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[a1an]

Hi guys, I'm itching to increase my personal experience when playing recent games like BF3 and the such.

For the now I have the following components

GTX 480
4gb ddr2 RAM (3.3gb usable)
Quad core processor (q9650)
Asus motherboard that cost around £80 last year
850 Watt PSU
A old 1tb from quite a few years back

I use a 1080p lcd monitor aswell(did consider getting a bigger LED monitor).

I'd just like some advice on what I should upgrade the now, what would make the best difference with personal experience... I can't run BF3 very smoothly with everything at max settings unfortunately( I know getting a bigger monitor doesn't help that)...

 

[Outlander_04]

A nice clean installation of Win 7 premium 64 bit

 

[a1an]

Ah sorry I forgot to tell you I have Windows 7 home premium already... so you think just wiping my computer would do the trick? I was considering maybe a SSD aswell.

 

[Outlander_04]

You dont have home premium 64 bit if you only have 3.3 gig of RAM accessible

 

[jdwii]

Ah sorry I forgot to tell you I have Windows 7 home premium already... so you think just wiping my computer would do the trick? I was considering maybe a SSD aswell.

A nice shinny 2500K with a nice 100$ Intel board. That's really the best thing to do right now. Hell even a I3 2100 will be better then that.

 

[a1an]

No I really do Outlander, I bought a 64 bit copy from SCAN, even when i look at window properties, it says 64bit windows home premium, and it recognises the 4GB but says only 3.3 is usable... And jdwii I don't believe my 3ghz quad processor is holding up the rest of m machine at this moment... but then again I could be wrong.

 

[thesnappyfingers]

the gtx 480 is a great card greater than the gtx 560. I think you are cpu bound, try OC the cpu to see if you get a performance bump.

 

[a1an]

I have a stock CPU cooler just now but I have the haf 932 case. I've never OC'ed in my life... So not exactly keen on OCing it.

 

[jdwii]

No I really do Outlander, I bought a 64 bit copy from SCAN, even when i look at window properties, it says 64bit windows home premium, and it recognises the 4GB but says only 3.3 is usable... And jdwii I don't believe my 3ghz quad processor is holding up the rest of m machine at this moment... but then again I could be wrong.

Its Not your video card either as its on par with a GTX570 and its not your ram and unless BF3 uploads stuff from your hard drive its not that either this concludeds it could be your processor.

What FPS are you getting now and what CPU usage/GPU usage(look at gpu-z when gaming) are you getting during gaming.

 

[a1an]

I thought it may have been my RAM. SSD was really just for map loading times. I'll check out the CPU usage/GPU usage and FPS tomorrow

 

[thesnappyfingers]

when you say bigger monitor do you mean higher resolution?

If your going for 2560X1600, then you will have to go the sli/xfire route with your gpu.

 

[a1an]

Nah I don't have the money for a 2560x1600 monitor. I was generally thinking of doing an sli of 480's anyway though or wait for the 680 or 690... But if the 480 is doing fine for my 1080p monitor and my 1280x1024 monitor on the side(goes black when gaming) then maybe new processor with new mobo is what i need, but then i may aswell wait for ivy bridge?

 

[thesnappyfingers]

If I was in your position I would not upgrade anything, your system is pretty solid as is. With new products on the horizon it just does not make to put money into that system.

I would follow your own advice, wait for Ivy bridge, and the 600 series.

To give you an idea of a graphical hierarchy, here are some benches
http://www.techspot.com/review/458-battlefield-3-performance/page3.html

It appears that you are likely to be more CPU bound.

What kind of FPS are you getting? And how many FPS do you want?

 

[a1an]

I know for sure at certain points my FPS drops below 30 FPS where it becomes unsatisfactory to play and will make frames lag a bit(very frustrating when it happens fighting an opponent), i'd like for my FPS to never fall below 35 frames...

 

[jdwii]

If I was in your position I would not upgrade anything, your system is pretty solid as is. With new products on the horizon it just does not make to put money into that system.

I would follow your own advice, wait for Ivy bridge, and the 600 series.

To give you an idea of a graphical hierarchy, here are some benches
http://www.techspot.com/review/458-battlefield-3-performance/page3.html

It appears that you are likely to be more CPU bound.

What kind of FPS are you getting? And how many FPS do you want?

I agree with this wait until the next gen video cards come out and ivy. It wont be to long maybe 3-6 months. You do need to update your processor though.

 

[thesnappyfingers]

If it was me I would simply sacrifice some eye candy and wait for the new hardware.

Whats more irritating not having the grass look like grass, or getting shot due to drop in fps?

You could also drop the resolution, if you can tolerate it. You would get a performance hike with a cpu upgrade. However, you then would need a new mobo, and new ddr3 ram, so you mine as well wait.

 

[Outlander_04]

No I really do Outlander, I bought a 64 bit copy from SCAN, even when i look at window properties, it says 64bit windows home premium, and it recognises the 4GB but says only 3.3 is usable... And jdwii I don't believe my 3ghz quad processor is holding up the rest of m machine at this moment... but then again I could be wrong.

No really, you probably dont .

3.3 gig is the size limitation you'd expect with a 32 bit operating system . A 64 bit OS will see and use all 4 gig ..and more

 

[a1an]

Hmm is there no way it could be something else? like the board isn't 64 bit compatible or something?

 

[a1an]

Oh and in BF3 my FPS goes down to 26-28 when there is alot going down, which is most of the time