BATTLEFIELD 3 - Will My PC Run It??

[hackashack]

Yeah i'm trying to see if my PC is ok so it can run battlefield 3.
I am trying to go for high settings, these are my system specs:

Processor: Intel ® Viiv™ Processor Technology with an Intel ® Core™2 Quad Processor Q6600
• 2.4 GHz, 8MB L2 Cache, 1066MHz Front Side Bus (Stock cooling)

Motherboard: ASUS P5BW-LA (Basswood3G)*** here's a link:http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00916901&lc=en&cc=ca&dlc=en&product=3442913&lang=en

Memory: 4GB DDR2

Operating system: windows 7 ultimate 32-bit

Video card: MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti Twin Frozr II OC 880MHZ 1GB Dual DVI PCI-E Video Card

Power supply: OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W ATX 20/24PIN SLI Ready Modular Cables 135mm Fan 80PLUS Power Supply

Screen Resolution: 1650 x 1080


***I know the q6600 will do well if i overclock it but I'm very worried that i might be bottle necking that motherboard of mine :\
PLEASE HELP =[ Thank you!

 

[bdizzle11]

Even overclocked the q6600 is going to be a little weak. What you should be most worried about is the RAM. ddr2 isnt nearly as fast as ddr3 and it will be a massive bottleneck to a graphics card as good as you have, if possible upgrade you ram, I didnt check if your mobo supports ddr3 but Im assuming not. If you want to run it well then you may have to do a mobo/cpu/ram upgrade. The rest of what you have looks good for bf3

 

[hackashack]

Thanks for the reply !
Yes my mobo only supports DDR2.
Damn, i knew my computer was too crappy... i basically need a new one =[

 

[aftcomet]

No, the q6600 is fine. People overstate requirements too much. It's fine. Try it and see. If you're not satisfied then upgrade. But don't waste good money. I ran BFBC2 on a GTS 450 and i3-2120 with almost everything set to high at 1080p and got around 50 FPS. A 560Ti should slay it.

 

[hackashack]

Yea i really do believe that the q6600 is enough but it's the motherboard i'm worried about. It only supports DDR2 memory and i think using that video card will bottleneck it. The motherboard i listed in my post is from an HP m8125x system which is pretty damn old. I'm still open to suggestions ! Thanks guys

 

[Toxxyc]

The only difference between DDR2 and DDR3 for the pure sake of it is a few MHz. It's not that big of a difference, and that machine will run BF3 with a smile. With a little overclocking you can get your CPU's clock speed up to about 2.8~3.0GHz, and maybe push the RAM frequency to about 1066MHz, and you'll be right as rain to play games to your heart's content. I'm still rocking 3GB DDR2 RAM, a Core 2 Quad Q8400 and a GTX460 1GB, and there is no game I can't play on my 1080p screen. BF3 will be included. Even Crysis 2 runs with a fat smile, full HD with "Gamer" settings (second highest). This is with DX9 though.

 

[FlintIronStagg]

The only difference between DDR2 and DDR3 for the pure sake of it is a few MHz. It's not that big of a difference, and that machine will run BF3 with a smile. With a little overclocking you can get your CPU's clock speed up to about 2.8~3.0GHz, and maybe push the RAM frequency to about 1066MHz, and you'll be right as rain to play games to your heart's content. I'm still rocking 3GB DDR2 RAM, a Core 2 Quad Q8400 and a GTX460 1GB, and there is no game I can't play on my 1080p screen. BF3 will be included. Even Crysis 2 runs with a fat smile, full HD with "Gamer" settings (second highest). This is with DX9 though.

Gamer in dx9 are the lowest settings in crysis 2. There is a significant difference between 800mhz ddr2 and 1600mhz ddr3. You wont be getting the full performance out of your 560ti with the rest of your setup. You should be able to run most games well with some sacrifices, but with a cpu and ram upgrade you could see as much as a 30% performance increase in gaming with higher settings.

 

[Toxxyc]

Gaming with 1600MHz is absolutely useless. CPU FSB runs at 1333MHz max, and no matter how you OC either one (CPU or RAM) you won't see any extreme performance increase in actual gaming or use. People shouldn't be so fast to throw away DDR2 RAM and older CPU/motherboard setups, they are still easily capable to hold a candle in the gaming world. I'm not saying that maxing out BF3/Crysis 2 is going to be an easy feat on the old equipment, but what he has will easily run Crysis 2/BF3 without the need of an upgrade. Also, DX10 isn't nearly as resource intensive as DX11, so he can run BF3 in DX10 mode without needing to panic over an immediate upgrade.

