BF3 Preparation Budget Upgrade

DarkStar02

2[H]4U
Joined
Mar 1, 2006
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What should I buy to try to prepare my rig for BF3? Right now I'm running a Phenom X2 555 @ 3.6ghz (capable of unlocking another core that's only stable at stock though), 2GB value ram, and a GTX 275. I was thinking buying some RAM would definitely be the best bang for the buck upgrade, but I wasn't sure if I'd be better off with a new video card or upgrading my CPU? I was waiting for bulldozer but I figure an overclocked thuban chip (1090t or 1100t) would be a better value.
 
What res you play at? I would want 4gb of ram and if your at 1080p or higher your gonna need 2gb of memory on a card to play over medium settings comfortably. High setting on the beta with NO AA was using just under 1gb of memory on my 460 SLI setup.
 
I'm using a dying 37" 1080p Sceptre LCD (backlight is starting to give out), I want to get a 27" 3D monitor after this one gives out. I'm not sure what resolution that will be but that won't be for a couple months anyway. 2GB memory on a card?! Jebus.

What would be the bigger bottleneck do you think? The CPU or the video card? I believe the 275 has 896mb of ram.
 
You are kind of in a box with what you have now - if you get a modern video card, your CPU is going to be the limiting factor, and if you get a new CPU, your video card is going to limit you. You really need to try to move up to a quad if your motherboard supports it, and then jump to something like the GTX 560, GTX 560 Ti, 6870 or 6950 (depending on remaining budget).

And no one knows what the VRAM requirements for BF3 are going to be - I personally find it extremely hard to believe that High setting will use more than 1GB of VRAM, considering how few people actually have cards with more than that (and considering that the Recommended card for the game is a GTX 560 with 1GB of VRAM).
 
Well, he does have the 3rd core unlocked, so he should be more or less fine. I'd recommend just waiting on BF3 to actually come out with numbers, first, before upgrading.
 
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