Thread: Bulding a new Computer for BF2 and BF 1943

Gents,

Top o' the morning to you. I need some advice here and if this is not the right forum (I looked for a hardware forum here but couldn't find it) please feel free to move this. The net-net here is my computer is getting a bit long in the tooth and having just upgraded my monitor to a 24inch Samung ($269 at New Egg!) I've decided to go the full monty.

Here's the thing though, I've been, "off the grid" when it comes to upgrading my computer for 2 years now and am a bit out of touch with the latest and greatest for BF gaming.

So I think I'm headed in the right direction however I figured I'd check with you all just in case.

I'm looking to get a new PSU, Mobo, CPU, Ram and GPU as I have a full Tower Antec Case that I can pay somebody to put it all in. Furthermore my goal is not to create a "bleeding edge" (ie. no over clocking, water cooling etc) gaming rig but rather one that will perform very well for a good price. (90th percentile)

So here are my thoughts:

CPU: Intel Core Duo 3.3GHZ: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115054

GPU: Honestly I have no idea, should I go SLI, Nvidia, ATI, I'm lost frankly.

PSU: 1200 Watt should do it I think: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817159067

Mobo: Again totally lost here

RAM: No clue

Again any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated and thanks in advance.

Off to play now (taking the day off)

I built a rig for EVE Online back in the middle of Feb. but shortly thereafter I used BF2 to bench it and I now use it play both (and I get the maxfps (100?) in BF2 with everything maxed at 1280x1024):

SIGMA MONSTER SP650C 650W Continuous @ 40°C ATX12V 2.2V / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Modular Active PFC Power ... - Retail
Item #: N82E16817226011

$79.99


Crucial Ballistix 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT25664AA80A - Retail
Item #: N82E16820148212

$56.99


EVGA 123-YW-E175-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI FTW ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Item #: N82E16813188026

$179.99


EVGA 512-P3-N884-AR GeForce 9800 GTX+ Superclocked Edition 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported ... - Retail
Item #: N82E16814130420

$154.99


Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80570E8400 - Retail
Item #: N82E16819115037

$164.99


Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500410AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive - OEM
Item #: N82E16822148377

$64.99

A wanky optical drive shouldn't run you > $50 and I had a free case from work but a case will probalby run you another $50 give or take.

I don't overclock anything, which is why I didn't get a giant PSU (and I only run a single HDD and single dvd drive on this rig).

Pro-tip(s):
If you want to the ability to dual-video card (SLI) on nvidia with a socket 775 cpu, you will need to get a mobo with an nvidia chipset. Furthermore, if you want to do nvidia SLI with your CPU selection you will also need 2 cards from the same family (9xxx or GTX 28x series). In any case, I don't even know if BF2 will take advantage of 2 cards since it does minimalistic Anti-aliasing and doesn't do any HDR at all (compared to say, Crysis, which almost requires 2 graphics cards to play decently). If you go with ATI you are not locked into anything specifically (Intel makes awesome motherboards that support ATI CrossFire); I am somewhat partial to nvidia cards, but that's a subjective issue imo.

Thanks guys this helps alot. I'm looking to spend around $1,200 in total for CPU, MOBO, GPU, PSU and Ram. I think for that amount I should be able to upgrade my computer to a pretty good rig.

I'd also like to run it at 1600 x 1200 as my new 24 inch monitor supports it. So I don't think I'll go SLI but probablly the 2 Gig Nvidia GTX 280 card which is around $450.

Any more suggestions?

Thanks again.

Thanks again guys. I have Windows XP SP3 installed on my computer and am going to stick wit that for now. As that OS limits me to 4 Gigs of RAM I figured I'd stay with that. This is one of those, "Go with what you know things."

So my budget and guestimates:

MOBO: $200
CPU: $200
Ram: $100 (4 Gigs)
GPU: $450
PSU: $150
Install: $200

Total: ~$1,300?

Roadhog, thanks for the AMD links, I use AMD myself and am a fan of their product. I'm only thinking of intel because everywhere I'm reading at the moment (PC Gamer, Maximum PC) their going with Intel for their "dream machines."

So thanks to your links I'm considering AMD now as they have a fantastic bang for the buck. May I ask what PSU you'd recommend? I'm just going to to with one Nvidia GTX 285 2 GIG card so I guess 1000 Watts will do?

Thanks again!

OK How about this?

Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131366
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103674
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145224
GPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130487
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817159067


Comes in right at $1,200 plus $200 install should put me right at $1,400 for a pretty darn good rig. Only question is what CPU cooler would you all recommend as the stock one probablly sucks.

Am I missing anything else or would this be a, "Solid" system? (Again not looking for bleeding edge just something that will do me for 2 years or so)

Thanks again for all your help here!

Alex