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l2es-roguesamurai
Joined: May 12, 2007
Posts: 1591
Location: Athlone, Ireland
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Sun Sep 04, 2011 10:43 pm |
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Reddog and Army are both in the process of wanting to upgrade, and Mook is also on the lookout. So thought I'd put up a few links and a bit of info etc for these lads and anyone else thinking of upgrading. What a helpfull fella I am 
1st off, a few good websites for reviews, as their are hundreds and a lot talk sh1te. Diff sites have diff methods too which can be confusing with diff results and opinions. Here's a few good ones. -
http://www.tomshardware.com/
http://www.bit-tech.net/
http://www.xbitlabs.com/
http://www.guru3d.com/
A few good articles that I've found for buying hardware. -
From Toms Hardware, best SSD's for the money.-
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-solid-state-nand-reliability,2998.html
Best gaming cpu's for the money.-
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-gaming-performance,3007.html
Best graphics cards for the money.-
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-performance-radeon-geforce,2997.html
32 midrange graphics cards benchmarked.-
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-radeon-graphics,2977.html
Bit-Tech's hardware buyers guide for Sept.-
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/buyers-guide/2011/09/01/pc-hardware-buyer-s-guide-september-2011/1
I'll post a few more if I come across any.
There is a lot of new bits being released over the next few months. It may or may not be worth holding out for some of it. AMD's 'Zambezi' 'Bulldozer' cpu's are due sept, if they're not delayed again. No one could really say what their performance will be like as their hasn't been any reliable tests done on any yet. On paper they look promissing. Upto 8 'cores' (although they're not strictly complete cores, as each pair of cores shares a front end. It's a bit more complicated than that, I don't understand it fully myself so wont try and explain.).They'll be priced around the same as the current Intel cpu's.
The new batch of Intel i7's are due later this yr. You'll need a socket 2011 motherboard for these. They'll have quad channel memory as apposed to the current i7's tripple channel. Some details were leaked including price, were quite expensive at $699 and $999. But will be really fast.
Intels 'Ivybridge' cpu's are due sometime this yr or early next. These are as per the current Sandybridge, except they will use the 22nm production and the new 'Tri gate' technology developed by Intel. Should give a good performance boost over the current cpu's which are already plenty powerfull enough.
AMD is releasing it's new 7000 series graphics cards sometime this year, and Nvidea releasing their 600 series cards early next year.
Though I'd be helpfull and post this as with BF3 coming their may be a few others thinking of upgrading.....lucky Ba573rds |
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Last edited by l2es-roguesamurai on Fri Sep 09, 2011 12:02 am; edited 1 time in total |
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l2es-roguesamurai
Joined: May 12, 2007
Posts: 1591
Location: Athlone, Ireland
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Wed Sep 07, 2011 8:11 pm |
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Rumoured system specs for BF3.
Minimum System Requirements
Processor: Dual Core
Memory: 2 GB
Hard Drive: 15 GB for Digital Version, 10 GB for Disc Version
Video Memory: 256 MB
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
DirectX: 10
Keyboard and Mouse
DVD Rom Drive
Recommended System Requirements
Processor: Quadcore Processor
Memory: 4 GB
Hard Drive: 15 GB for Digital Version, 10 GB for Disc Version
Video Memory: 512 MB
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
DirectX: 11
Keyboard and Mouse
DVD Rom Drive |
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l2es-roguesamurai
Joined: May 12, 2007
Posts: 1591
Location: Athlone, Ireland
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Thu Sep 08, 2011 11:28 pm |
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Bulld0gUK
Joined: Mar 15, 2010
Posts: 130
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Thu Sep 08, 2011 11:38 pm |
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Ive also heard mentioned that two gtx580's run the game smooth,which im assuming would be running on what Dice are calling their ultra setting.
Sounds like a similar situation from when Crysis was 1st released.
Tesselation has also been rumoured to be in but only on items such as terrain.
Also rumoured are many graphical adjustment settings so the game can be tweaked to your hardware. |
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l2es-roguesamurai
Joined: May 12, 2007
Posts: 1591
Location: Athlone, Ireland
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Thu Sep 08, 2011 11:47 pm |
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I'd say anyone who could run BC2 should be able to run this, but at a few fps less. I have a 4870 and a Q6600, it's not the best and getting a bit long in the tooth, but I'm confident I'll be able to play it with it still looking half decent.
My upgrade will have to wait untill next year after Santa has been and gone, but by then I'll have a good choice, Bulldozer (if it ever gets here), the new i7's (if I can stretch that far), or Ivy bridge (if this too isn't delayed more).
I'm gonna need a whole new system, a new cpu means a new mobo and ram, need a better case, new gpu (or gpu's ) an SSD is a must now imo, and a new psu to top it off, so looking at a grand minimum 
In the mean time I'm gonna squeeze every last bit of juice out of what I've got to get best poss fps at decent settings.
Bet 'Ultra' is gonna look superb for those who can run it. |
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Bulld0gUK
Joined: Mar 15, 2010
Posts: 130
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Thu Sep 08, 2011 11:53 pm |
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| l2es-roguesamurai wrote: |
I'd say anyone who could run BC2 should be able to run this, but at a few fps less. I have a 4870 and a Q6600, it's not the best and getting a bit long in the tooth, but I'm confident I'll be able to play it with it still looking half decent.
