A hello and question..

[PennCoalMinjer]

Good afternoon ladies and gents.

1ST off thank god i found this site.. I know i can learn ALOT more then i know now thats for sure..

2ND You will have to excuse me.. Im just a small town coal miner in sw pa and though i do know a little bit about pc's and gaming..I HAVE A TON TO LEARN..

I have a Hp6653w.. heres a rundown so you know what im working with..
http://stores.nextag.com/store/4788736/product/1044673335/HP-HP-Pavilion-P6653W


Now.. im willing to spend whatever money needed to get this thing moving along.. I understand the Phenom II x4 970 processor is the way to go.. i would like something MUCH faster is possible ( please help here ) can i use a quad core? please explain more here this is where i get lost lol.. ( looking to play Battlefield 3 with 200+ fps ) which would make my counterstrike source in the 500-600fps range.

will need a bigger psu im told and heat sink..from whati gather. the Corsair's A50 and A70 heat sinks are the way to go.. which of these 2 are better?

now for psu and video card.if i have to stay with ati.. im looking for the 3870 or better..willing to spend 350-500 on a good card. Would LOVE NVIDIA'S
GTX580 OR 590.. or something ati makes thats near one of those.. ideas please!!! can i even run Nvidia?

what else am i missing? system requirements says i need a quadcore.. but will the Phenom run it? (BF3 )
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS FOR BF3 )

OS: WINDOWS 7 64-BIT
PROCESSOR: QUAD-CORE CPU
MEMORY: 4 GB
HARD DRIVE: 20 GB
GRAPHICS CARD: DIRECTX 11 COMPATIBLE WITH 1024 MB RAM (NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 OR ATI RADEON 6950)
SOUND CARD: DIRECTX COMPATIBLE

thanks for any info you can help with..look forward to meeting many of you..hopefully you dont mind the 100 questions i ask lol..

thanks again

 

[Raiddinn]

The thing is, AMD is more about value parts with a lower cost and a higher bang for the buck and nvidia/intel are more about higher cost, lower bang for the buck, but higher bang in general.

If you want the absolutely most possible bang with infinite bucks, then an Intel + NVIDIA combo is the way to go.

Your current motherboard is AMD which means you are locked into a "less bang" setup.

AMD processors are plenty good, but I don't know if you will get 500-600 FPS on most any game with an AMD processor. Maybe if the game was invented in the 90s, but even then it is kinda iffy.

In any event, you certainly won't be able to feel any difference in any game that is running higher than, say, 80 FPS even if you have absolutely perfect eyesight trained to notice even the tiniest bit of flickering. 500 FPS will "feel" exactly the same to you as a consistent 80 FPS will.

I don't see any good reason you can't just shove a GTX 590 into the computer and have it work if you have the appropriate associated hardware and you manage the changeover process well.

You will need a PSU that is better than the stock PSU, my favorite brand is XFX because all of their PSUs are made by Seasonic which means they are all the absolute highest quality available.

If you get an XFX Pro 650w Core like me you should be able to easily handle a 590 and the rest of your system without problems.

When you receive the video card, you will need to be sure you completely uninstall the old video card drivers, then restart the computer and when it gets to windows don't login. That would cause it to reinstall the old card drivers. When you are at the login screen select the option to shut down the computer directly without going into windows so the video card stays uninstalled.

Then switch the cards and when you start the computer it should ask you for drivers for the new card.

If you just switch without uninstalling, you run the risk of corrupting your windows install and forcing yourself to reinstall windows. If you have data on your C drive, this could cause you to lose data.

Proper management of the changeover process is critical.

On a side note, any time you are working with computer hardware, you want to touch the metal part of your case early and often to try and reduce your static charge (by shocking the case with a charge small enough you can't feel it when it happens).

The biggest problem you may have is that you can't fit the 590 in your case.

If you are made out of money you can just buy a new case, though, and that would fix that problem.

With a quick basic search I didn't come across a picture of the internal setup of your case, but you should be able to figure this stuff out without too much problem.

I would imagine someone on HPs website has had the question "Will a 590 fit my case?" if you look on their boards. If you have to you can get out a tape measure and measure the physical dimensions of the case and compare it to the physical dimensions of the card.

Anyway, I need to know what your total budget is for this upgrade before I can provide any serious advice in this regard.

 

[Wolfshadw]

First off, Welcome to the forums!

Looking at the specs of your system (found here) it looks like it can definitely be upgraded.

1) CPU - According to the specs sheet I linked, it can accept any 95Watt TDP AM3 processor, so you could use this AMD Phenom II X4 960T, but not the 970 (125watt TDP). Also, this processor comes with a stock heat sink and fan so no need to purchase one separately.

