Perhaps I was being a tad harsh on the guy with the "2nd hand car salesman" reference, however, he does seem to be uninformed on the needs of a gaming rig...and at the end of the day, it is your money being spent.
The computer you are using now is pretty much the same as one of my previous rigs, except that I had a better video card (I cant remember which one to be honest, it was a while ago now). I was able to run IL2 fine with that and a big you-beaut flash top end video card at the time, however I reckon you'd definitely struggle with COD with that setup.
One thing you can and probably should do is transfer your current sound card over to the new rig...that will save you a little bit of coin. You could also transfer over your CD and DVD drives as well, but to be honest, they are so cheap nowadays that its probably better to just go with a new total system that is pre built. Depending on what video card etc you go with you "may" be able to keep the power source and the case as well but the beefier video cards need a big power supply so you would need to be sure if the current power supply can handle the card (and that it has the correct "plugs" to fit with the card).
To be honest, depending on your budget, you may as well just bite the bullet and get an entire new system if you are not sure how to transfer the components over yourself or are unsure of what components are going to be compatible with the new system. Its pretty hard to advise what to keep and what to change unless you are confident enough to be able to figure out what can be kept and to do a lot of the assembling and transferring over yourself.
I suppose it really comes down to how much you are prepared to spend mate. I admit I am not good at holding on to my money when it comes to upgrading. I am quite lazy so I tend to just bite the bullet and buy most components that are near the top end (but not at the top) of the scale. I do, however, generally splurge on the top end video card. Overall, at least I know I will be able to run all the newer games without much hassle. I just look around a fair bit to compare prices to be aware of how much I should be paying....I am sure you could buy a rig that is not at the top end but will still run the game fine, but to be honest, i am probably not the best person to advise you on that, given I have not really done the research and don't know what will give you the best bang for your buck. There are plenty of sites that review the various components however and you might get some good insights from a quick reading of them. Even if you (and I) don't understand all the technical references, you will still get enough of an idea from the reviews.
Off the top of my head;
http://www.overclockers.com.au/ and
http://www.tomshardware.com/ are decent review sites that I have used in the past and have gotten enough of an understanding of what I was buying to make an informed choice.
For what its worth, my rig is as follows;
Intel Core i7 950
Gigabyte EX58-UD5 m/board
6 Gig RAM
ATI Radeon 5970 Vid card
Win 7 64
That was reasonably beefy just over a year ago when I got it and it runs every game I have fluidly. For example, Shogun 2:Total War is a new release and it still runs flawlessly (@1920x1200 screen resolution) on my rig with all settings set to max.,,so fingers crossed, I should be right for COD.
Why not hold off on upgrading immediately mate? The game is out in less than two weeks (in Australia). I am sure there will be plenty of discussion from people on the various forums as to how COD runs on various setups. Perhaps then you might be more informed as to what system specifications will best suit your budget whilst being able to run the game at settings acceptable to you?
I have pre ordered COD on steam as well, so I will be happy to let you know how it runs on my system once I have had a go.
03-23-2011, 06:28 AM
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