My upgrade will have to wait untill next year after Santa has been and gone, but by then I'll have a good choice, Bulldozer (if it ever gets here), the new i7's (if I can stretch that far), or Ivy bridge (if this too isn't delayed more).
I'm gonna need a whole new system, a new cpu means a new mobo and ram, need a better case, new gpu (or gpu's ) an SSD is a must now imo, and a new psu to top it off, so looking at a grand minimum
In the mean time I'm gonna squeeze every last bit of juice out of what I've got to get best poss fps at decent settings.
Bet 'Ultra' is gonna look superb for those who can run it. |
I would of said dual core is long in the tooth,i think your good to go with the q6600...it clocks to 3.6 with relative ease which aint nothing to be sniffed at.
Being a Nvidia fan i cant comment on the red side but im sure it will hold up,so no rush on your upgrade yet.Most games if you turn all the eye candy off youll get decent fps on lower performance rigs.
SSD's rock especially when you raid them  |
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l2es-roguesamurai
Joined: May 12, 2007
Posts: 1591
Location: Athlone, Ireland
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Thu Sep 08, 2011 11:58 pm |
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IMO anyone thinking of upgrading who hasn't already got one (me included) should def be getting an SSD.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-gaming-performance,2991.html
It can make quite a difference, not just to load times, but it is suprising how much the hard drive is accessed during a game. A slow hard drive can cause some of the stuttering you'll sometimes see during a game, because the system is trying to store game info while your playing but thehard drive isn't keeping up.
In a test done in the above article, 23 minutes of Crysis 2 was played, in that time there were 12,885 write operations to the hard drive totalling 1.37GB. Thats a hell of a lot. That was while the game was being played quite stealthily, playing like a lunatic leads to even more reading and writing by the hard drive. This wont be as bad when playing online as there is no game progress as such to be saved, but there will still be quite a lot.
So my advice is def count an SSD into your budget.
Most of you will prob already know a lot of this already, but for those who don't it's something to bear in mind. |
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l2es-roguesamurai
Joined: May 12, 2007
Posts: 1591
Location: Athlone, Ireland
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Fri Sep 09, 2011 12:05 am |
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Bulld0gUK
Joined: Mar 15, 2010
Posts: 130
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Fri Sep 09, 2011 12:18 am |
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Sorry rogue can i just add one key point from personal experience.
Never buy the minimum wattage you can get away with on a psu.....always think of future upgrades.If your rig runs at 600w then buy a 800w. |
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l2es-mrix
Community Founder
Joined: Jun 30, 2005
Posts: 4293
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Fri Sep 09, 2011 5:58 am |
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I have had a SSD for quite some time and they are fast!, I have not tried Raid0 mind as I don't like the increased chances of things messing up and losing data etc .
Cheers
|2es-mrix |
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l2es-roguesamurai
Joined: May 12, 2007
Posts: 1591
Location: Athlone, Ireland
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Fri Sep 09, 2011 10:10 pm |
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| Bulld0gUK wrote: |
Sorry rogue can i just add one key point from personal experience.
Never buy the minimum wattage you can get away with on a psu.....always think of future upgrades.If your rig runs at 600w then buy a 800w. |
Feel free to add anything mate, same for anyone else, you most likely know a lot more than me. Just a bit of an info thread for anyone who's not sure what to get. |
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l2es-MooK
Joined: Jul 01, 2005
Posts: 1066
Location: UK
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Fri Sep 09, 2011 11:20 pm |
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I can vouch for the importance of the power supply. For 6 months or so last year i was getting random shut down when my gcard started to run in games like crysis. Normal use it was fine and i had breathing room but on full load it just wasnt powerful enough.
I ended up getting an amazing 1000w antec power supply for only 80 quid specialy made for the antec 1200 case i use. The thing is huge but totaly silent and amazing wattage for the price cause they dont need to shrink the componenents down to fit. Ofcourse you need an antec 1200 for it but it is one sexy case if you want it to look the business and have tons of room for cards in sli /crossfire. |
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l2es-roguesamurai
Joined: May 12, 2007
Posts: 1591
Location: Athlone, Ireland
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Sat Sep 10, 2011 3:23 pm |
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l2es-captreddog
Joined: Jan 23, 2007
Posts: 335
Location: PLAYING WITH A RIGHT BUNCH OF TANKERS
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Sat Sep 10, 2011 7:31 pm |
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should be that bf3 will run on most standard rigs without too much bother , even if you have to turn off a few bells and whisles
you have to be careful with these multi core claims , intel are famous for bigging up as are amd , and a lot of these cores are virtual cores , intel uses the twin threading technology to create vitual cores , however the new bulldozer 8 core is actually 8 physical cores , there is the odd review around , one of these pre-production processors was leaked to a jap website and is supposed to be awesome , and as with all amd they are not making everyone upgrade motherboards as AM2+ or AM3 will do ,apparently a bios flash for AM2 is all thats needed
I eventually settled for the Asus crosshair V
8 gb gskill 2133 ddr3
using my 6 core 1100t untill arrival of the 8 core
2x radeon 6970
120 gb ssd sata 3 ( dabs have got a deal on for one ocz for 129 quid, gonna use it for windows and my most used games , may even buy 2 and go for raid 0 )
still debating the case and water kit
it should run bf3 ok !!! |
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l2es-roguesamurai
Joined: May 12, 2007
Posts: 1591
Location: Athlone, Ireland
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Sun Sep 11, 2011 12:38 am |
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