250$ Budget. Possible?

[Leet0nee]

My friend wants to upgrade to be able to play bf3 on med-high settings.


I was going to give him my old ASUS M2V-MX-SE with a Anthlon 64 4800+ and just upgrade his GPU to a 5770 for 130$ leaving him enough for a cheap psu and case. Would that CPU be good enough with the 5770 to run BF3 on medium-high?

Edit- I forgot to add that this cpu used to overheat and shut down so I would have to buy a hyper 212 or something of the sorts. What about overclocking, is that a viable option as well?

other specs-

4gigs of ddr2
win 7 ult
500w psu

 

[Ken g6]

Let's back up a bit. Please answer [thread=80121]these questions[/thread]. For question #5, please list all (useful) parts that are currently available to him free. (From you or from him.)

An Athlon64 is really a pretty old CPU these days. A 5770 is a medium-high GPU, depending on resolution (question #8).

 

[Leet0nee]

You'd think me browsing these forums for about 4 months and occasional posting, I would have known better eh.

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing. - Gaming, videos, maybe streaming I am not sure about that. Some video editing.


2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread- Budget is 250-300$ He offered to give me 250$ to get him some parts but I think with reasoning I can get another 50 out of him. Build with that in mind but don't count on it sort of deal.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
Canada newegg.ca or ncix.com

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.
Not really, all about best performance/dollar here.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
These are the parts I have available to him this very second.
- ASUS M2V-MX-SE Motherboard
- Athlon64 x2 4800 + Dual core
- 4 gigs of Kingston ddr2
Note- He has a keyboard, mouse and monitor which I am not sure what resolution so lets assume 1920x1080
6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
- If overclocking would help game performance I would give it a go.

8. What resolution YOU plan on gaming with. 1920x1080

9. WHEN do you plan to build it? ASAP

10. Don't ask for a build configuration critique or rating if you are thin skinned.

 

[Ken g6]

OK, that's tough. It would help if there were a case, PSU, or especially a SATA HDD available. Without them, this will be pretty minimal:

Take this bundle

Add a DVD burner

And that might give low-medium BF3 performance.

Did I mention this doesn't include Windows?

 

[General Kenobi]

I wouldn't do the upgrade at that budget, it's not really worth it. Talk to your friend and see if you can convince him to save more money.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Canada makes it harder since most of the deals seem to be in the US.

Perhaps a used core 2 combo from FS/FT and wait for a Hot Deal on a 5770 / 6770 / 7770 for ~$100?

A lot of people are upgrading to Sandy Bridge, and there will be more in April with Ivy Bridge. You should be able to find decent used parts cheap in FS/FT

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I wouldn't do the upgrade at that budget, it's not really worth it. Talk to your friend and see if you can convince him to save more money.

This

 

[mfenn]

I wouldn't do the upgrade at that budget, it's not really worth it. Talk to your friend and see if you can convince him to save more money.

Exactly. OP, BF3 is a very CPU and GPU intensive game and you're not going to get any kind of decent performance with an Athlon 64 X2. So you really need a new CPU and GPU, but you aren't going to get BF3-capable ones for $250.