Upgrading my PC (well, seeing if it's even possible).

So, BF3. The next coming of Jesus, yada yada.

My PC sucks. It sucks more than a kid sucks a father at the church.



But there's no way in hell I can drop $1,000 for a new PC right now (or next year). My only hope is that my current PC can be upgraded to play the game decently.

I know a bit of this and that, but I'm looking for advice and second opinions anyway.

This is my current system:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c01357175

My motherboard.

A Phenom X3 at 2.3 GHz (fail, even if I do get a better GPU, it will bottleneck)

9800 GT 1GB

3GB DDR2 (Yes, DDR2 )

My PSU is a 500W and 600W at peak.

And on to the point. I'm hoping (I'm naive) that just upgrading the GPU will let me play BF3 at a low resolution and medium settings with a constant FPS. If needed, maybe an upgrade to the CPU too, but I have no experience whatsoever when it comes to the whole AM2+ (which my motherboard has) and the AM3 sockets.

If my wishes come true, I'll just have to spend like 200 dollars or 250 tops to be able to play BF3 decently on my PC.

Anyway, ideas? If possible, I'd rather not have to buy another PSU. If it comes to that I may have to just wait it out.

Am I totally screwed or is there hope?

Ars Diaboli wrote:My PC sucks. It sucks more than a kid sucks a father at the church.

I fucking love you, Ars.

Get this CPU for an upgrade:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103940

It's a good value for what you need.

Next, get an aftermarket heatsink so you can overclock that sucker. Probably something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065&Tpk=212

Then get a GPU in this ballpark:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127592

Your GPU is actually pretty good so you don't NEED to upgrade except to be able to use DX 11.

This is probably pushing your budget a bit but it's definitely going to give you the performance boost you need for BF3.

How much RAM do you have and what is your monitors resolution?


The CPU mostly only bottlenecks singleplayer games because of the AI. The amount of RAM is very important for newer games.


Also need to know if you are running on a 64bit OS or just 32bit.


A PSU of more than 600w is only really needed if you have a ton of HDDs or fans and things of that nature.

One other thing, replace your current ram sticks with something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134047

I'm assuming you have 3 sticks of 1 gb of ram. I'd keep 2 of the sticks and add in those 2 so you have 6 gb total.

If you don't have a 64 bit os, upgrade that too.

You'll also need a good CPU for PhysX-intensive games.

Or just buy the game for Xbox and put the disc in the tray.

He could...*64 multiplayer* *cough* *cough*

'scuse me

I have Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bits, no prob there.

I'll check out those suggestiosn Peavs, thanks.

I'm not sure if it's 3 sticks or a 2GB and 1 GB. (The PC was a gift, not a build) I'm thinking on reinstalling my OS, and just have the desktop to play BF3, so I don't think the 4GB in RAM will be all that necessary since I won't have anything running in the background, other than Origins.

My monitor has a maximum resolution of 1440 x 900, or so. I intend to hook this up to my 37' HDTV though. I don't mind lowering the resolution, if it will help performance. As long as I can play at a constant FPS.

Stifler wrote:

Ars Diaboli wrote:My PC sucks. It sucks more than a kid sucks a father at the church.

I fucking love you, Ars.

There's love for everybody

Metalzoic wrote:Or just buy the game for Xbox and put the disc in the tray.

It's tempting, believe me. But... 64 players... bigger maps...

I'll probably end up playing in both platforms anyway.

What is the resolution of your TV? If you run the game at 1440x900 you might not even need to upgrade. If the TVs resolution is 1920x1080 you will need to upgrade if you want to run any kind of AA.


I would personally recommend that you upgrade the video card but hold off on adding RAM or upgrading your CPU for right now.

That's what I was thinking (upgrading GPU only!).

Yeah, my TV has a native resolution of 1920 x 1080.

So, overall, I'm thinking on buying a GPU first (the GTX 560, for example) and eventually getting other stuff.

I found this too:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=840189&CatId=5294

Damn cheap. Not that I'll buy it right now, but it's a good deal, and I already have a better PSU. I'm using tigerdirect because the ship to Mexico, and Newegg doesn't.

The GTX 560 should definitely run the game well enough for medium to high settings at that resolution but I'm not sure if you will be able to use AA or not.

Metalzoic wrote:Or just buy the game for Xbox and put the disc in the tray.

Ha this made me laugh metal.

I don't mind not having AA. I mean, I'd like to, but I'm guessing that the game is polished enough that there won't be many jaggies, even with AA turned off.

The cheapest GTX 560 in TigerDirect is about 185 dollars, plus an extra 5 for shipping. Or a GTX 56 Ti for about 200 dollars plus shipping. Is there much of a difference between these 2 cards? The Ti is basically a revision of it if I recall correctly. I'll check some benchmarks anyway.

