Just Ordered Refurb from Dell for $1k how well will i run BF3?

[bloodstorm69]

Just ordered this PC last night from Dell Outlet Store, with the 25% off coupon it was $996 with free shipping, tryin to decide if i need more ram and maybe a SSD for some BF3 action....

125V Power Cord
210W/240W switchable Slim 3P A/C Adapter
AlienFX Color, Quasar Blue
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit Operating System DVD
Service Driver
Alienware M17x R3 Laptop
Processor: Intel Core i7 2630QM 2.0GHz (2.8GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
4 GB Dual Channel DDR3 (1600MHz)
500 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
8X DVD +/- RW Drive
2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 6990M
Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1000
17.3 inch Wide FHD (1920 x 1080 60Hz) WLED Display
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium
Soft Touch Nebula Red
Dell Wireless 375 Bluetooth Module
9 Cell Battery

 

[cbrunnem]

is this a serious question?
or is this some bragging question?

 

[bloodstorm69]

is this a serious question?
or is this some bragging question?

serious, i'm wondering if 4 gigs of ram is enough, and if a SSD would be enough of an improvement to justify its purchase

 

[HEXiT]

depends what your upgrading from. but it is a nice laptop... even if its a little on the pricey side.
unless your doing a lot of memory intensive stuff like 3d rendering or hi dpi photo shopping then 4 gigs will be enough for a gaming platform.

 

[cbrunnem]

i would buy your own ram not let them upgrade it 4gb is enough 8gb will never be used completely. 4gb is around the max able to be used because most games are still written in 32bit so the max usable ram is 3.5gb. a ssd will not improve gaming performance but will lower loading time.

if the question is in reference to your gpu or cpu google their power lol.

 

[nagisa]

that i7...
when you get it could you just log onto runescape for me and play it with graphics on full and tell me your fps? if it dosent get 45-50 fps (you cant get higher then 50) thats more evidence to my side of an argument i been having (my desktop has a pentium E6700 3.2 ghz when its not over clocked and in a vaguely empty area i get 50 fps (it drops to about 25 at the grand exchange). (when overclocked (max i feel safe with is 4 ghz) i get 50 fps everywhere (but not the grand exchange when that place is busy O_O) anyway...
i say that my desktops processor can beat any of intels newer processors so long as they are slower per core (aka it can have 3 million cores for all i care but if its slower then 3.2 ghz it wont play runescape as well)

^ that lot could be open for interpretation :/

 

[nadim615]

lolz runescape... anyways, back to business. Lol yea this should run BF3, at like max settings. Now with the RAM (your asking if you should upgrade) even though most people are saying no, I'm going to go with yes. Reccomended specs for BF3 say 4GB of RAM. This means your prolly gonna be using about 3-3.5GB of RAM usage in your gaming. Always good to have some extra so you dont have to close absolutely everything else your running on your computer. I would reccomend 8GB, more RAM is good for video rendering too (I sometimes hit like 6-7GB RAM usage when rendering and gaming). Anymore than 8GB is useless, like others have said, will most likely not be used. And honeslty, 2x2GB Dual DDR3 sticks of RAM should only cost you $40-$50 tops, its worth it.

 

[Pyree]

$996 for that is a super bargin.

Get the RAM and SSd to complete the upgrade.

No point getting top of the line laptop without SSD and 8GB RAM.

 

[nadim615]

Well you dont need an SSD for gaming... All its going to do is the following: Faster computer startup, faster game loading (by literally a couple seconds, not even), faster patching, and faster file transfers. So not really any advantages in-game, and the game loading will be not even a couple seconds faster, not worth it :/ and yea $1k for that was an amazing bargain, you should've told me about it

 

[Pyree]

What you forgot is that in a mobile computing environment, you don't have the leisure to put in a 3.5 inch 7200rpm HDD. It is a special case unlike desktop environment and when you are on the move, you often require repeated power on and off. You want to both boot shut down very quickly for mobility.

 

[cbrunnem]

that i7...
when you get it could you just log onto runescape for me and play it with graphics on full and tell me your fps? if it dosent get 45-50 fps (you cant get higher then 50) thats more evidence to my side of an argument i been having (my desktop has a pentium E6700 3.2 ghz when its not over clocked and in a vaguely empty area i get 50 fps (it drops to about 25 at the grand exchange). (when overclocked (max i feel safe with is 4 ghz) i get 50 fps everywhere (but not the grand exchange when that place is busy O_O) anyway...
i say that my desktops processor can beat any of intels newer processors so long as they are slower per core (aka it can have 3 million cores for all i care but if its slower then 3.2 ghz it wont play runescape as well)

^ that lot could be open for interpretation :/

huh? im pretty sure my 2600k would get 50 fps at a much slower clock then 3.2 ghz. you logic is confusing and the best i can tell is just wrong.

 

[HEXiT]

your not wrong... i bet he's never been in a room with an i7... as he has an intel part his superpi 1m time will be around 13.5 seconds @4.0ghz. a stock 2.66 i7 p920 can do 13.3 seconds. crank it to 4.0 and you can go sub 10... thats a whole 30% faster clock for clock on a single threaded app.

 

[cbrunnem]

your not wrong... i bet he's never been in a room with an i7... as he has an intel part his superpi 1m time will be around 13.5 seconds @4.0ghz. a stock 2.66 i7 p920 can do 13.3 seconds. crank it to 4.0 and you can go sub 10... thats a whole 30% faster clock for clock on a single threaded app.

i7 2600k 4.6ghz 8 seconds