Budget Upgrade for BF3

[Team Obi Juan]

Current setup is low to mid range:

X2 555 BE (not unlockable) @ stock clocks
Biostar A880G+
Sapphire 5830 @ stock clocks
8GB RAM


I can swing $150 for an upgrade. Would my money be better spent on a marginal GPU upgrade (6870?) or maybe an X4 or even X6 CPU? Or nothing at all? It will be a long while before I can build new as I just got engaged last week.

 

[NoOther]

Your fiancee is allowing you to buy new toys? I guess since you aren't married yet, you still have "some" say

As for the upgrade, I would say upgrading the GPU would probably be more worthwhile.

 

[Paragon]

From what I have read, BF3 is all about the GPU (unless you are playing at low resolution). You can take a 2500k i5 or 2600k i7 and only enable 2 cores (iirc) and it will be pretty much the same as running with 4 cores +HT The game was designed to play on a core2Duo.

 

[Team Obi Juan]

I suppose I should have said 1080p only for the foreseeable future.

 

[Tsuyoi]

For that price range, a 6870 would be the best upgrade. However, if you are willing to wait, I'd wait for the AMD 7xxx series to be released fully, so the older models go down in price. Maybe then you can pick up a 6950 or maybe even a discount 6970!

 

[Team Obi Juan]

Well, I tried my hand at OCing with good results. Got 3.6GHz out of the CPU and forgot how much the auto utility squeezed out of the 5830. I'll look when I get home. I think it went from 800 -> 875 on the core and a mild bump on the memory. Long story short, it made a big difference. I may try for more on the CPU.