 

[FlintIronStagg]

Gaming with 1600MHz is absolutely useless. CPU FSB runs at 1333MHz max, and no matter how you OC either one (CPU or RAM) you won't see any extreme performance increase in actual gaming or use. People shouldn't be so fast to throw away DDR2 RAM and older CPU/motherboard setups, they are still easily capable to hold a candle in the gaming world. I'm not saying that maxing out BF3/Crysis 2 is going to be an easy feat on the old equipment, but what he has will easily run Crysis 2/BF3 without the need of an upgrade. Also, DX10 isn't nearly as resource intensive as DX11, so he can run BF3 in DX10 mode without needing to panic over an immediate upgrade.

My point is OP can get a huge boost in performance with newer tech, which his current system is a definite bottleneck to his 560ti. Settle for lower settings until you get something better, but definitely be in the market for something better. Overclocking the cpu and ram wont make a difference ? What are you smoking ? The 560ti's performance is strangled by his system and would see marginal gains with a good overclock

 

[HEXiT]

normally i wouldn't disagree with you flint but in this case i feel i must. the q6600 is an old chip but is capable of handling a 560 the 560 is roughly x2 the power of an 8800 gtx and 1 of my m8's runs 2 of em on his setup... his cpu is stock too... and it runs BFBC2 fine.

on gpu intensive games he may see a little degradation in performance but not a huge amount as he will be likely to be running his games in dx11 mode which will crumple all but the very best cards. so shouldn't overly stress the cpu...

if the guy can play bfBC2 without any issues then theres no reason what so ever that he cant play bf3 at similar settings.
as i said my m8 plays BC2 on high dx10 settings and gets 50-70fps on his q66 ddr2 800 setup... but its all a bit mute as there are no requirements out atm and when they do come out its likely that they will be a minimum of a dual core 2.4/88gt

 

[FlintIronStagg]

normally i wouldn't disagree with you flint but in this case i feel i must. the q6600 is an old chip but is capable of handling a 560 the 560 is roughly x2 the power of an 8800 gtx and 1 of my m8's runs 2 of em on his setup... his cpu is stock too... and it runs BFBC2 fine.

on gpu intensive games he may see a little degradation in performance but not a huge amount as he will be likely to be running his games in dx11 mode which will crumple all but the very best cards. so shouldn't overly stress the cpu...

if the guy can play bfBC2 without any issues then theres no reason what so ever that he cant play bf3 at similar settings.
as i said my m8 plays BC2 on high dx10 settings and gets 50-70fps on his q66 ddr2 800 setup... but its all a bit mute as there are no requirements out atm and when they do come out its likely that they will be a minimum of a dual core 2.4/88gt

I am not saying his setup wont work-I am just stressing the performance increase he would get from updating his system. What he has will run it just fine save some settings, but I was moreso encouraging OP to start looking into a better system. My entire point has been voiced many times about bf3:I don't think the alpha was a good example of what to expect in terms of what can play it. When the real requirements hit with a proper demo, we should see what and how it will play. Until it's just a guessing game. So to say it will play at such and such settings on an old system, I have ny doubts and if OP needs time to upgrade, then he has it;,I was mostly recommending an upgrade and listing the performance increases I've seen for myself going from a ddr 2system with a core2

 

[cbrunnem]

normally i wouldn't disagree with you flint but in this case i feel i must. the q6600 is an old chip but is capable of handling a 560 the 560 is roughly x2 the power of an 8800 gtx and 1 of my m8's runs 2 of em on his setup... his cpu is stock too... and it runs BFBC2 fine.

on gpu intensive games he may see a little degradation in performance but not a huge amount as he will be likely to be running his games in dx11 mode which will crumple all but the very best cards. so shouldn't overly stress the cpu...

if the guy can play bfBC2 without any issues then theres no reason what so ever that he cant play bf3 at similar settings.
as i said my m8 plays BC2 on high dx10 settings and gets 50-70fps on his q66 ddr2 800 setup... but its all a bit mute as there are no requirements out atm and when they do come out its likely that they will be a minimum of a dual core 2.4/88gt

will it be that much more gpu intensive then bfbc2 cause to the best of my knowledge they are offloading the physics engine off the gpu and putting it on the cpu??? if that is the case then in the OP's case the cpu will even further hurt his performance.

of course i just think i remember reading that so correct me if i am wrong about that.

