Need help upgrading my PC for BF3


Recommended Posts

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

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The cheapest way to play BF3 on high would be great, thanks to anyone who helps in advance :cool:

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1015720-need-help-upgrading-my-pc-for-bf3/
Share on other sites

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.

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131637

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103808

RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=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.

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?

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.

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...

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.

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 :)

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)

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?

  • 1 year later...

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??

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • The machines are starting to fight back any way they can.
    • No news articles about the Arch Linux repo being majorly infected with malware?!?
    • Waymo recalls self-driving software after cars enter closed freeway work zones by Paul Hill Waymo, the self-driving car maker owned by Alphabet – the parent company of Google –, has recalled some of its fifth-generation Automated Driving Systems (ADS). It did so after some of its cars drove through closed construction zones. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the affected vehicles were capable of driving through a closed freeway construction zone and continuing to drive at speed. The listing on the NHTSA website says that Waymo is currently developing a solution to fix this issue, but in the meantime, freeway driving is being restricted. Waymo will update its ADS software so that vehicles can detect when they can avoid entering construction zones. According to the Safety Recall Report, on April 20, 2026, Waymo’s Field Safety Committee began meetings reviewing an event from April 11, 2026, and five events from April 19, 2026, where Waymo’s autonomous vehicles didn’t recognize and drove past ramp closure signs into the pre-planned freeway construction zones. This took place in Phoenix, Arizona. Separately, on May 18, 2026, seven Waymo vehicles entered freeway lanes with active construction in the San Francisco Bay Area by driving between cones that were placed to show the lane was closed. On the back of both of these events, Waymo restricted freeway driving until it could address the issue. In June, Waymo’s Safety Board reviewed the issue and additional information related to ADS performances around construction zones; then, as a result, it decided to conduct a recall. This development is not good for Waymo as it adds to a growing list of technical hiccups its cars have experienced. Ultimately, it will lead to more scrutiny from lawmakers around the world who will be more cautious about letting autonomous vehicles on their roads without tighter regulation. For readers in areas where Waymo operates, does this news make you more wary about stepping into one of these vehicles?
    • I'm still on Windows 10 22H2 because I didn't want to deal with all the issues in Windows 11, so I waited almost a week before installing the latest Patch Tuesday update (KB5094127), I went ahead and did it, and it was a huge mistake—ever since then, my File Explorer has seen a performance drop of about 30% when transferring large files... Once again, Microsoft has outdone itself! This update cannot be uninstalled, either through the Control Panel (via Settings) or by accessing Advanced Startup Options. The only possible alternative would be to use system restore points, but I’d have to reinstall all app and driver updates (and there’s no guarantee it would work). Or there’s the “nuclear option” of a in-place repair without losing files or apps, but even then, all my customizations would be lost! Microsoft just can’t help but mess everything up! Way to go, Microsoft! But I still don’t want your c****y Windows 11!
    • Microsoft: Windows 11 could finally solve a major issue across AMD, Nvidia, and Intel GPUs by Sayan Sen While Microsoft has been trying to improve it, Windows 11 is definitely not flawless, as even today some issues are taking a year to publicly acknowledge. However, one area of trouble that may finally see much better results soon is graphics driver crashes. Work on graphics driver timeouts, also called Timeout and Detection Recovery (TDR), is not new as the latest WDDM 3.2 also has specific improvements regarding it. Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) version 3.2 is supported on Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2. However, with the upcoming version 26H2, TDR crash diagnosis could go to the next level as Microsoft is introducing a new DirectX 12 API feature called "DirectX Dump Files". Similar to how system memory dump files work when a system crashes or freezes or encounters any such major issue, DirectX Dump Files (DDF) will essentially record a snapshot of the GPU execution right at the moment a graphics-related crash or hang or freeze occurs, so that developers can better understand and diagnoze these TDR and timeout detection errors. The dump will be available as a .dxdmp file for analysis and it will be a comprehensive dump file generated with detailed insights about the hardware, drivers, Windows, as well as the affected application. This should be another welcome change in this department. Earlier at GDC 2026, when the technology was first debuted, Microsoft had shared more details regarding it. The company had explained how DDF is designed to gather data from every layer of the graphics stack into a single file, eliminating the need for developers to manually correlate logs from multiple tools. As mentioned above, the dump can contain a lot of useful details like GPU hardware state information such as register values, shader program counters, page fault virtual addresses, shader memory data, and command buffers. Alongside that, it also captures DirectX runtime and kernel information, including D3D objects, pipeline state objects, device error data, adapter details, and CPU call stacks. Microsoft says the feature has been built around two primary use cases: retail device removals and local device removals. The former allows developers to collect crash information from end users' systems in the field, while the latter helps QA teams and developers investigate issues on test machines. Developers will also be able to include up to 2 MB of custom application data through new D3D12 APIs, providing additional context for troubleshooting. In addition, Microsoft is introducing three dump collection modes ranging from zero-overhead capture, which has no runtime performance impact on supported hardware, to higher-detail modes that collect more vendor-specific debugging data. On compatible Tier 2 hardware, zero-overhead dumps will be enabled by default, meaning developers may begin receiving useful crash diagnostics without making any code changes. The table below explains the three tiers: Tier Description NO_OVERHEAD Enables crash capture with no runtime cost and is suitable for broad deployment MEDIUM_OVERHEAD Provides a balance, capturing additional diagnostic data with moderate impact HIGH_OVERHEAD Collects the most detailed GPU and driver state available, enabling deeper investigation at the cost of higher runtime overhead In terms of availability, the company expects broader release to be around the fall of 2026, which should be right around the time when Windows 11 version 26H2 lands. Right now, DirectX Dump Files are available as a preview and currently, only AMD has the compatible AgilitySDK Developer Preview driver version 26.10.07.02. You can find the official announcement post here on Microsoft's website.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      Eurosoft10 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Eurosoft10 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Year In
      Skeet Campbell earned a badge
      One Year In
    • One Month Later
      Sharbel earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • First Post
      BizSAR earned a badge
      First Post
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      599
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      190
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      79
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      77
    5. 5
      Steven P.
      70
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!