Old article but I wanted to comment -

I have a C2D - E8400. I'm running dual Radeon HD4850's in crossfire. I have 8GB of RAM.

I didn't get a big performance increase in this game specifically after crossfiring two 4850's (I used to only run one). I'm still in the 30s during most action.

I asked over at Hardforum and the consensus there is "Your CPU is limiting you." Some people there even specifically said that they went from a dual-core to a quad-core processor and it made a huge difference.

So, I can't tell for sure until I upgrade myself, but I'm looking for a Q6600 to replace my CPU. It appears that despite the benchmarks, quad core DOES make a difference for this game.

BFBC2 is multi-threaded. You would likely see an increase in performance even if the quad was at stock ( dropping from 3G to 2.4GHz). Add an overclock to the Q6600 and you will see a definite improvement in framerate.
Unless the Q6600 is at giveaway prices, I'd be more inclined to look for a Q9450/9550/9650 quad ( basically two E8xxx CPU's in the same package)- they'll provide a more useful performance boost across most applications, run cooler, and overclock better. Just make sure your board is capable of running the CPU.

Current system:

Core 2 Duo E8500 (3.16Mhz)
ATi HD 5830
4GB RAM

I currently play BFBC2 pretty ok most of the time, with some slowdown now and again. I looking to upgrade EITHER my cpu to i5 2500k (OC 4Ghz) OR graphics card (GTX 570).

Does anyone know which would give me the most benefit?

To answer the question above:

I'd upgrade to a Core i5 2500k with a good board for overclocking and the ability to Crossfire, and 8+ GB of RAM. You can upgrade the video card, but Battlefield is extremely CPU limited, and I think the money spent on an i5 will help you with everything (including things outside of games), and then you can buy another 5830 when they get cheap and crossfire them together, netting you nearly double the video performance on the cheap.


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I am the Guest who was considering a Q6600 3 posts up.

First off: this game is DEFINITELY more CPU (both cycle and thread) limited than this article lets on. I was given a Q6600 @ 2.4GHz, and put it where my E8400 used to be.

Just at stock speeds, I had a performance increase. But what was really telling is that I removed one of my video cards (was X-firing two HD 4850s), overclocked the Q6600 to 3.3GHz, and performance was BETTER with 1 card + 3.3GHz versus 2 cards + 2.4GHz.

With 2 cards and the Q6600 @ 3.3GHz, I'm now running 1680x1050 with high quality settings around 50FPS. Because adding the second card only gave me a 10FPS boost, I'm guessing that I'm STILL CPU limited.

What this tells me is that having a fast CPU may be even more important than a fast video card in this game. An E8400 is NOT enough to get past the point of diminishing returns, despite what the article says.

Hi, thanks for the response (above).

I kinda came to the same conclusion. On my current rig, I get the same performance on BFBC2 no matter what gfx setting or resolution I'm running. I can even run it on 3 monitors with only a slight reduction in fps. This led me to believe that I'm CPU limited.

Luckily my birthday is just 2 weeks before BF3 comes out.. This makes it way easier to justify spending money on my PC to my girlfriend!

;o)