Hey gork oracles, Looking to get back into gaming - for BF3 mainly so upgrades will be geared towards best performance in that game. Unfortunately having recently bought my first house, cash is tight so upgrades will have to be done in phases. Abit out of the loop so looking for advice really, and where better than BFB!? Currently running i5-750 with a ATI 5850 (Vintage I know!) so these are the main priority. I have 16gb 1600MHz DD3 and with RAM prices high at the moment I'll be keeping these for now. I have a Samsung 840 SSD and Windows 8.1 on the way (as I donated 1 HDD and Win7 key to the rents build). Monitor is 1080p. I've OC'd the CPU in the past with good results, so would ideally like to keep that as long as I can, although the MB doesn't support SATA III so won't see the full speed increase from the SSD just yet Was looking at i5-4670k - any ATX MB that jumps out for this chipset? Graphics wise unsure - was shooting around the GTX 760 2GB mark? Again open to suggestions (and ATI if better). As I say abit vague I'm afraid but looking to run BF3 at higher settings online (at 1080p), and doubt it will even be playable on current setup! Thanks!
first things first we hope its BF4 and not 3 that you gearing too whats your power supply and what memory frequency and make you got? the CPU and GFX card you have picked are fine so just choosing what you want from your motherboard , i am assuming you gonna OC the new cpu as well. also how much you considering spending cpu and mb will set you back 200-250 depending on motherboard and a GTX 760 is around £200
Ugh yeah BF4 of course, on graveyard shift this week - brains scrambled with numbers Cheers Ratty Not got the PC here but off the top of my head PSU is a modular Corsair 750w, RAM is Corsair 1600 XMS3 (2x8gb) I believe. Hopefully both will keep me ticking over. I'll be looking to OC the new CPU too yeah. Are there any hyped releases coming up hardware wise that I should wait for, or are things fairly stable at the moment?
fairly stable at moment and memory and psu good for any setup you might do cant be much help on motherboards as i am not really current on them
I'd go for an AMD FX 8320, especially if your going to overclock. BF4 performance is almost identical between it and the i5 4670K and the AMD is ~£50 cheaper so although it takes more juice you'll upgrade before it becomes an issue. Ironically the Intel chip runs hotter. Getting a decent mobo will be cheaper on the AMD side too with comparable spec'd boards starting £30 cheaper on the AMD side, the better spec you get the more you save. £80+ in your pocket or towards a better GFX card. Are there any other things you will regularly be using the build for? On the multi-threaded side they are equal but single threaded performance is less on the AMD chip but this only effects older games and programs, so is the only consideration when recommending the AMD chip. On the things to wait for side - AMD there is Steamroller coming soon so get that or pick up a 8320/8350 for a reduced price. Don't expect anything spectacular 5-30% performance increase in various tests/benchmarks - Intel are moving to 14nm process Broadwell which they are going to make available for 1150 sockets. This reduction in process while previously being good, has now got to a point where they are so small, its super difficult to get consistently right, and usually comes with an equal amount of disadvantages to advantages. These seem to be designed for really low power. We will see. On the GFX side BF4 runs much better on AMD cards so R9 270/280/290 depending on your budget - these run hot so one with a decent third party cooler is a must.
