alone, especially at low res
depends on ur budget but id still put gfx card 1st on the list
bad time buy a 560 unless its very cheap, 660's coming real soon :o
 
Prophecy said:
Thanks again, and upgrading to cpu would mean a mobo upgrade too, or would it be compatible with my current?
Click to expand...

You'd require a 1155 pin Mobo for the i-series intel chipsets, so yes, a motherboard would be a required upgrade. How much are you planning to spend on upgrades?
 
 
LukieBoy007 said:
With this, you're looking at around 40fps on BF3 Multiplayer on Ultra settings.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £179.99
1 x Sapphire HD 7850 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ Nexuiz & Dirt Showdown PC Games £173.99
1 x MSI Z77A-G43 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
1 x GeIL Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £39.95
Total : £485.32 (includes shipping : £9.50).

Click to expand...

Nice, thanks for the information, whats the difference from the graphics card to nvidia? I have always had nvidia so wouldnt knot about making an accurate comparison.

40fps constant, even in larger fire fights/smoke/explosions etc?
 
Would change the motherboard to a UD3H and since your playing on a smaller screen which I guess has a resolution of 768? Will do 60 FPS constant on Ultra.
 
40fps average at 1080p. Look on youtube of gameplay using the 7850 and an i5. I'd say the lowest you would get is 30-35fps.
The 7850 is definitely the better card than a 560ti, the next step up for Nvidia is a 570, but these do generally cost a bit more. BF3 also prefers Nvidia cards, you are looking at around an extra £30-£40 for a GTX 570. If your not in a rush, there's the GTX 660 and 660ti coming out next month, and should be around prices of a 570.
 
LukieBoy007 said:
40fps average at 1080p. Look on youtube of gameplay using the 7850 and an i5. I'd say the lowest you would get is 30-35fps.
The 7850 is definitely the better card than a 560ti, the next step up for Nvidia is a 570, but these do generally cost a bit more. BF3 also prefers Nvidia cards, you are looking at around an extra £30-£40 for a GTX 570. If your not in a rush, there's the GTX 660 and 660ti coming out next month, and should be around prices of a 570.
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Hes not running at 1080P, also the 7850 is better than the 570 since its got 2GB VRAM which is very handy for BF3 and because of its overclockability. I wouldn't wait for 660 since its almost definetley going to cost £200+
 
Sorry I didn't see about him not using 1080p, my bad. I'd personally go for the 7850 (I have one myself) but if we're just talking about BF3 here I've seen a few benchmarks that show the 570 to be superior by about 5-10fps.
 
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