2) You do not need to stick with ATI. You can certainly install any PCI-Ex16 graphics card you like so long (as Raiddinn points out) as it physically fits within your case. Adding a high end graphics card will require replacing the Power Supply. Personally, I recommend going with a power supply from Antec, Seasonic, PC Power and Cooling, or Corsair.

The rest of your system specifications are sufficient (but that 5 GB of RAM installed seems a bit weird to me).

-Wolf sends

 

[mdsiu]

AMD HD 7970 launching in 2 weeks @ $550 and beats GTX 580 in almost every benchmark out there by 15-20%. Other options are GTX 570 or HD 6970. Do some reading and check out benchmarks. GTX 590 is not worth the premium you pay and is out of your price range listed.

 

[mdsiu]

By the way, the link you posted is for an Athlon II X2 which is a dual core CPU.

 

[PennCoalMinjer]

well.. not to be bold.. but i have no cable.. So if this thing is going to be down for a day or so... i would like to do it right so i dont have to do it again for awhile..

Id like some sort of quad core processor... whats the fastest mine will handle.. this pc will be strictly for gaming.. I have another pc for the family to use.

Now..it sounds like amd is the way to go.. BUT! can i put one of the new 4 or 6 core processors in my pc? wouldnt that be alot faster then the ones previously mentioned?

The 7970 sounds great.. I think i will wait a week or 2 to get it..what all will i need? Im figuring a new psu will be involved which is fine..

point me in the right direction please!! thanks for the info!! much appreciated. any other ideas or info would be highly appreciated..

Cheers and Merry X-mas to all of you

 

[Raiddinn]

The new 7970 will probably cost your firstborn child if you get it shortly after it comes out, just FYI.

 

[PennCoalMinjer]

i can deal with the 1st born... if its worth it ill buy it..

I just need the exact set up for what i will need to play bf3..

When you do what i do for a living.. ( and when the kids and wife are asleep ) 1st player gun games such as Counterstrike source and bf3 are great get aways when you cant leave the house... ahahaha

Ive been in esea main for 2 years for source..1 level down from invite or "pro" havent been able to league play that much this year after being stuck on afternoon shift..

As far as the quad core is that possible with the AM3?

what all do i have to get and do..

what im looking for is to build this thing to last awhile.. i dont want to spend 2k.. if i did that id just have 1 built..
however 800+ is fine.. i just need something that will support bf3 very well...

any advice or ideas again is greatly appreciated..

thanks again

 

[Raiddinn]

Games in the past used to have a pretty hard time stressing the CPU and the graphics card was the main deciding factor on performance, but these days there is so much going on that both the CPU and the GPUs are stressed in a lot of games.

Just a few days ago TH released a set of builds for $600, $1200, and $2400. The $600 and the $1200 builds used a FX 6000 series 6 core Bulldozer CPU. That is one of the newest things to come out of AMD and the showing was pretty poor.

The AMD processor had to do a pretty good OC just to equal a regular 2500k non OCd performance from the last build before it. With OCing, the 2500 just blew away the Bulldozer.

If your budget range is about 1k it might be worth it to switch to an i5 2500k backbone to ensure your FPS isn't massively held back by the AMD processors.

I really do hate to say it, but AMD does tend to fall behind when absolute maximum performance is the requirement.

Mind you there are a lot of other AMD processors out there, like a Phenom 2 x4 980 or an x6 1100T, but nothing AMD has will match the 2500k and that isn't even considering that Intel has i7s now.

If you really want to perform excellently in BF3, I think you can do it for about 800 - 1k.

You would keep the same Monitor, 1TB Hard Drive, and CD Drive and replace most of the rest.

Motherboard ~80
RAM ~50
Processor ~220
PSU ~80
Case ~80
Video Card... potentially 1st born

The above is $510 without the video card. A GTX 580 will run you about $520 which would bring the whole build to $1030.

You could wait till the 7970 comes out in a while, but there is no telling if it will come in at under $520 starting. It is set to be the awesomest thing around potentially for quite some time before NVIDIA can get out something that beats it and the best card available usually doesn't come cheap. I could see it reaching into the 700s potentially.

If you did wait and it did reach that high the whole build would reach into the 1200s.

Anyway, I can spec out an example system if you want to gut the system and get the 2500k/580 backbone. That would give you nearly the best BF3 that is currently obtainable.

- Edit - If you didn't want to spring for the new motherboard and new processor for $300 total and you preferred to try to make due with your current motherboard and a better Phenom CPU, you could get the 1090T for $115 with an open box deal on Newegg and it would at least get close in some games although the 2500k would be 50% ahead in others.

Here is a website showing the comparisons

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/146?vs=288

It would be a $200 savings, but I can't tell you if BF3 is one of those games where the 2500k will come out 50% FPS ahead or not because it isn't on the chart there.

 

[Proximon]

Best answer selected by Proximon.

 

[Proximon]

This topic has been closed by Proximon