 

[BeCoolBro]

We don't even really know what bf3's realistic requirements are.Crysis for example supported the 6800gt,but with that gpu you wouldn't get more than 10fps above medium settings and a >>1280x1024.That is if the rest of the system supported it.The same with bfbc2 and the cpu requirements.Even my old e6300 conroe runs it,but when an explosion happens or something gets destroyed, fps skydive to single digits.

My point is anyway,that there is no point in asking if an upgrade will be needed for bf3 when it hasn't been released yet.The minimum requirements could be unrealistic considering the fact that it will essentially be a pc exclusive.So the best thing to do imo,would be to wait for it to be released and then upgrade accordingly. In case it turns out to have the same requirements as BC2 though,I think the q6600 will be just fine.

Spoiler

For the statement that DX10 is less taxing than DX11,this is completely misleading.DX11 is a more optimised api and as a result,using the same settings and features as the dx10 counterpart,it will always be less taxing.It seems heavier because there's more eyecandy and that's got to be computed too...

 

[Toxxyc]

Overclocking the cpu and ram wont make a difference ? What are you smoking ?

Oh, that part I meant on any new system. Overclocking DDR3 RAM from 1333MHz to 1600MHz gives no realistic, real-life increase in gaming performance and it's not worth it. Benchmarking is where you'll start seeing results from overclocking that little.

 

[FlintIronStagg]

Oh, that part I meant on any new system. Overclocking DDR3 RAM from 1333MHz to 1600MHz gives no realistic, real-life increase in gaming performance and it's not worth it. Benchmarking is where you'll start seeing results from overclocking that little.

But 1600 compared to 800 is the significant difference I was talking about, and you did say cpu or ram so that's why I figured you were smoking. To run bf3, yes the current q6600 will run it until OP wants another upgrade, but a cpu and ram upgrade or OC will see marginal gains. I do run alot of benchies so anything that will make my system run better im up for it. Im even waiting on BD to jump on that bandwagon and get rid of my 925.

 

[professorprofessorson]

But 1600 compared to 800 is the significant difference I was talking about, and you did say cpu or ram so that's why I figured you were smoking. To run bf3, yes the current q6600 will run it until OP wants another upgrade, but a cpu and ram upgrade or OC will see marginal gains. I do run alot of benchies so anything that will make my system run better im up for it. Im even waiting on BD to jump on that bandwagon and get rid of my 925.

Not really. My Crossfire rig is DDR2 based, and the difference in performance has been quite small compared to similar systems using DDR3 1600. In some cases, like with the test platform Guru 3d used for their HD 5770 crossfire review, I beat quite a few of their test scores. And that was when I was just using a Athlon II X4 635. Now my Crossfire system uses a Phenom II X2 550 unlocked to 4 cores, so more likely then not whatever test I was not able to surpasses them at then would be aced or matched now. I have also compared my system in single card function to my friends whose build is similar other then the DDR3 support his uses, and the same situation occurred, in both games and software like Sony Vegas doing 10 min 720P videos, basically we traded blows, but the differences were just really small, not worth mentioning. About the only thing that would be any kind of hindrance for hackashack is his cpu really, and he may get by on that just fine anyway. Kinda hard to gauge performance of a game that is not even out yet.

 

[ifor]

ok, same question about my setup.

motherboard: gigabyte ga-ex38-ds4
cpu: intel core 2 duo e8400
graphics: nvidia 8800gts 512
memory: 4gb ram ddr2
op: windows xp
psu: corsair 650w

I know that i will have to change to windows 7 64bit but after that, I was thinking about changing gpu to a nvidia gtx 460 2gb and uping memory to 8gb, but i am not entirely sure if this will work or not.

I am asking for help please.

 

[Toxxyc]

But 1600 compared to 800 is the significant difference I was talking about, and you did say cpu or ram so that's why I figured you were smoking. To run bf3, yes the current q6600 will run it until OP wants another upgrade, but a cpu and ram upgrade or OC will see marginal gains. I do run alot of benchies so anything that will make my system run better im up for it. Im even waiting on BD to jump on that bandwagon and get rid of my 925.

But even between 800MHz and 1333MHz (using 1333MHz as it's the "native" DDR3 frequency) the difference isn't mind-blowing. I borrowed a friend's motherboard once after I blew the BIOS on mine, one of those boards that support both DDR2 and DDR3, and between switching (purely for testing) between 2GB DDR2 and 2GB DDR3 I was unable to detect significant increases in speed - in Windows, startup, apps, etc. etc. Note I didn't game with the switches. This lead me to believe from first hand experience that the difference between DDR2 and DDR3 isn't that big. Yes, moving from a DDR2-800MHz system to a DDR3-1333MHz system will have it's pro's, but it's not a brain-breaking difference. This is why games haven't started to distinguish between DDR2 and DDR3 systems yet, although most of them recommend the newer 1333MHz FSB CPU's indicating a preference for the DDR3 platforms.

