ugrade processor or graphics card?

gamma-ray95

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Apr 10, 2013
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made a pc not to long ago and im wondering which i should upgrade first.

i have atm:
intel core 2 duo e8400 3ghz
geforce 8500 gt

i wish to play bf3 on medium graphics without any frame rate issues, so which should i upgrade first?
 

Delirious788

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Sep 29, 2011
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by not too long ago what do you mean? My pc is like 6 yrs old and is running an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 with Radeon HD 5770, granted the gpu upgrade was only like 4 yrs ago. The point is 6 and 4 yrs are ancient in technology world. If you can it might be time to save up and build a whole new pc. If not then upgrade the GPU first. Just a heads up, upgrading the CPU to Sandy/Ivy Bridge will require a whole new motherboard and RAM.
 

gamma-ray95

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Apr 10, 2013
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i built a cheap pc to get started about half a year ago to play games like minecraft, but now i want to upgrade, i understand i might have to change the mother board for a cpu upgrade. i was just wondering if the cpu could handle games for a bit longer.
 
It will be easier to upgrade the GPU, so if you can only do one do that 1st. The CPU will be a bottle neck and you will need to upgrade it to get the full power of you GPU. However the new Haswell is coming out in June you may want to wait to see how the prices on the Haswell and the Ivy Bridge look then. AMD will probably lower prices on their line too so its worth waiting on the CPU for now.
 

gamma-ray95

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Apr 10, 2013
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not to good with pc's (uncle helped me put my pc together) but i opened it up to check.
couldnt find much on the mother board but i said "infineon mos" on it and its hp. its a mother board made with the e8400 so i know im going to have to change it because its outdated.

operating system is windows 7 (64bit)
and the power source aswell is hp, model pc7036 300 watt max

and budget, im looking around the 200$ range
 

Delirious788

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If you have a 300 watt PSU, then the best gpu you could do is a Radeon HD 7750. If you upgrade the PSU to a decent 500-550 watt PSU, then you can upgrade to just about any GPU. If you are in not too big of a hurry of buying a new gpu, you could watch and wait for good deals and get some cheap parts.

I play BF3 on med with quad core q6600 and hd 5770, so Radeon HD 7850 2gb version with a new 500 watt PSU would serve you well I would think, just as swifty_morgan suggested.
 

gamma-ray95

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Apr 10, 2013
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thank you for the suggestion, ill be getting the hd 7850 from a computer store in my area. great deal the store is selling it for 190$ perfect, ill work on my mother board in June probably. thanks for all your help.