12 replies to this topic

[jaxstraww]

Having a tough time running BF3 with the E8400 rig in my sig. My case, HD's and cooler are fine for a 1155 build.

I'm a fan of Giga boards and have always bought ATI cards but will be willing to go Nvidia. I can handle the memory myself.

CPU will be the 2500k Sandy.

Anyone have any recommendations for the new Mobo and GPU?

Or.......Does anyone have any suggestions on some changes I can make with the E8400 rig to play BF3? Using my G15 keyboard I can see CPU is pinned at 100% and RAM is 80-95% during the game. Would the current GPU cause those issues?

Edited by jaxstraww, 10 December 2011 - 08:59 PM.

[Tjj226_Angel]

Having a tough time running BF3 with the E8400 rig in my sig. My case, HD's and cooler are fine for a 1155 build.

I'm a fan of Giga boards and have always bought ATI cards but will be willing to go Nvidia. I can handle the memory myself.

CPU will be the 2500k Sandy.

Anyone have any recommendations for the new Mobo and GPU?

Or.......Does anyone have any suggestions on some changes I can make with the E8400 rig to play BF3? Using my G15 keyboard I can see CPU is pinned at 100% and RAM is 80-95% during the game. Would the current GPU cause those issues?

Two questions. How much is your budget, and can you wait for about 2 months on this build. Ivy Bridge and the ATI (who is now AMD) 7000 series will be out in February. I would be much wiser on your part to try to do your best to hold out for IB and try and come up with cheap fixes for some of your BF3 issues, but if you need something NOW then just provide a budget as mentioned earlier and I or some one else will get back to you.

[jaxstraww]

Two questions. How much is your budget, and can you wait for about 2 months on this build. Ivy Bridge and the ATI (who is now AMD) 7000 series will be out in February. I would be much wiser on your part to try to do your best to hold out for IB and try and come up with cheap fixes for some of your BF3 issues, but if you need something NOW then just provide a budget as mentioned earlier and I or some one else will get back to you.

I can wait.

Just read up on IB and I'd be ok with buying current gen. While I could buy the newer tech I don't want to get caught up in a rat race to play BF3. I did look at some charts for the E8400 and the HD 3870's and the current stuff blows them out of the water.

I'd be ok with a 2500k and a new 1155 MOBO and GPU (Nvidia or ATI)

For the Mobo I'm figuring $125-$170
GPU - $125-$175

RAM I would just go with my Corsair

Any suggestions?

Again, my feeling is for the dollars I could seriously improve my specs for not allot of money. The new IB and 7xxxx are going to be some bucks unless I get the lower end 7xxx cards. I think ther may be some comparable 6xxxx cards or Nvidia out now and within the dollars I listed above.

Edited by jaxstraww, 10 December 2011 - 11:49 PM.

[Tjj226_Angel]

I can wait.

Just read up on IB and I'd be ok with buying current gen. While I could buy the newer tech I don't want to get caught up in a rat race to play BF3. I did look at some charts for the E8400 and the HD 3870's and the current stuff blows them out of the water.

I'd be ok with a 2500k and a new 1155 MOBO and GPU (Nvidia or ATI)

For the Mobo I'm figuring $125-$170
GPU - $125-$175

RAM I would just go with my Corsair

Any suggestions?

Again, my feeling is for the dollars I could seriously improve my specs for not allot of money. The new IB and 7xxxx are going to be some bucks unless I get the lower end 7xxx cards. I think ther may be some comparable 6xxxx cards or Nvidia out now and within the dollars I listed above.

Yeah, getting current gen is fine then. I see your point.

Mobo http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813157265

Now for BF3, I would push the budget a tiny bit and go with something like this http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814150523 and for Nvidia http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814130662

I know the GPU is a little out of your budget, but I would save money by going with a different motherboard. The GPU is what you need to focus on the most (obviously) and people normally have a good BF3 experience with a 6950 or a GTX 560 ti. You can also play around with the prices of GTX 550 Ti(s) and see if the price wouldn't be good enough for two of them in SLI with in your budget. I would not get the card until after this month though. Supposedly we could see a couple of AMD 7000 series cards out on the market at the end of December.

