Upgrading a gaming PC

[vacanthead]

Having just acquired BF3, I have been thinking about upgrading my machine. Based on the spec in my sig (the 1st one), would an upgrade to a Radeon 6970 or GeForce 580, for example, provide a significant performance boost, or would I be bottlenecked by my CPU? I could also double up on my RAM for a reasonable price.
Cheers

[roaming_builder]

I was in the same boat as you about 2 months ago. My difference is that I was forced to upgrade when my 8800gt died on me. I am not sure about the radeon 5850, and which nvidia card it would be equivalent to.

I have the same processor, and (i believe) a very similar board to that, but ASUS. I upgraded to a 550ti since I was on a budget and found a really good deal on it. I noticed a significant improvement in my games that I was playing then, and could compare the differences between cards.

That being said, you are looking at a 580. That one is much more powerful than the 550ti, so I am assuming that you would see an even better increase, but I have nothing to base that assumption on other than guesstimation.

I will tell you that BF3 is taxing my system something fierce. It is definitely playable, but both cores are running all out at 100%. I am sure that this accounts for some of the intermittent choppiness that I get. I am not sure if that is related to CPU or GPU, or if a faster GPU would take load off of the CPU, of if the higher settings for the GPU would make it worse on the CPU....

Just my 2 cents.

If I were in your position and had the cash, I would build a new system. But, seeing how I AM in your position, without the cash, I am still using my old system

I have had the privilege of building a few systems in the last 6 months for some people who did have the $$, and it has left me with performance envy .

[roaming_builder]

I may have spoken prematurely?

I looked at the 5850's stats, and unless they are measured differently, it appears to be faster than the 550ti already by looking at the simple numbers?

[pam123]

Time to start thinking about a quad core.
Meanwhile BF3 will run on that system so unless you want a new video card that you'll carry over to a new build I would let well enough alone.

[vacanthead]

Originally Posted by pam123 Time to start thinking about a quad core. Meanwhile BF3 will run on that system so unless you want a new video card that you'll carry over to a new build I would let well enough alone.

That is also a consideration. I will probably go to a quadcore build eventually, so buying a video card suitable for that wouldn't be such a bad idea.

[glc]

You can't directly compare video cards like that by simply looking at the GPU and memory clock speeds. You need to compare benchmarks.

MINIMUM BF3 requirements are:

Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or Athlon X2 2.7 GHz
Vista
2 gb ram
512mb DX10 video card - 3870 or 8800GT

RECOMMENDED requirements:

Quad core
Win 7 64 bit
4 gb ram
1 gb DX11 video card - 6950 or GTX 560

So - both of you exceed minimums considerably but you are below recommended with both the CPU and video card.

[David M]

The bottom line is the more you spend on your graphics card the better Battlefield 3 will run. For this game the threshold where you no longer see improvement is when you get to a dual core card. What is fast enough depends on the user. Spend as much on the graphics card as you feel comfortable with or can afford.

[wade7575]

I would look at an EVGA GTX 570 or a 580 by them.