After Effect

So there seems to be some chat regarding upgrades around the up and coming BF3 release.

General thread to cover current PC specs, what you plan to upgrade to, advice on decent bits of kit etc.

NOT an ATI vs nVidia shitstorm.

My own feeling is I'll be looking at 2 new graphics cards, a new CPU and potentially some more RAM, but I've been totally out of touch for the past 2 years since I bought the last PC I have no idea what the current state of affairs is...

GPUS
For single card setups nvidia cards are better, namely the 570 and 560ti (the 580s for me are a bit to expencive for the extra performance)
For dual cards setups it seems that amd is ahead for scaling, so for a dual card setup i think the 6950 crossfire is the prefered one at the moment as the scaling is close to 100% and the reference ones unlock to 6970s by a bios flash. the 6950 1gb version is in the same price range as ur 260s are but seeing as ur running on a very high resolution ur gonna need the 2gb of ram the 6950 has to offer. the 570s will bottleneck or so the forums say.
from the drivers perspective their both equal.

that said in 1-3 months supposedly the 7000 series from amd will be released, and their on a 28nm node compared to the 40nm node thats currently out.

CPU
Intel is miles ahead. the i5-2500k and i7-2600k arnt to expencive and can easly be overclocked to 4ghz without touching the voltage and up to 4.5 with small voltage tweaks. Also they absolutely rape, even the currently out i7-990x cant beat the i7-2600k while being about a good 500EUR more expencive.
That said new cpus based on amds bulldozer are comming out i think on 23 of sept., while i dont think it changes anything for gaming, it will change for multitreaded tasks, seeing as they are 8 core cpus based on a completely new architechture, and intel has already stated that they will lower the prices for their i5s and i7s when bulldozer gets released.

Im gonna wait as long as i can an buy a 7950 once its released, unless it has some massive problems.

Yeah have been thinking along the lines of the i7-2600k and then SLI'd 580's (nVidia fan boy) at the moment. And maybe more RAM's too but can't even remember what I've got at the moment to be honest.

Eyeing up a sexy wee 3TB hard drive or 3 as well these are all full >>

Looks like u are currentky using 3 channel RAM. The i7-2600k only supports dual-channel. So I'd get one more 2 GB stick of the same ram if u go that route. If you can overclock the CPU to 3.4 GHz that would probably give the same result as buying all new parts.

Your current motherboard does sport two x16 PCIe 2.0 lanes. So I'd recomment u just get the two cards instead tbh. What power supply do u plan to run 580's in SLi? :p

its the fastest sli out there but its expencive

might be tempted to take that SLI route, if required, but i doubt i'm gunna have too many issues running things for a while yet. got an 850W PSU so that should cover 2 580s in SLI, right?

Got a 1000W PSU. Shit costs a fortune on electricity >>

CASE: NZXT Phantom Full Tower Gaming Case High Performance Cooling with Integrated Fan Controller [+41] (White Color)

CPU: Intel® Core™ i7 2600K Quad Core 3.4GHz 8MB cache LGA1155 + HD Graphics

Overclocking Service: XXX Overclocking (CPU Extreme overclock: guaranteed min. 20%, max. 30%.)

Cooling Fan: Asetek 510LC / Xtremegear Liquid Cooling system w/ 120mm Radiator (For Ultra Slient/High Performance -- SHARKOON Eagle SE Ultra Slient Modular Fans, 500-1200rpm (Custom PC Award Winning !!)

MOTHERBOARD: [CrossFireX/SLI] Asus P8Z68-V Pro Intel Z68 Chipset DDR3 ATX Mainboard w/ BT GO! LucidLogix Virtu and Intel Smart Response Technology & 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, USB3.0, 4x SATA-III RAID, 3 Gen2 PCIe, 2 PCIe X1 & 2 PCI ***Overclockable XXX***

MEMORY: 8GB (2x4GB) PC12800 DDR3/1600mhz Dual Channel Memory [+11] (Kingston HyperX w/Heat Spreader)

Power Supply Upgrade: 875 Watts Power Supplies [+25] (Thermaltake 875 Watts Toughpower XT 875W Modular 80 Plus Power Supply)

Hard Drive: 64 GB Crucial M4 Series SATA III Gaming MLC Solid State Disk (Single Hard Drive)

Data Hard Drive: 1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 7200RPM Hard Drive (Single Hard Drive) (Single Hard Drive)

Thoughts please people, gonna be my new setup for BF3? Buying the GFX card indvidually nearer the time, so recommendations for it would also be welcome, prob going to go SLI/Crossfire down the line also.

Cheers

Looks fine to me.

if ur paying for that overclock then don't, with a k series cpu its easier then taking candy from a child...
for gpus:
Generally sli/crossfire sometimes buggs in games... so its a hassle. I'd get a single gpu.
SLi/crossfire
best performance for money u'd get from an amd 6950 (1gb version) in crossfire.
with exsactly the same price but slightly lower performance u'd get 2x 560ti in sli
and from here on its just down the hill.. The only one worth mentioning is 2x 6950 2gb reference versions in crossfire, and most of them can be unlocked into a 6970 making that the way to go.