TR Forums

I am running:

CPU: AMD Athlon x2 64 5600+ 2.8Ghz
GPU: Evga 8800 GTS 640MB SuperClocked
RAM: 4GB OCZ Reaper
PSU: Mushkin 550W
HDD: WD Caviar 200GB
Mobo: M2N-SLi Deluxe Note: This board can apparently house AM3 quadcore chipsets.

Budget: $250 lol

I was looking into buying an EVGA GTX 470 from someone for $180 but I realized my PSU isnt gonna handle that business. I have also looked into upgrading my CPU for around 100-120 bucks. On low settings playing multiplayer,the game becomes jittery and sometimes disorienting. Anyone know what will make the biggest difference for me?

You probably need to upgrade both the CPU and GPU to get good performance, but I would upgrade the GPU first. For $250 you could easily upgrade your CPU and GPU, except that you need a new motherboard to do a meaningful CPU upgrade.

I would probably spend about $100-$150 on a GPU. That will put you somewhere between a Radeon 6770 and a Radeon 6850. I'm not sure what the nVidia equivalent is. Try to overclock the CPU a little bit, I would imagine that you can hit 3.2 GHz with that chip. I hit that with a 5400.

Save up some money and do a CPU/motherboard upgrade when you get the funds. It will probably cost $200-$250 to do a good CPU + mobo upgrade.

Remember that any current cpu/motherboard upgrade also involves a DDR3 memory upgrade too. Is your 200Gb hard drive an IDE one? I'd go with the best card you can get at the time and follow that with motherboard/cpu/memory/psu. Good luck!

CPU FIRST. Upgrade to a Quad Core for around $100. This should increase your frame rates by about 2x. I personally went from a 4.0 GHz dual-core to a 2.9 GHz quad core and saw my FPS increase almost 2x, using the same video card. The game is CPU bound until you get over 4 cores, then it is GPU bound.

GPU second. Upgrade to an AMD Radeon HD 6870 for $150. After the CPU upgrade, this should increase your frame rates again by around 2-4x.

TurtlePerson2 wrote:

...I would upgrade the GPU first.

In my experience, the opposite will have a better effect. BF3 is heavily CPU-bound up until you reach 4 cores, after that it scales nicely with GPU boosts.

He has enough budget to do both at the same time - a quad core Athlon X4 + a Radeon 6870 for around $250 total.

Hallucin8 wrote:

I'd go with the best card you can get at the time and follow that with motherboard/cpu/memory/psu. Good luck!

Again my own experience has shown this to be bad advice. BF3 is CPU-bound on dual-core machines. Adding more GPU power will make little difference until you can remove the CPU bottleneck.

JdL wrote:

TurtlePerson2 wrote:

...I would upgrade the GPU first.

In my experience, the opposite will have a better effect. BF3 is heavily CPU-bound up until you reach 4 cores, after that it scales nicely with GPU boosts.

He has enough budget to do both at the same time - a quad core Athlon X4 + a Radeon 6870 for around $250 total.

It could very well be the case that BF3 is CPU bound and that the CPU is the thing to upgrade, but there's not much chance that he can do a total system upgrade for $250. Keep in mind that he's probably on an AM2 motherboard, so he'll need a new mobo, new RAM, and then the new CPU.

It's worth mentioning that the minimum requirements are a 2.7 GHz Athlon X2 and an 8800 GT. This is almost exactly what the OP has. Game developers must use 20 FPS average frame rate at minimum settings to determine the minimum requirements.

You could use a gpu and cpu, in that order.

I would go this way:

XFX HD-685X-ZCFC Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150573

Price - $159 + a $30 rebate, totals at $129.

Wait for the rebate.

AMD Phenom II X4 960T Zosma 3.0GHz Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor HD96ZTWFGRBOX

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103995

Price - $124.99

You are $5 over budget, but you will be able to do both.

Also, if you cannot flash your motherboard to accept this newer processor, and if you can support 125 W (should be able to, but check), you can do this one:

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ955FBGMBOX

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

Price - $124.99

I would stick to a 95 watt cpu a 2.8ghz phenom 2 is on sale for 95$ at newegg, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819103993
Too bad the 3ghz 95 watt phenom2 945 is out of stock,If you can find that cpu i would go for that.
As for the graphics card you might be able to find a 6870,that will put you a bout 25$ over budget,so a 6850 would be in order to say within budget parameters.
Here is a gigabyte windforce on sale at ncix for 190$ http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=58226& ... omoid=1282
New egg has this xfx 6870 for 169$ 150$ with rebate:) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150561
There ya go within budget.

TurtlePerson2 wrote:

...there's not much chance that he can do a total system upgrade for $250. Keep in mind that he's probably on an AM2 motherboard, so he'll need a new mobo, new RAM, and then the new CPU. .

You, sir, need to do some research before contradicting people.

M2N-SLi Deluxe does in fact support Phenom II X4's. Here's a link to the Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition for only $125:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819103808

The guys over here asked the same question and got positive results:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/25908 ... m#t1940448

You can get a Radeon HD 6850 for $130 after rebate here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102908

Total cost: $255, and that's without digging for cheaper versions of the CPU, which I know can be had for under $100. (The one referenced above is a higher-end "Black Edition" part).

A couple options for cpu:

AMD Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz=$99.99=free shipping as well.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103871

I just put this triple core in a neighbours pc, it also unlocked to a quad...AMD Athlon II X3 455 Rana 3.3GHz=$79.99=free shipping as well.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103911

As for cards, if you do a search on Newegg and choose only free shipping you will find this card which I think will run what you want just fine while saving some dough for you and a free game as well, below this one, there is a 560 Ti and a hd 6850 within your price range.
The card I have chosen here I know it will play fine with your PS, I have read that folks are playing BF3 with this card as well.

Radeon HD 6790 1GB 256-bit=$124.99=free shipping as well.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161377

Good luck and happy gaming with your new parts.

While the board supports Phenom II and Athlon II CPUs, it's not going to unlock any dormant cores because it's an nForce chipset. So avoid the tri-cores.

Still, a $100 quad (Athlon II X4 640) and a $150 Radeon 6850 should make the game WAY more playable.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819103871 (AII X4 640)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814161384 (HIS 6850)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102908 (Sapphire 6850)

or if you prefer nVidia:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814500202 (Zotac GTX 460)

Valid point about the unlocking of the core:)......not very big on that anyways, the idle heat went up almost 20 degrees:(

Now that you mention it as well, I have the toxic 6850 and I agree, thats what he should go for, with the quad.

yeah, the 6790 is way faster than what he has, but IMO it's not worth saving the few bucks to get it. BTW welcome to the TR forum.

I would also browse the forsale forums at places like TR's own FS, hardforums, anandtech, and arstechnica for the CPU upgrade. Since modern CPU's are pretty great at protecting themselves, you reduce your risk and have the chance to save a lot of cash. You could do that same with the GPU, but I always hesitate to buy a used GPU.

derFunkenstein wrote:

yeah, the 6790 is way faster than what he has, but IMO it's not worth saving the few bucks to get it. BTW welcome to the TR forum.

Ty for the warm welcome, long time lurker here and a couple other places, mostly here though.

I never seem to have the time to contribute at a level that I feel comfortable with, so I lurk,lol.

I have learned alot from yourself and a few others here, been about 7 years in puters now, so a belated ty to you and others:)