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[DJ]

I'm thinking about finally upgrading my PC so I can play PlanetSide2 with a decent framerate (it's OK on foot, but totally unplayable in a plane), and hopefully GTA5 when it comes out on PC. My graphics card is decent enough, (EAH 6670 with 1Gb GDDR5), but the other parts are kinda low end. So I was thinking about getting a new mobo, CPU and RAM (old RAM is DDR2, so I won't be reusing it). My budget is 300-400$. The parts here are quite expensive, so I was thinking about ordering online, however that means customs tax will eat up 17% of my budget.

Anyway, I'm looking for advice on how to get the most bang for my buck. AMD looks better on paper in that regard, but I'm a bit wary of overheating issues with them. Specific model suggestions would be the best advice though.

[David Holmes]

EDIT: Also see this thread: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=131687.0 - seems to be recommendations in your price range.

This site was pointed out to me the other day:

http://www.logicalincrements.com/

It combines different parts such that nothing will be too overpowered to suggest builds for any price range.  It includes a bunch of things you're not getting so the total prices will be wrong, but you could just look up your video card and see that it thinks a G1620 CPU, a ASRock B75M-DGS motherboard and 4GB RAM are in the same price/performance category.  Those add up to $141, which sounds like it's not what you were looking for, and probably not good enough to run Planetside 2 well.

Or you could go up to a i3 3220, a ASRock Z77 Extreme3, and 8GB RAM for $299, though they recommend a more powerful graphics card in that range. It wounds like that combo with your graphics card should run the game but not necessarily well, and it's definitely not a high-end system by any definition.

Next up from that it suggests a FX 6300, a GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 and 8GB RAM for $327, which after your tax should put it in the upper half of your budget.  That sounds like the best price/performance combo in your price range.

Note that haven't used any of those parts so I can't personally recommend them; I just thought the site was a useful tool for these sorts of things. Maybe somebody else can comment on the value of those particular parts.

I'm not sure you should assume your motherboard/CPU/RAM are the cause of your framerate problems, though... that site seems to think a 6670 is a bit on the low end too. None of these systems are particularly "good" gaming PCs, they're just what you could get for $300/400+tax.

[DNK]

Your graphic card sucks (it's the problem), so $400 is way overkill, $300 is overkill even. What's the point? Any remotely new piece of hardware is going to be totally bottlenecked for gaming. If you have less than 4GB of RAM, then get the cheapest 4GB you can find and toss it in. 1066Mhz, 12CAS? Whatever, go for it, faster is pointless. Look, you can spend $300 and get 5-10FPS more. Is that worth it? Will that even play GTA5? Barely.

On the other hand, you can save up another $250 to make it $650 and just buy a new mid-range gaming PC (parts and reuse your HDD, etc) with a new GPU also. If the rest of your hardware is on par with that GPU, there's no point in "upgrading". You need a new-new computer, buddy o'pal.


Look, I've got a GTS250 system (about as terrible a card as yours). My CPU died on me a few months back, so I had to get a new MB+CPU combo while I waited for the fall/winter games to come out to upgrade the GPU. So, I have very direct experience with this. I would not have "upgraded" just the CPU/RAM on this rig if I had a choice in the matter. The end result? Yes, it's a bit smoother, but the GPU still caps the system totally. I spent about $225 on a new MB+CPU (PhenomII 925 -> i5 3350K). Did next to nothing for the cost. Now, the 7850 will do something when it slides in next month...

[Sensei]

That GPU is a suitable bare minimum, but you're going to want more. As for new CPU/RAM, that will also mean a new motherboard for DDR3, which basically constitutes a new computer minus your existing hard drive, disc drives, and maybe case. If you're making that kind of upgrade, it's worth $80 or so to get a refurbished 7750 card, or so.