Extreme Budget PC Upgrade

Evd-Burner

Hi All,

I am building myself a completely new system and have decided to give my GF's brother my old PC as he would love to be able to play BF3. Only problem is that my old PC cannot play BF3, mainly due to the processing power it has. I have decided to put no more than 200 euro into the computer before I give it to him.

Needed is a CPU, Mother board, Ram and also a disk drive.

I have the Antec 900 case, and I also have an ASUS 5870.

Would be great for him to give him something to do other than hang around bored on the streets. Any help is much appreciated, thanks...



1. What is your budget? 200 euro

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? gaming (BF3) & browsing

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? no

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? Yes. PSU, CASE, HARD DRIVES, GRAPHICS CARD.

5. Do you need a monitor? no

6. Do you need any of these peripherals. No

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? yes

8. How can you pay? CC, Bank Transfer

9. When are you purchasing? Tuesday

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? No help needed.

tuxy

What cpu does the system currently have?

You can get this for 200

Item|Price
ASRock H61M-DGS, Sockel 1155, mATX|€38.80
8GB G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-12800U CL10|€36.34
Intel Core i3-3220 Box, LGA1155|€105.05
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€199.18

Evd-Burner

At the moment it will be a core 2 duo. From like 7 years ago :P

areyawell

ASRock N68-VS3 FX, Sockel AM3+, mATX 35.81
8GB Corsair ValueSelect PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24 33.59
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Box, 95W, Sockel AM3 86.51
total 155.91

Evd-Burner

What about something like this?

Item|Price
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Box, Sockel AM3, 125W|€81.16
Samsung SH-118AB beige|€13.10
8GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 MHz CL9|€41.45
Thermaltake Contact 16|€14.26
ASUS M5A78L LE, Sockel AM3+, ATX|€49.94
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€218.90

I have gone AMD before but they seem like value for money.

dreamers75

I have BF3 running on a core 2 duo for my son.

Runs perfectly in 1280 60 fps.

E6850
4gb Ram
6870
Asus P5 KPL 1600

Try before you buy etc

Evd-Burner

Also the price of shipping does not need to be counted as it will be shipped with my new build...

Evd-Burner

dreamers75 wrote: »

I have BF3 running on a core 2 duo for my son.

Runs perfectly in 1280 60 fps.

E6850
4gb Ram
6870
Asus P5 KPL 1600

Try before you buy etc

Mine has the e6600. The first model to come out I think, I had it pre-ordered.
I've tried it for BF3 and it just isn't great at all. Not worth playing on

tuxy

I would try bf3 on low setting with the current setup.
I'm not sure if your cpu or gpu is the main bottleneck in that game. Would be best to figure this out for sure first.

areyawell

Evd-Burner wrote: »

Also the price of shipping does not need to be counted as it will be shipped with my new build...

x4 965 is the best option in my opinion. Battlefield 3 utilizes quad core. Very underated processor, especially when you overclock it.

dreamers75

Evd-Burner wrote: »

Mine has the e6600. The first model to come out I think, I had it pre-ordered.
I've tried it for BF3 and it just isn't great at all. Not worth playing on

he had the 4870 until i got a 7970 for crimbo i had it running on the 4870 pretty decently but at 1024.

Should be able to get it running on the system you have without spending anything really.

areyawell

If you want him to try games like far cry 3 and newer games an upgrade is probably needed on the processor to play at decent settings. 5870 isn't a bad card

tuxy

If you were to run bf3 on a really low resolution would that find if you are bottlenecked by cpu or gpu?

If you get good fps on really low res then it's a gpu bottleneck.
If it does not help then it's a cpu bottleneck.

