Need advice for upgrading my computer to play games like MW3 and BF3

kr4zym3n4c3

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Apr 6, 2012
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My PC specs


Mainboard : Asus CM1730,CM1830
Chipset : AMD 780
Processor : AMD Athlon II X2 220 @ 2800MHz
Physical Memory : 4096MB (2 x 2048 DDR3-SDRAM )
Video Card : ATI Radeon 3000 Graphics
Hard Disk : Seagate ST31000524AS ATA Device (1000GB)
DVD-Rom Drive : ATAPI DVD A DH24ABS
Monitor Type : Acer Acer S202HL - 20 inches
Network Card : Realtek Semiconductor RTL8168/8111 PCIe Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Operating System : Windows 7 Home Premium Home Edition Media Center 6.01.7601 Service Pack 1 (64-bit)
DirectX : Version 11.00
Windows Performance Index : 4.4 on 7.9

I want to know what to buy so I can play MW3 and BF3
 
You need a new graphics card. What's your budget? Also, I'll need to know about your power supply. Take the side of your PC case and take a picture of the sticker of the little box that has many cables going out of it. Upload the picture to www.imageshack.us. Make sure to check the option not to resize the image.
 

derek2006

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May 19, 2006
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That power supply isn't going to be able to power any GPU that will perform respectably in BF3.

The typical current gen ~100$ card draws up to 75W. A ~$100 to ~$150 current gen card is going to draw up to 150 watts. A ~$150 to ~$250 current gen card will draw up to 225W. Anything higher end card can pull much more.


Cards that will draw more than 75W have a dedicated 6 pin connector to draw power directly from the PSU. Your PSU will not have one of these connectors as it is an OEM PSU, for warranty purposes they will not even provide the means to connect enough devices to overpower it. It likely has 2 - 4 pin connectors for CD drives, 2 SATA power connectors, then a 24 pin and a 4 pin square connector plugged into the motherboard.

Furthermore your processor will not play BF3 in any way that will make your experience enjoyable. $200 dollars of upgrades will not get you anywhere.


Now, $200's of upgrades will let you play MW3, actually less than $120.

This is all you need, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131461

I chose that model because it has the highest performance for the power available. Also because you only have 2 PCI slots, this single slot solution will not block your other ports. BUT, because I doubt that PC has adequate ventilation, if you do not need the PCI slot below the PCIe slot, get a dual slot card such as this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102969
 

loops

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I was able to play B3 with a gts 250 and a q9300 intel chip at med. settings DX 10.

There is a bit of a jump from low settings to ultra.

I agree that you would need a new psu and gpu.

MW is not very demanding but BF is...64 player outdoor maps are a real pain in the ass for lower end set ups like the one I had.
 

stevetheutilityman

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Apr 6, 2012
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First of all if your motherboard supports 2 x 4GB DDR3 Dual channel, upgrading to more ram will help a lot in BF3, it's under $40.00, then get ATI 7750 because it draws very low power 55w according to Toms, and only less than $140. And you will not need to upgrade your current PC and go over your budget.
This is for playing on 1600 x 900 resolution.
That should do it. And you can upgrade to a newer systems and take the rams and graphic cards with you to a newer system when you save enough for another pc down the road.


 

derek2006

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The GTS250 is an up to 150 Watt part. Also, you had a quad core Intel chip. Any retail dual core chip such as the OP's will not allow a fun multiplayer experience. Additionally, I have't checked for a while, but I believe that a single core in that Intel chip is around 20% faster than a single core in the the Athlon II for the same clock speed.
 

derek2006

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4GB of ram will not be a limiting factor if he sticks with the dual core Athlon II.

Also, BF3 is a 32 bit application. A 32bit application is limited to 2GB of ram. That's not to say 4GB of ram is more than enough and 8GB of ram will not result in higher performance though -- due to the other apps running in the background and the extra unused ram is being used as a cache. Because of this cache, BF3 can swap to and from its 2GB allotment without accessing the disk drive.
 

loops

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To play at high w/o max AA:

GPU MSI N560GTX-M2D1GD5 GeForce GTX 560 1GB around $169.99
LGA 1155 CPU Intel Core i5-2300 2.8GHz $179.99 or i3 for around $130.00 (2500k if you can but not a must)
Motherboard ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 around $120.00
PSU Cooler Master Elite eXtreme Power Plus RS-500-PCAR-A3-US 500 Watt around $34.99
RAM 4GB (2x2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 for about $40.00 (lots of good picks out there)
HDD Western Digital Caviar Black WD5002AALX 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s around $59.99 or reuse the one you have.
Optical Drive LG DVD Burner Black Model GH24NS70 $18.00 ish or reuse the one you have.
CPU Cooler Stock, Included With CPU $0.00 $0.00
Thermal Compound Stock, Included With CPU $0.00 $0.00
Case COOLER MASTER HAF 912 around $50 bucks or try or try to use you old case

Base build from here: http://www.geforce.com/Optimize/Guides/how-to-build-a-kick-ass-battlefield-3-pc/#2

TBO the gtx 560 will be stressed on the large maps when the *** hits the fan all around you and you may have to mix high and med settings.

The only thing I would change is the PSU. I went with a silence 910 but for a non 2500k non SLI build it is way over kill. Others may have a better pick for you than the one listed.