It has been about 3 or 4 years since I have upgraded my computer and I am looking at new parts and I'm lost. The numbers don't mean anything to me anymore. It seems like there are video cards out there with more power then my entire computer. Heck, it seems like there are cell phones out there these days with comparable processing power..


So help me out here. I'm looking to spend between $700 and $1000 on a new rig. Just the tower. I'd like to be able to play Battlefield 3 with no trouble.

 

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http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/diy-gaming-pc,2970.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-a-pc,2969.html

Just to give you some quick ideas.

 

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Regarding the $1000 PC in the link above.

There are some things I'd do differently.

If you are not an overclocker and are sure you won't be overclocking, then save yourself a few dollars and get the regular Core i5-2500 (without the "K".

4GB will be enough, but for about $25 more you could get an 8GB memory kit. I'd just do that.

Don't spend $340 to Crossfire two 6850s. Spend about $300 on a 6970 or GTX 570 instead. Later you can add another card if more power is needed (make sure the board supports SLI if you are getting Nvidia and to add another later).

I'd buy a Z68 board instead of the older P67.

Judging by the minimum req. of the alpha the recommended req. will probably be around Quad Core 3ghz , 4gb Ram , 1gb graphics 460 GTX +..ect. It isnt going to be as outlandish as some believe. The minimum currently is quad core 2ghz and 256 mb graphics and 2gb ram so we can expect some optimizations later on too.

The biggest tip I can give you is wait till the game is released.
You don't know how each vid card will play on it, also AMD will be releasing new vid cards probably sometime around this game.

^ agreed. The longer you wait the more bang for the buck you get.

 

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Thanks again, good tips.


I won't be over clocking so you guessed that right, I'll take your suggestion on the processor. I think I am leaning towards Nvidia, so buying one card with an SLI motherboard makes sense, giving me the option to upgrade later.


I'll wait as long as I can to upgrade but once I start thinking about it I get excited.

 

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If you were going to go with an AMD processor what would you go with?


Is there a reason why you would go with an i5-2500 over the AMD equivalent?

 

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AMD bulldozer AM3+ cpus might be interesting, but they are going to be released in fall sometime. And it is not known how they stackup to intel's current offering processing wise. I have not seen any articles yet anyways.

I would not bother with older AMD cpu's since you can build a game PC within budget using the 2500. Just keep eye out for the new AMD chips in a few months.

 

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There is no current AMD CPU I'd really mess with right now.

September 19th the Bulldozer based processors will be launched. Early leaked benchmarks with recent prototypes show the performance is on par with current Sandy Bridge processors (like the i5-2500). And another leak indicated the top end model will be priced around $300 (so will compete against the i7-2600 in price and hopefully performance).

If you go with the new Bulldozer, make sure you get an AM3+ board with an AMD 970 or 990 chipset. These motherboards are already available (they are compatible with existing AM3 CPUs) and many include SLI support.

Not sure if this will be a better choice than going with a Sandybridge CPU + Z68 motherboard now. We'll find out around September 19th.