[jaxstraww]

Yeah, getting current gen is fine then. I see your point.

Mobo http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813157265

Now for BF3, I would push the budget a tiny bit and go with something like this http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814150523 and for Nvidia http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814130662

I know the GPU is a little out of your budget, but I would save money by going with a different motherboard. The GPU is what you need to focus on the most (obviously) and people normally have a good BF3 experience with a 6950 or a GTX 560 ti. You can also play around with the prices of GTX 550 Ti(s) and see if the price wouldn't be good enough for two of them in SLI with in your budget. I would not get the card until after this month though. Supposedly we could see a couple of AMD 7000 series cards out on the market at the end of December.

Looks good. I see the MoBo has support for IB when its released.

For the GPU's. What do you think of HD 6850

Big fan of lifetime warranties.

[Black64]

6850 is an awesome GPU, I don't know how it's runs BF3 thou.

[Tjj226_Angel]

Looks good. I see the MoBo has support for IB when its released.

For the GPU's. What do you think of HD 6850

Big fan of lifetime warranties.

life time warranties are a joke. The reality is that no one is going to keep the product for life so it doesn't matter at all.

Here are some charts for BF3 GPU benchmarks



Now this is only for Nvidia, but I could not find one for ATI/AMD performance. If any one knows of a graph that would show ATI performance to contrast this with, I would appreciate it if you could post it here.

I have head a lot of people say that the 560 Ti is whats going to give you a enjoyable experience as compared to other cards. Now I am not a big ATI graphics card person so all I know on that side is that the same thing about the 560 ti is said about the 6950. I mean if I were in your shoes, I would bust my butt saving every last little penny on the other parts of your PC and spend a MAX of 250 of a GPU. I mean if I liked at the budget between your Mobo and your GPU, the total max budget is 350.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157271 this mobo is only 115 after rebate and is still an awesome board. It is a great bang for the buck board.

That in theory gives you 235 dollars for the GPU. The more you dump into your GPU, the better off you will be.

[jaxstraww]

Both MoBo's are on sale. Price doesn't matter. I just have a hard time spending allot of dough on a GPU that we know is garbage next year. I hear you about the warranties but lifetime does sound good.

Been doing a ton of reading and its all about the GPU with this game. I just OC my 3870's and I'm hoping just to be able to play.

Last call on those MoBo's. I see they are both future proof with IB but what is the major differences in Z68 and P67?

[RJR]

RAM I would just go with my Corsair

Your DDR2 won't work with SB, so it would be a good idea to budget $40-$50 for an 8GB set of DDR3 memory too.

[jaxstraww]

Your DDR2 won't work with SB, so it would be a good idea to budget $40-$50 for an 8GB set of DDR3 memory too.

Going to go Corsair.

[Tjj226_Angel]

Both MoBo's are on sale. Price doesn't matter. I just have a hard time spending allot of dough on a GPU that we know is garbage next year. I hear you about the warranties but lifetime does sound good.

Been doing a ton of reading and its all about the GPU with this game. I just OC my 3870's and I'm hoping just to be able to play.

Last call on those MoBo's. I see they are both future proof with IB but what is the major differences in Z68 and P67?

Z68 is like the upgraded version of P67. It has a couple extra features such as SRT technology. Not much more than that.

Here is why I think you should really wait for IB and buy into that. IB is going to be necessary to use the PCI 3.0 ports, it is going to be faster and run cooler (a lot cooler), and at the release time of IB the 7000 AMD cards will be released. Now the performance boost that you get with the new gen stuff is not enough to justify the cost. HOWEVER, the temperature at which this stuff runs is worth the extra money because how how far (in theory) you can overclock everything. It really would be worth every penny going waiting the two to two and a half months for the new stuff.

[IVIYTH0S]

I'd overclock your processor and see what that does for you, BF3 is very CPU intensive (not that it wasn't too obvious by the usage), and if that Zalman 9700 doesn't do the trick you could get a better cooler like the CoolerMaster 212 EVO (which can be applied to the new machine). Sandybridge processors don't need anything better and as things get more efficient that should be all the cooler you ever need for decent overclock.

If that's not enough we'll go onto the next logical step...