I found the frame time articles here on Tech Report interesting since I’m looking to upgrade my system. I currently have a Q9550 (oc’d to 3.4) quad core duo sitting in a GA-EP45-UDR3 Gigabyte mb with 8 gig of DDR2 ram and a EVGA GTX560TI powered by a 650 watt Antec power supply. I just installed a Kingston Hyper X 240 Gb SSD and I’m running Win8. Overall the system is running well. Win8 is running BF3 better than Win7 ever did. Not only is it faster FPS wise but it also is smoother with no stuttering but like everyone else I want to go faster. BF3 maintains 60 fps on a combination of medium-low settings. This computer is a dedicated gaming system so I don’t care about anything else.
Ok, I have about $350 US to upgrade my rig with. My three options are:
1.Upgrade the GPU to a GTX670.
2.Upgrade the CPU to an I3570k, new motherboard and ddr 3 ram.
3.Upgrade the CPU to an I2500k, new motherboard and ddr 3 ram (currently $50 cheaper than a 3570k).
My feeling is to go with option #3 as the performance difference between 3570k and the 2500k is very small, PCI 3.0 offers nothing over PCI 2.0 and when this computer is running it is running very hard do things like the onboard graphics don’t mean much. Then upgrading the GPU next summer. Your thoughts?