I had no problem playing BF3 64 players when I had my 920 @ 4Ghz + 6950 radeon granted this was at 1920x1200 and high preset to keep things playable. granted he doesn't have HT on his chip but at 4Ghz it should still provide enough fps
when I upgraded to the 970 it was even better.
I think people are just saying he can get by with his rig if he overclocks it instead of doing a complete rebuild for now.
Also the OP never mentioned what games, So why is it people are now trying to use BF3 to prove a point?
This is true.
I'll tell you a story (you can PM the guy and ask him, it's 100% true) about BF3.
I've been a PC gamer for donkey's years, and I was very excited about BF3 coming out. When it finally did, I was mostly ecstatic, being a longtime BF2 player. I was so excited that I got one of my oldest friends to jump on it, despite him not really playing PC games for at least a decade or more. He loved the Uncharted games on PS3, but was super busy with work and just being in his 20s having a blast to have much time to do PC gaming. He didn't have a gaming PC, so we ended up patching together an Athlon II X3 and GTS450 on a dead-cheap mobo from our local TigerDirect store, complete with 4GB of DDR2-800. Lo and behold, it was enough to play moderately well. He was not immediately good at BF3. As a matter of fact he would usually find himself at the bottom of the map leaderboards on a regular basis. But he didn't care, and he almost certainly has more fun with BF3 than anyone I know. He also LOVES the 64p matches, plays them almost exclusively on that very modest rig without a single complaint. I did give him a 95W Phenom II to use, but the mobo just didn't like it for some reason, we couldn't get it stable (we're talking one of the $40ish Asrock 740 type dirt cheapie mobos).
Now my PC I upgraded several times, trying out 3770Ks, one 3960X, all kinds of different boards. Ended up with SLI 4GB 670FTWs, and my personal favorite chip is a 2700K that runs cold on low volts under a 212 at 5Ghz happily, combined with 16GB of great memory and raid 256GB 840 Pros. I also loved the 3960, but couldn't justify it in the end as I very very rarely encode anything, and I couldn't get it past 4.5 under an H100. So I went from a 2500k @ 4.8 to a DOA 3770K, two successive 3770Ks, then a 3960X, then finally to the golden 2700K. I obviously have no problem pushing massive frames on BF3, but I don't think I ever enjoy it as much as my buddy does. He now has over 1400 hours, 100k kills, and is just an absolute monster on infantry maps. He's also the biggest team player I've ever seen. He will take a chance to help any of his teammates every time. He also doesn't play a benchsitter style, for whatever reason he loves Metro, and he will barrel down into the enemy 500 times if he can, trying every possibility to push their defenses, and sometimes he gets through and causes massive carnage. Again, all of this on a rig that isn't much of a
fraction of most of our setups.
http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/user/Uncle_Danny/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJzghYekT1o <-- very similar rig to what I'm talking about
Thats my buddy. He actually intended to be called Lieutenant Dan (after Forrest Gump), but he had a brain fart and ended up as Uncle Danny, lol.
TL : DR, BF3, even 64P, doesn't require a psycho rig to be playable. A lynnfield, let alone a lynnfield at 3.6-4Ghz range, would be a massive upgrade for my buddy's Athlon II X3, but he's already put over 1400hrs in and has no complaints.
4770K is certainly a LOT better than i5 760. However, once the 760 is overclocked, and good settings applied at 1920x1200, I can't think of many times one would see a difference large enough worth $400. It would be my personal inclination to do a $30 tower air cooler first. Going to a 4770K is also not a bad move, if one has the money and wants a great new mobo/chip to last them even longer down the line.