15 replies to this topic

[Zimmyantz]

Hi Neowinians

After reading many posts from other people who get some really good advice on PC upgrades, it's now time for mine.

I recently was accepted to test Battlefield 3 Alpha.
I did know that my PC would need upgrading, but thought that LOW settings might just get away with "trying it", but my PC can only cope with playing it on low in windowed mode.

Before I start, I know that my Processor needs an upgrade (bought it when they first appeared) and is probbaly the bottleneck in all of this, but I want advice on the cheapest way for me to play it on high settings.

Current PC:

Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 1.86ghz Socket 775 FSB800 2MB Cache
Motherboard - ASUS P5Q Pro Turbo
Graphics - Nvidia 8800 GTS 512MB
Ram - 4gb Corsair XMS 2 DDR2 800mhz
Windows 7 Pro 64bit
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The cheapest way to play BF3 on high would be great, thanks to anyone who helps in advance

[tsupersonic]

It's probably better to upgrade the whole rig...but if you don't have that kind of money, I'd start at GFX. card and CPU. If your current mobo. supports it, you may think of the C2Q.

[+ViperAFK]

I agree with upgrading the whole machine. BF3 will rape that cpu, and the vid card needs upgrading as well if you want to play on good settings. At the very least graphics and cpu. You will want a quad core. Video card you will want something like a 6850/GTX 460 or better depending on your budget.

My machine (in sig) can play the alpha on high settings, fullscreen (1680x1050) just fine. The final game will likely have more way eye candy settings to enable judging from the fault line videos.

[Zimmyantz]

Cheers for the info Viper.

My motherboard being socket 775, what Quad would you recommend?

[+Chicane-UK]

I'd wait till it comes out... it still has a few months... and hardware will drop a bit more by then

[Zimmyantz]

My upgrade budget is £300, give or take a couple of quid if needs be.

If anyone can recommend the best compatible Processor/Graphics cards to fit in the above budget, that would be ace.

[+Perfect72]

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813131637
CPU: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819103808
RAM: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820231275
Price: 252$ + Shipping

I just bought this same setup earlier in the week. Got it all set up Wednesday night (I live 40 minutes from NewEggs warehouse, so I get overnight on free shipping ^_^), and there isn't a single game that I play I cannot run on High/Ultra graphics.

I'm loving it, considering I pretty much had the same setup as you before, on an old Duo CPU, with DDR2 RAM, I was bottlenecking bad. After this upgrade, I am incredibly happy. All of this was easy to setup for the most part, I had to reformat my drive with Win7 64bit because my old Windows install was not playing well with the motherboard. I had two windows partitions, 64bit and 32bit. The 64bit worked with the mobo without reformat, the 32 bit did not.

I am very satisfied though, especially for what I paid.

EDIT: I didn't see you also said graphics card. That I am not sure. I am on an Nvidia GT240 at the moment. Not the most powerful, but I haven't had any trouble running anything. It may not be enough to run BF3 with everything jacked up, but it will definitely do the job on High.

[Zimmyantz]

So far I have shortlisted these:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 2.5GHz Socket 775 1333FSB 4MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor 158333 85 in stock £107.00

HIS HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI Dual Mini DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card 264775 24 in stock £191.92

Total: £298.92
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@Zappa - What Gfx Card you got, can you reply with your full rig please?

[+Perfect72]

Zimmyantz, on 29 July 2011 - 16:12, said:

So far I have shortlisted these:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 2.5GHz Socket 775 1333FSB 4MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor 158333 85 in stock £107.00

HIS HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI Dual Mini DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card 264775 24 in stock £191.92

Total: £298.92
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@Zappa - What Gfx Card you got, can you reply with your full rig please?

I edited it in.
ASUS ENGT240/DI/512MD5/A GeForce GT 240 512MB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

I need to upgrade that, that is my last thing, and I will be good to go for sure.

[+Jdawg683]

i used to have a P5Q or similar and it does support quadcore's but make sure you update your bios first!

can you increase your budget at all? that 6950 is great, but putting a Core 2 Quad into that machine is still going to be a bottlneck...

[Zimmyantz]

Jdawg683, on 29 July 2011 - 17:31, said:

i used to have a P5Q or similar and it does support quadcore's but make sure you update your bios first!

can you increase your budget at all? that 6950 is great, but putting a Core 2 Quad into that machine is still going to be a bottlneck...

Can't really afford to update Mobo and Ram as well as both of these at the moment, just bought a house a lots of furniture.
I can always buy the rest later down the line, just want something that will not struggle for a bit, i know the gfx card is much better, but i can always migrate it into a new spec at some point.

[Zimmyantz]

To keep you posted, I will probably go for the Quad core an Gfx card I mentioned above.

I overclocked my CPU from 1.8ghz to 3ghz today and overclocked my Gfx card slightly with Rivatuner.

I can now play BF3 Alpha fine on medium settings, it goes a little laggy with loads of smoke, but i can get a feel for it.
Going to get these two parts well before official release and thanks for the help to those that replied

[THE_OBSERVER]

Zimmyantz, on 29 July 2011 - 16:12, said:

So far I have shortlisted these:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 2.5GHz Socket 775 1333FSB 4MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor 158333 85 in stock £107.00

HIS HD 6950 IceQ X Turbo 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI Dual Mini DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card 264775 24 in stock £191.92

Total: £298.92
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@Zappa - What Gfx Card you got, can you reply with your full rig please?

Q8300 nothing to work with! you want a Q9400min at least a Q9550 would be best! with a Q8300 you would be wasting your time! and with the 6950 you will have bottlenecks from here to china! (using Q8300)

Zimmyantz, on 31 July 2011 - 17:35, said:

To keep you posted, I will probably go for the Quad core an Gfx card I mentioned above.

I overclocked my CPU from 1.8ghz to 3ghz today and overclocked my Gfx card slightly with Rivatuner.

I can now play BF3 Alpha fine on medium settings, it goes a little laggy with loads of smoke, but i can get a feel for it.
Going to get these two parts well before official release and thanks for the help to those that replied

WTF you get BF3 Alpha?

[Zimmyantz]

lflashl, on 31 July 2011 - 18:15, said:

WTF you get BF3 Alpha?

Why did I get it?
I was invited and it was free.
Have been looking forward to this game for ages, quite glad i got to see how my PC coped, so that I can get my PC upgrades before November.

[jonathanmanopla]

Hello, My name is Jonathan ,
my brother have PC with a Asus M5A97 MOB, AMD ATHLON 2 X4 630, 8 GB RAM , ATI RADEON 5770 1GB, 320GB OF HARD DRIVE, A CORSAIR 750WATTS POWERSUPPLY, HE BUY BF3 BUT IT GETTING LAG , I NEED TO KNOW WHAT YOU RECOMEND ME TO UPDATE THE PC to play the game in high

in the other side i Just Buy for Build a PC FOR me , im using XFX 750WATTS powersupply, 8 gb corsair vengeance ddr3 1866, Amd FX 6100 CPU, ASUS ATI RADEON 7770 2GB VIDEO CARD, ASROCK FATAL1TY PROFESSIONAL MOB, 500GB HARD DRIVE,, DO YOU THINK WITH THIS PC I CAN RUN BF3 IN HIGH SETTINGS??