Build Advice Upgrade Suggestions for BF3

Hello all,

Sold my old PC to a friend who now wish to upgrade it in order to play BF3 a little smoother.

Currently has:

Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400C4 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit
Asus P5B Deluxe (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Hyper-V 530w

Basically looking for any 'best bang for the buck' suggestions to at least make the game effortless to run on Low to Medium settings at 720p resolution.

It's a bit choppy at the moment during open landscape maps and when things get intense.

Budget would be no more than £150.

Thank you.

 

How much has he got to spend? I'd say stick a quad core, Q6600, should serve him well, and then depending how much he has left to spend either a gtx 550/560/560ti

 

I'd OC the CPU, get a new GPU and more RAM

 

Start from scratch, maybe keep the PSU. i3-2100, cheap mobo, 4gb Vengeance RAM, AMD 6870. 775 is a bit rubbish and 2gb RAM is meh.


Now that I've given you a random cheap build, what is your budget so you can get a more serious response?

 

Ok,

So OC CPU seems a good option. Trawling around the review sites this now to see if quad makes a massive difference in BF3.

Ideally the spend should be <£100 and probably will be scrawling the marketplace on BT for bargains.

What GPU's do you think I could get second hand to fit within the budget?

 

I'm pretty sure a quad core is almost a must for BF3, although an i3 2100 with hyperthreading also run's it well, or so I've heard

 

By the time I sell the Card and Ram, maybe £50 on ebay.

So budget would be £150. (Sorry for not stating this in original post)

 

i'd say sell the CPU as well and whatever you get for it, maybe £20-30, then Q6600 are about £50 second hand, leave's you enough for something like a gtx 460/550, 6870

 

The a3850 is better for gaming than the i3 2100.

http://www.ebuyer.com/272282-amd-ll...wngxbox?utm_source=google&utm_medium=products

+1 to thetrashcanman's sudjestion.

 

Intel board though bagman.

Thanks Trashcan.

 

You can't use a i3 2100 on skt 775 intel board, you need skt 1155 intel board.

 

no problem buddy, happy to help

 

Q6600 £50
GTX 460/6870 £100

Next.

 

or NeXT

 

Check http://www.geforce.com/GamesandApps/games/battlefield-3/GPUAnalyzer

 

Seems an achievable upgrade.

Next Question - Would the Hyper V 530w handle this ok? (I'm hoping cards are more power conscious that the 8800GTX was 4/5 years ago now)

 

is it true you need 64bit to run BF3?

 

That dual core regardless if over-clocked will bottleneck your BF3 performance. A quad core is a MUST in this game!

Your gfx card will also be a problem. You should be able to run on low!

 

http://www.techspot.com/review/458-battlefield-3-performance/page7.html

Your dualie will be a bottleneck, irrespective of clock speeds.

 

No. But you do need either Vista or Windows 7