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EA’s Battlefield 3 will soon be upon us, and there is no question that the PC version of the game will be the definitive one. As Kotaku says, playing in a full 64-player game “Blows 128 socks clean off“, something the console versions are just simply not capable of. On top of that, The Frostbite 2 engine is going to look absolutely stunning on a high-end PC, while looking somewhat dated on consoles.

UPDATE: This build focuses mainly on AMD Radeon 6000-series GPUs. Our updated guide, with a focus on NVIDIA GPUs, has just been published.

The bad news is that many folks have discovered that their years-old PC may not be up to the task of playing this game, for a variety of reasons. Perhaps their current operating system is Windows XP, which is not supported by Battlefield 3. Perhaps they have on-board graphics or have neglected their PC (or moved to Mac) and become console gamers. However, the PC gaming tide is coming back in because of Battlefield 3. People who used to be PC gamers are dusting off their mice and keyboards and realizing that the best BF3 experience and community will be on PC. It’s time to get back to the joy of building your own (or upgrading) your PC in anticipation of this hot title.

The minimum requirements aren’t that steep:

2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 or AMD Phenom X3 8750 (both 2.4GHz)

2GB RAM

2GB HD space

SM 3.0 capable GPU w/256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT or ATI (now AMD) X1950 Pro

DirectX 10 or 11 video card

Soundcard with speakers or headphones

Windows Vista or later

The hardware in this list will provide a bare minimum experience, meaning you’ll be able to play it with most of the settings turned to “low” or “off”. Let’s face it—this is really no way to play a game, especially if you’re building a system to target a particular game. So with that in mind, here are some suggestions for system builds at common price points. Some things to keep in mind:

The prices include shipping—I absolutely hate it when a system fits within a listed budget and all costs aren’t included. It’s disingenuous at best.

All shopping was done at Newegg, because over time they are generally the lowest cost for the whole package and also provide good customer service.

Rebates are listed, but not included with the cost since the focus is on “out-the-door” pricing, not what it will eventually cost after rebates.

At $600, you’re getting a decent, no frills system based mostly on modern parts. One benefit to these components is they’re all current generation, so as additional money becomes available, upgrades can be made easily—changing out a single part should not require a change to any other part with the possible exception of the GPU which may require a bigger power supply. The optical drive was skipped for this build mostly because the game is downloadable.

While I’d like to have put an NVIDIA card in as an option, there wasn’t a 500-series GPU that fit in the budget that I’d be comfortable recommending for Battlefield 3.

Prices have come down a bit in recent weeks in anticipation of new parts from AMD. As an alternative to the $600 build, you might also want to consider the Dual-Graphics build from our AMD A8-3850 review (Radeon HD 6670 included). It also fits within the target budget.

What a difference an extra $200 makes. Both AMD and Intel systems are still roughly equal in performance, but that performance is much, much higher than the $600 system.

Future upgrade possibilities have been enhanced as well. The Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 is capable of full x16/x16 Crossfire and SLI, but the Intel system’s second PCI Express x16 slot is limited to x4 speeds. If you are seriously considering an Intel system and a later upgrade to dual GPUs, upgrading the motherboard to the Gigabyte GA-Z68M-D3H (and going $6.90 over budget) would be a good move. You can’t get dual x16 PCI Express slots in this budget range on an Intel system.

Also of note, the GeForce GTX 560 can be purchased for an additional $20-25 over the cost of the Radeon HD 6870. Performance should be fairly similar. While the GeForce GPU would exceed the budget, cuts could be made elsewhere to fit it in without compromising system quality.

At $1000, options really open up, and you’re going to get a system that can play BF3 beautifully. This is just one configuration that’s possible, and it’s the first to squeeze in an SSD for the primary drive. The inclusion of the SSD will vastly improve system boot and application launch times, while the move into enthusiast-class graphics will allow a fair bit of visual improvements within the game.

Neither CPU or motherboard was changed because, quite frankly, there wasn’t much of a benefit gained from swapping either part. The Phenom II X4 975BE is much more expensive than the 100MHz would be worth (and you can bump the multiplier on the 970BE to match), and the i5 2500 wasn’t a compelling speed boost either (200MHz).

The NVIDIA alternative GPUs would be the $319.99 GTX 570. Again, it blows the budget for this system, but less expensive hardware could be substituted to get within the constraints (CPU, SSD, PSU).

Our final system, the $1200 build, gives the absolute best performance for a single-GPU system within the budget. Upping the RAM to 8GB won’t directly affect in-game performance (unless the game ships with 64-bit executables, it’ll only be able to use 4GB), but it’ll provide a cushion for other things running in the background.

Again, the CPU and motherboard remain the same. If you really want to get up to a Phenom II X4 975 or Core i5 2500, skipping out on the DVD drive provides the $20 needed to cover the added cost.

NVIDIA’s equivalent GPU, the GeForce GTX 580 starts at $459.99, a $100 premium over the 6970. Skip it.

Of course, everyone’s budget constraints are different, and not everyone needs to start from scratch. Regardless, any of these systems should be enough to enjoy Battlefield 3 for hours on end. Happy building!