Not sure if it's as clear cut as that. Can anyone confirm?

areyawell

battlefield three on a 5870

loads of videos on youtube with it. Battlefield 3 is not gpu intensive at all

areyawell

areyawell wrote: »

ASRock N68-VS3 FX, Sockel AM3+, mATX 35.81
8GB Corsair ValueSelect PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24 33.59
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Box, 95W, Sockel AM3 86.51
total 155.91

Could even drop the 8GB to 4GB to make it a bit cheaper

Evd-Burner

I will upgrade it for him. I think it is a nice thing to do. I would rather give him something that I feel half proud of :P

areyawell

Evd-Burner wrote: »

I will upgrade it for him. I think it is a nice thing to do. I would rather give him something that I feel half proud of :P

What are you going to go with? your GPU is grand

marco_polo

This should give a rough idea, but pretty much any CPU on this list, down to an Athlon x 2 can do more FPS than the 5870 at 1920x1200 (go back two pages for gpu resulta at that resolution). Bear in mind this is a synthetic benchmark run though so the load would be a bit higher on the CPU in a full multiplayer map. Still given the budget It would be more well powered by either an i3 or a 965 BE.

http://m.techspot.com/review/458-battlefield-3-performance/page7.html

areyawell wrote: »

battlefield three on a 5870

loads of videos on youtube with it. Battlefield 3 is not gpu intensive at all

Is is still pretty GPU intensive, a video of somebody playing with a HD 5870 on high settings doesn't show that it isn't, as it could hardly be described as a poor card by any stretch in all fairness.

Evd-Burner

I think this will be the final shopping list. Although there is only one issue I am wondering about, the motherboard says it supports only 256mb graphics. Am I making a mistake?

Item|Price
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Box, Sockel AM3|€86.51
ASRock N68-VS3 FX, Sockel AM3+, mATX|€35.81
8GB G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-12800U CL10|€36.34
Total|€158.66

areyawell

marco_polo wrote: »

This should give a rough idea, but pretty much any CPU on this list, down to an Athlon x 2 can do more FPS than the 5870 at 1920x1200 (go back two pages for gpu resulta at that resolution). Bear in mind this is a synthetic benchmark run though so the load would be a bit higher on the CPU in a full multiplayer map. Still given the budget It would be more well powered by either an i3 or a 965 BE.

http://m.techspot.com/review/458-battlefield-3-performance/page7.html



Is is still pretty GPU intensive, a video of somebody playing with a HD 5870 on high settings doesn't show that it isn't, as it could hardly be described as a poor card by any stretch in all fairness.

5870 much better than 7750 or 7770 I think?

tuxy

Evd-Burner wrote: »

I think this will be the final shopping list. Although there is only one issue I am wondering about, the motherboard says it supports only 256mb graphics. Am I making a mistake?

Item|Price
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Box, Sockel AM3|€86.51
ASRock N68-VS3 FX, Sockel AM3+, mATX|€35.81
8GB G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-12800U CL10|€36.34
Total|€158.66

That's just the max vram if you were to use the onboard graphics. It's not relevant to you as you will be using a dedicated card.

areyawell

Might spend another 15 on the motherboard.

http://lb.hardwareversand.de/DDR3/46234/ASUS+M5A78L+LE%2C+Sockel+AM3%2B%2C+ATX.article

The x4 965 is a good processor and won't need upadating for a good while

tuxy

areyawell wrote: »

Might spend another 15 on the motherboard. That only supports 8GB of ram, might be better off with a slightly newer model.

http://lb.hardwareversand.de/DDR3/46234/ASUS+M5A78L+LE%2C+Sockel+AM3%2B%2C+ATX.article

Why? Does he need the extra ram compatibility 16 rather than 8
Or maybe the extra pci slots or sata slots?
Why pay for these extras?

marco_polo

areyawell wrote: »

5870 much better than 7750 or 7770 I think?

Definately although not by a much, it was the flagship GPU of the 5XXX generation so it would have alot more shader units, better memory bandwith etc which keep it slightly ahead of the 7770 despite the latters more modern core gpu.

areyawell

tuxy wrote: »

Why? Does he need the extra ram compatibility 16 rather than 8
Or maybe the extra pci slots or sata slots?
Why pay for these extras?

yea probably not,

Gumbi

I can't see a reason to go 8GB RAM on such a low budget build when we're trying to get best bang for buck here.

areyawell

Gumbi wrote: »

I can't see a reason to go 8GB RAM on such a low budget build when we're trying to get best bang for buck here.

yea 4gb would be grand bud for the sake of a tenner

ED E

What mobo is it currently? If it supports quads a Q6600 might be good option, then spend the rest on a GPU bump or small SSD.

Evd-Burner

Thanks all for the help. I think I will stick with the last shopping list I have. It's looking like a good set up for only an extra 158.

@tuxy, thanks for clearing up about the graphics card.