Juicing up for BF3, critque appreciated.!.:

[TwinsComeback]

Setup:Intelcore2Quad Q8400 at 2.66ghz, MB 750l, DDR2 4gb400mhz, GTX 260.
I have XP booting off a old HD with zero space left on it, and a 1tb HD.
Havent upgraded it yet and wanted to before BF3/skyrim and before I leave for my next semester of college.
I want to upgrade the video, thinking about a 6970, and a new HD to boot Win7 for DX11. Maybe more ram? I'm not sure what I should put money into, suggestions?
Budget: 500$$

Maybe a new keyboard to mines shit, anyone have a nice one I should get??

Trying to gain as much feedback as possible before I spend so much.THANKS!

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Any high end video card will be bottlenecked by your CPU in BF3

This was on sale for 54$ recently. Either that or the Samsung F3 1Tb drive

 

[VirtualLarry]

If I can hijack this thread for a moment - I have a similar question.

I have a friend that I built a computer for some time ago, with an E5200 @ 3.5 (was 3.75 originally, but it degraded). He used to play games, although he doesn't much recently. The video card was upgraded last year from a 9600GSO 384MB 96SP version, to a GTX460 768MB Twin Frozr. I just gave him a Q8200 CPU to upgrade with, I'll install it at some point.

I figure, he has HP DDR2-667 1GB DIMMs x 4 (4GB), which should OC to around 800 I think. He has an Abit IP35-E mobo, which should likewise handle 400FSB with the Q8200 (unless it was the mobo that degraded, and not the E5200).

So at 400FSB, that would be a 2.8Ghz OC on the Q8200.

Would that OC CPU plus the graphics card be good enough for games like BF3?

Oh yes, he has a 1920x1200 26" LCD.

I don't think he plays with any AA (no-one I know does).

I would probably try to OC the FSB more, but I really doubt that the RAM can handle over 800. And I don't want to spend more money on higher-speed DDR2, the supply of which is kind of drying up anyways.

If I were to spend money upgrading it, I would get him a i5-2400, a cheap 1155 mobo (micro-ATX even), and 2x4GB Gskill DDR3-1333 (which I already have several kits of).
That would be under $300.

But prefer not to spend any more money unless performance would be unacceptable with current parts.

Or would it even be a waste of time to put the Q8200 in? Is a 2.8Ghz C2Q still too slow for modern games?

 

[Puppies04]

Q8200 will probably handle BF3 but it is still going to be the bottleneck in the system, if you do go down the 1155 route dont bother with 8gb of ram 4gb is fine for playing games on a budget

 

[betasub]

^ Agreed - 8GB is nice if you have the money to buy it up front (prices on DDR3 are pretty good currently) but 4GB should be plenty for general gaming.

 

[TwinsComeback]

So if I were to put a 6970 in I would have to also upgrade my cpu? what about a 6950?

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

So if I were to put a 6970 in I would have to also upgrade my cpu? what about a 6950?

Actually the old reference 6950s had a bios hack to turn them into 6970s. I don't think it works with the newer 6950s but don't take my word for it. It's just what I heard - look more into this.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Virtual Larry. I remember my Q9300 being somewhat of a dog in UT3 at the reference speeds. I think it really opened up around 3.4Ghz (my unstable max on it)

 

[mfenn]

OP, we don't have and really solid benches on BF3 or Skyrim yet, so you might want to wait until then. A 2.66GHz C2Q certainly isn't the fastest CPU anymore, but it isn't that slow either. As BTRY B said, you will probably be CPU-limited once you upgrade the GPU though.

Here's what I would do initially:
6950 2GB $250 AR - not worth it to go to the 6970 IMHO
Samsung F3 1TB $65

That's right at $315 AR. Another ~$400 would get you a new CPU/mobo/RAM, but I would wait to see how this performs first. These parts can easily transfer over to a new mobo, so you won't have lost anything.