I've been asked to build a computer for a lad at work, primarily he wants to play BF3 but he doesn't want to pay a great deal for it. This is what I have come up with so far, but if I can make it any cheaper without a big performance hit that would be great. CPU Intel i3 2130 112 Mobo Asus P8H67-M PRO 86 Cooler Stock 0 PSU Antec Neo 520w 51 RAM Corsair Vengence Blue LP 8GB 40 HDD WD Blu 500GB 70 Case NZXT Source 210 Elite 35 GPU MSI 6870 OC 142 DVD Random 15 Total 551 I believe he is supply the monitor, 22" but not sure it 1680x1050 or 1920x1080. Any feedback would be great thanks.
You should try for a Phenom II x 4 instead, better value for money than the i3, still perfectly capable of gaming despite being so old.
Being a complete Intel fanboy, I don't know much about AMD stuff. Am I to assume that the Phenom II x 4, can only use the AM3 boards and not the AM3+ ones?
the phenom II x4 can also use the AM3+ socket ... i would suggest getting an phenom II x4 with that as you can also overclock it ....
So what would be a good AM3+ mobo to go for? If I can I want to try and keep the GPU as is so hopefully he gets a reasonably good visual experience.
Agreed with the 6850 idea. The 10% performance shouldn't be too prohibitive. Unless it's at 1920x1080...then go for the HD6870. Go for a 990FX or 990X board. I haven't seen many ones but other should guide you well.
As I read it the rig is for a workmate, trust me keep it simple or you will be his personal helper for all things IT related. That means running stock. Keep motherboards basic but functional and stick a decent speed cpu in it. If you re-jigged a low end motherboard with a low end i5 you would have the best of both worlds imo.
I have a very good ASUS M5A99X EVO AM3+ Board, step down from the biggies its practically brand new and everything included, only had 2 hours usage, selling for £75, bought for £100 early this month, plus I got a Corsair CX500, 3 months old, perfect condition, and 2gb DDR3 PNY RAM, will sell all for £112Inc RMSD. Bargin The board is quad SLI/Crossfire and has UEFI Bios for easy overclocking etc. I'll even throw in a copy of Win 7 64 Bit.
As the build is not for me I intend to buy all parts brand new and ideally from one retailer. I do appreciate the offer though. Good luck with getting it sold.
Be advised BF3 is hard on your GPU! Make sure to get one with a good cooler, especially when its an OC edition. No fun down-clocking because the cooler is not up to the task.
from a GPU point of view.. maybe look at a HD 5870... i know their old but theyll be faster than the hd 6870... and they should also be cheaper than a hd 6870... see whats on E-Bay....
The GTX 560 (just) outperforms the 6870 on BF3. Pre-overclocked ones more so. This one from Scan is only £143. Bit-tech review here.
This is you Kernel right here: http://forums.electronicarts.co.uk/pc-build-upgrade-forum/1464170-build-any-good.html
Although the overclocking of the AMDs is a bonus, I'm assuming this rig will not be overclocked. the i3-2100 is cheaper and faster at stock than the AMD. Add in this motherboard, and you have a (marginally) cheaper system that is a fair bit faster at stock.
Seriously it does?! Why will companies not make proper games with scaleable multithreading?! It's 20-freaking-12, cheap quad cores have been around since like 2005 or whenever! Only recently have REAL game companies started utilizing them, yet giants like Activision still insist on making shitty console ports that only use 2 cores! It's inconceivable! I'm going to go cry in a corner now.
