Help me upgrade my PC

[navyseals101]

i have a hp p6823w that my parents got my for christmas. i'm wanting to upgrade the graphics card and power supply so i can play bf3. I have heard that the ati radeon 6870 is a good card, is it good enough? what is cross fire and dual graphics cards, is one of them sufficient with my set up - to play bf3?

what is teh 960t, could it work on my computer, would it be a better deal than the 6870, (oh yeah, it is a processor) are there any nvidia graphics cards to use? or is this the best?

would my pc play bf3 nicely after installing the 6870? whats the best graphics card I could put in thre

 

[simon12]

A 6870 is a good value upgrade for playing BF3 and games in general and a good brand like Antec or Corsair 500W PSU will go well with it. Your board doesnot support crossfire or any dual card setup if it it this PC you have http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=120&prodSeriesId=5080733&prodTypeId=12454&objectID=c02863024
The 960T should work in your PC but you need a graphics card tyo play games not a CPU upgrade. You could get a Nvidia 560 which is around the same performance of the 6870. You can get any graphics card on the market so the best would be a 7970 or even a dual card like the 590 but there is little point in going over a Radeon 6950 or Nvidia 570 unless you want to game on 3 monitors.

 

[blade061188]

Hi navyseals101,

First of all, what is your budget. You will definitely need a new PSU to run any of those cards. The ones HP uses for their desktops are typically crap.

Second of all, what resolution will you be gaming at? One monitor? Your best bet to get the best single card solution you can afford as multi card setups can offer great performance, but are usually behind when it come to driver support etc.

I would look in the 6870 or 6950 range (including GTX 560 and GTX 560 TI)

I can offer better advice once you let me know what your budget is and what resolution you will be using.

 

[navyseals101]

really? cause i think someone recommended a dual 6870 from xfx in another thread of mine. I only want to spend like 200 max on a graphics card, running one monitor, and i just want to be able to like play on medium settings. will the graphics card and new psu, create to much heat for my case?

is nvidia a good brand or should i just stick to the 6870, and if so which one?

 

[Deemo13]

I would highly recommend a Radeon 6870. Here is a cheap good one:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1168603&CatId=7005

Which leaves you with $50 for a PSU. Here is one of the best there is for the price right now, and it will run the 6870 (correct me if i'm wrong)

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=422168&body=MAIN

Nvidia is also a good brand, but ATI has a better price/power point with the 6870 at this point in time and it will allow you to get a good power supply on your budget also.

Like blade061188 said, you do NEED the PSU, HP ones are usually crap (but they can run 5670's).

Which processor do you have? Not that it really matters for BF3, its more of a graphics hardware oriented game.

You seem to have enough memory and everything else looks good. Just when you get the card make sure it runs cool; get an app like MSI Afterburner to check the temperature of the card to make sure it does not overheat in the HP case (they don't have brilliant airflow)

P.S. Those HP mice are the best, I used one for years until my cousin got me a Razer one, they are some of the best mice out there.

 

[navyseals101]

so far my case if fairly cool, and i dont want to fry anything

 

[navyseals101]

is that radeon better than the xfx dual radeon 6870?

 

[navyseals101]

would this be better http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150521&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-RSSDailyDeals-_-na-_-na&AID=10521304&PID=4176827&SID=p1xw47buo122 is this 2 graphics cards or just two fans or what,

would this adequately run bf3? and would this make my pc's case to hot? I'm really worried about the added heat from adding components such as pcu and graphics cards

 

[esrever]

you won't be able to afford a 6870x2 on a $200 budget and even then its not worth it.

get a single 6870 and a good psu.

 

[navyseals101]

its only 189, but okay i'll take your word for it. are the dual 6870's not that good? what type of 6870, do you think i should get and what type of psu?

 

[navyseals101]

would a 6770 be enough for me to play? is a 6870 a must? or just prefered?

 

[esrever]

thats not a 6870x2 thats a 6870 with 2 fans on it.

a 6870 is the best price for performance you get right now.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102948

a 6770 would be cheaper. what cpu do you have and what resolution do you use?

 

[navyseals101]

AMD Phenom II 521 Dual-Core Processor but supposedly it is really something else


This means that the Phenom II X2 521 sports dual processing cores that are clocked at 3.5GHz, 256KB of L1 and 2MB of L2 cache, support for the SSE3 instruction set, and a HyperTransport link which operates at 2GHz.

All these are fitted inside a 65W power envelope and the processor is based on the C3 revision of the Regor (dual-core Propus) core.

The Phenom II X2 521 is compatible with all AM3 motherboards, but it may require a BIOS update to be properly recognized.

The AMD chip was discovered in the specifications list of HP's Pavilion p7z desktop PC by one of CPU-World's readers and HP is also shipping this processor in the HP Pavilion p6823w. Right now, we don't know whether the chip will make it into the retail market or not.

 

[navyseals101]

would it play fine with the 6770? I have it in my mind that i need the 6870 but i just want to be able to play on medium settings, not like ultra or anything.

and about the heat, would that really be an issue, or do i just need to use the utility to prevent it?


i have a big ass lg moniter/tv don't know what resolution, i just want to be able to play the game on mid settings

 

[esrever]

sounds like the 6870 is the better choice but the 6770 will be enough to play on medium.

 

[blade061188]

If you can afford the 6870 I would definitely go for that over the 6770.

This is the cheapest 6770 I could find $102.55 after rebate + shipping

This is the cheapest 6870 I could find $139.99 after rebate + free shipping

This is a benchmark Toms did on GPU performance in BF3

They only had low and high settings, not medium but you can see that the 5770 (same GPU as the 6770) performed significantly below the 6870. $140 is a great price for a good card. If you have a big tv, my guess would be that you are going to be gaming at 1920x1080.

Personally, I think the 6870 is a much better value than the 6770. But it is up to you.

You are going to get a new PSU right?