 

[Toxxyc]

ok, same question about my setup.

motherboard: gigabyte ga-ex38-ds4
cpu: intel e8400
graphics: nvidia 8800gts 512
memory: 4gb ram ddr2
op: windows xp
psu: corsair 650w

I know that i will have to change to windows 7 64bit but after that, I was thinking about changing gpu to a nvidia gtx 460 2gb and uping memory to 8gb, but i am not entirely sure if this will work or not.

I am asking for help please.

Don't get the GTX460 2GB but rather a GTX560Ti 1GB, if you can afford it. Also, 8GB RAM isn't going to speed up your system in games, it's not worth going more than 4GB. Specially not on the older DDR2 platform, it's going to cost too much.

 

[nill02]

Hey I have the same question I am pretty sure that I can run the game I am just teetering on getting a new graphics card, I can run everything so far at extreme or very high settings but just wanted some more input maybe.
Specs:

Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T 3.7 MHZ
Memory: 8 Gig DDR3 Ram Gskill Raw
Graphics: 1 NVIDIA gtx-460 1024 (OC'D Core to 800 Shader to 1600)
OS: Win 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
Mobo: Asus M4A89GTD-PRO/USB3
PS: Thermaltake TR2-600W

Aftermarket Thermaltake Frio CPU Cooler

Dual 27 inch Samsung monitors at 1080P

I dont necessarily want to upgrade but I am in a range of 200 if need be?

 

[Mithness]

Heres a suggestion. Wait for the Beta and if you run the Beta then there ya go...

 

[Mister Facepalm]

Here are the official Beta requirements:

Minimum System Requirements
OS: WINDOWS VISTA (SERVICE PACK 2) 32-BIT
PROCESSOR: 2 GHZ DUAL CORE (CORE 2 DUO 2.4 GHZ OR ATHLON X2 2.7 GHZ)
MEMORY: 2 GB
HARD DRIVE: 20 GB
GRAPHICS CARD (AMD): DIRECTX 10.1 COMPATIBLE WITH 512 MB RAM (ATI RADEON 3000, 4000, 5000 OR 6000 SERIES, WITH ATI RADEON 3870 OR HIGHER PERFORMANCE)
GRAPHICS CARD (NVIDIA): DIRECTX 10.0 COMPATIBLE WITH 512 MB RAM (NVIDIA GEFORCE 8, 9, 200, 300, 400 OR 500 SERIES WITH NVIDIA GEFORCE 8800 GT OR HIGHER PERFORMANCE)
SOUND CARD: DIRECTX COMPATIBLE
KEYBOARD AND MOUSE
DVD ROM DRIVE

Recommended System Requirements
OS: WINDOWS 7 64-BIT
PROCESSOR: QUAD-CORE CPU
MEMORY: 4 GB
HARD DRIVE: 20 GB
GRAPHICS CARD: DIRECTX 11 COMPATIBLE WITH 1024 MB RAM (NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 OR ATI RADEON 6950)
SOUND CARD: DIRECTX COMPATIBLE
KEYBOARD AND MOUSE
DVD ROM DRIVE

 

[Toxxyc]

I dont necessarily want to upgrade but I am in a range of 200 if need be?

If you really NEED to upgrade, get another GTX460 and SLI the two. You won't be disappointed, you may actually be able to get BF3 on Extreme then, but unfortunately still not Ultra. That will take a shitload of power, like Mister Facepalm mentioned.

Sigh. Time for an upgrade I see.

EDIT: Oh, and the PSU should carry another GTX460, given you drop the overclocks.

 

[mainakbasu]

Hi guys,
Was wondering if my computer would be able to run BF3.
SPecs are:

AMD Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2GHz under stock cooling
MSi 990FX-GD65 motherboard with Hypertransport 3.0
8GB Corsair XMS3 1600MHz RAM
Sapphire HD 6790 PCIE 1Gb DDR5

What do I need more to run it on max.

 

[cbrunnem]

you will need a better gpu to run at max settings depending on your resolution. also you might need a better cpu or atleast a decent overclock because from speculation that will be resolved shortly is that the cpu takes a lot more load for this addition and the thuban architecture isnt the best.