Upgrade for Bad Company 2?

Major_Disaster

Major_Disaster

Major_Disaster

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Joined
2 Nov 2007
Posts
488
Hey,

Ive decided that if i got a PS3 i might as well drop out of university now, so im going to upgrade my desktop at home and use for some light gaming whenever i come home. Im thinking Modern Warefare 2 and Bad Comapany 2.

Currently i have a Dell (yuck) Dimension 9150, with:
Pentium D 8.30 - 3GHz
4GB DDR2
Nvidia 7800GTX
Crappy motherboard w/ 945 chipset (which means for some reason on Windows 7 x64, i only see 3.5GB RAM)

Im thinking easiest (and cheapest) would be a graphics card upgrade. Im not looking to spend much (sub £100). Do you think this would be worth it / make any noticeable difference? Or is the processor a bigger bottleneck?

Any advice on graphics cards in that price range (thinking of even picking one up in the MM)?

Cheers
 
If thats a AGP graphics card based system then you have pretty much hit the limits of that system unless your mobo will support dualcore CPU's.
I guess you could try overclocking it but it depends on what dell has let you have control over in the BIOS.
Overclocking the graphics card would be an option.

But I'd probably just get a better system if I were you if I had the funds for it.
 
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So you would say the processor is the bottleneck?

Would it be worth also trying to upgrade to one of the 9** series Pentium D's (say 940)?

What graphics card would you recommend? I prefer Nvidia, but understand that ATI offer better bang/buck.

Cheers
 
i advise you not to ive got a pentium D 940 and it sucks just as much as the rest of the pentium D range
Core 2 Quad/AMD X4 is the way forward for light gaming
 
I just had a quick check on the Intel 945 chipset. The 945G Express chipset can actually handle 65nm Intel Core 2 Duos/Pentium Dual cores (I would advise checking using CPU-Z to confirm the chipset). Finding something like an E6600 would give you a huge boost to your CPU performance and prevent it bottlenecking any GPU upgrade. Should be able to find a good priced one on the MM.

As for Graphics card, I would check out your PSU and case size before committing to a new card. But something like an ATI 4850/4870 or Nvidia 8800GT/GTX/GTS(512MB), 9800GT/GTX(+) or GTS 250 would be a good bet for a cheap and cheerful upgrade.
 
Thanks for the help cmndr_andi.

The chipset is: i945P which im pretty sure stops at Pentium D (damn).

What sort of size PSU would i need for a decent GFX card upgrade? Ill have a look to see if i can find out what i currently have.

Cheers
 
Aye, you are right. The 945P chipset actually supports the Core 2 Duo (65nm) CPUs, however Dell seem to not support them with their awesome BIOS - go Dell!

PSU for a graphics upgrade? Well you can happily get away with most cards using a decent 450W PSU like this. However, if you want one of the very top-end cards - then you will want a good brand 550W. However, most Dells use non standard PSUs - so you may need to stick with the standard one.

If this is the case, I suggest giving it up as a bad job. These dells are inherently un-upgradable. I suggest getting a low-power graphics card like a 4770 and save the rest towards a new system (maybe P55 or AM3).
 
Thanks for all your help.

Looks like the 9150 comes with a 375W (!) power supply. I also had a look inside my case and measured my current 7800GTX. Looks like the new Nvidia's are just too big.

However ive been reading on the Dell forums and it seems like people have successfully fitted 4850/4870's with no PSU upgrade. So i think the plan is to keep an eye out on the MM for one of these.

Only worry i have is the heat from them? I saw a bunch of sold 4850's on the MM with an aftermarket cooler attached, but havent seen any like these for sale for the 4870's?

Cheers
 
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