I'm thinking that this may actually work I'll see how my current rig handles the Beta, and if it manages to get decent performance, I'll be gold once I get the GTX.

I have decided Im going to build a PC for this game( I think I said that sometime). My buddy is a computer genius, so hes putting it together for me. Im dropping 1500 w/out monitor and accessories. Coming from BF2 on the PC, I cant bring myself to played the nerfed version only. Im still going to buy it 360, so I can play SeC matches, but this game is going to steal alot of my time. Cant decide if I should get Skyrim on PC then instead of 360.

I can't think of one reason to get skyrim on 360 over PC if you have a 1500 dollar rig.

Vinyl Scratch wrote:I can't think of one reason to get skyrim on 360 over PC if you have a 1500 dollar rig.

This.

With $1,500, you'll get a monster rig.

Its the controller thingy though. My buddy tells me can use 360 like controllers on PC. Is this true? Im going to be get owned in BF3 at first, I havent played mouse/keyboard in years. Since I had a PC in high school I played Far Cry, BF2 and Deus Ex 1 on. Its gonna be ugly at first.

Symbolic wrote:Its the controller thingy though. My buddy tells me can use 360 like controllers on PC. Is this true? Im going to be get owned in BF3 at first, I havent played mouse/keyboard in years. Since I had a PC in high school I played Far Cry, BF2 and Deus Ex 1 on. Its gonna be ugly at first.

Almost all cross platformers have 360 controller support. It's what I played most of the Deus Ex beta with.

Ok that makes a big difference then. Shit.....my consoles may become obsolete by the end of September Kind of sad lol. I wish PC games had some sort of Acheivement sytem though, I do like that feature on consoles.

Symbolic wrote:Ok that makes a big difference then. Shit.....my consoles may become obsolete by the end of September Kind of sad lol. I wish PC games had some sort of Acheivement sytem though, I do like that feature on consoles.

....Steam.


It has achievements.


Your 360 is now a paperweight.



Join the master race Sym, JOIN US.

Steam has cheevos? Ooooooo now even more intrigued. Is Steam just a service where you download games from? Or is it server centric as well?

Symbolic wrote:Steam has cheevos? Ooooooo now even more intrigued. Is Steam just a service where you download games from? Or is it server centric as well?

Just a distribution service for games/DLC. It's kinda like the xbox LIVE dashboard. Friends lists, news, yada yada.

Nice. ive got a stupid question about PC's since Im a noob.

Do they have a party system like Xbox Live? My buddy who's building my rig, is also upgrading his to play BF3 as well. And obviously we'll play together alot, but Im hoping theres some way we can party up like I can on Xbox.

Symbolic wrote:Nice. ive got a stupid question about PC's since Im a noob.

Do they have a party system like Xbox Live? My buddy who's building my rig, is also upgrading his to play BF3 as well. And obviously we'll play together alot, but Im hoping theres some way we can party up like I can on Xbox.

For Steam, not that I'm aware of. For BF3 however, yes. With the way the battlelog system works you can squad up with people right in your web browser.

Fuck yea. Thanks.

No problem man. The more SeCers stomping around with me on PC, the better.

Couldn't you also just use Skype or something?

My 2 cents: Get a AMD ATI 6950. I have the 6970 (said fuck it and payed the extra money, but the 6950 isn't that far back from the 6970 and is cheaper).

I'm done with Nvidia for a while. The past 2 fuckers I've had, had overheating probs. My 6970 runs sooo much cooler than my now broken 280GTX.

Also if you're cool with spending more. The i7's and i5's are very overclockable and very stable (some will go to 5ghz easy with a Noctua NH-D14 cooler). Lemme know if you want and I can put together a build.

Thanks, but I need to work with my currente motherboard. It can't take the newer CPUs, just some AM3 95Ws AMD CPUs.

I do think that I would rather go with a 6950 or 6970, but I'm on a budget, so I'll just get a good enough card. I can't afford another PSU either.

Symbolic wrote:Nice. ive got a stupid question about PC's since Im a noob.

Do they have a party system like Xbox Live? My buddy who's building my rig, is also upgrading his to play BF3 as well. And obviously we'll play together alot, but Im hoping theres some way we can party up like I can on Xbox.

Also for BF3, EA isn't done having their hissy-fit with Valve so we won't got BF3 for Steam. Instead we'll use it's exact EA clone, Origin.

I've used EA crap online store for BF2s a long time ago. It was horibad.

PC has many more options than the standard game provided way of partying up.

PC = options
Console = convenience

Lets see what I will be playing it on, once the game comes out as my future of gaming seems pretty gloomy (as of now).