Im going to guess the computer is rather old which makes it quite hard to get upgrades for it. Seeing as it most likely can't use the newer components upgrading it might get quite expensive as many of the parts it likely uses have gone out of production.
Getting 2gb of ram should improve general performance greatly. How a upgrade of your graphics card would affect minecraft is hard to say. But in general upgrading the graphics card of such an old computer is not reccomanded unless you'r able to find a old affordable card for sale.
It depends on how you play.
For PC BF3 is the best, for consoles it's MW3
If you play single player it's MW3, if you play multilayer it depends on how you play.
If you like to manage on your own it's MW3, if you like to cooperate with friends it's BF3
All in all I'd say BF3 is the best game as it's the best of its style. Where as MW3 have less players then CS (on PC alone that is)
The Zalman VF3000N is a good cooler, but it dumps the hot air inside the cabinet (as most non radial coolers do) and end up taking 3 pci slots due to its size. Ofcourse, if you have lots of case fans the added heat won't be a problem, and if you don't need those pci slots won't it be a problem that they are covered. Another problem with it is that it can't automatically adjust the RPM, meaning you'll have to manually switch between low, medium and high. Medium is about the same noise as an idle stock cooler and high is about the same noise as a stressed stock cooler. Meaning you'll have to to either switch manually often or decide once and for all if you want silence or low temperatures.
In general I'll have to agree with the previous poster that water cooling is the best solution even though it costs a little more. You get a far more silent system holding far lower temperatures. In addition you avoid all the drawbacks of the non radial air-coolers such as dumping hot air inside and taking up expansion ports. (make sure the ram and such parts on the graphics card are cooled too if you go with a water cooling)
Would actually say BF:BC2 even though most people seem to dislike it and/or prefer BF3.
BF:BC2 just felt a lot less serious then BF3 and more about fun.
Really miss tracer guns and the more strategic helicopter flying and all that.
Got to agree with Christoi here. Your best bet would be buying old used parts for a slight upgrade. Attempting to upgrade any part to newer parts would cause a domino effect of compatibility issues.
For example, a new graphic cards would mean you'd need a new motherboard and possibly a new PSU (if the card requires external power, if not the new motherboard might require a new PSU anyway). The new motherboard would require new CPU, new RAM, most likely new harddrives. And suddenly you've changed just about every component anyway and could just have bought a new computer instead.
The cards cooling is programed to attempt holding about 80 degrees to give a good cooling/noise ratio so it's no problem at all. Just make sure it doesn't get over 90 degrees as mentioned by _j03_ and you're golden.
What PSU do you have? It's probably not the problem, but just for ruling it out.
As for the lack of performance you could download 3Dmark11 or similar benchmark program to check if your computer is under performing i guess.
You also said you have overclocked your CPU, did you raise the vcore, and if so, how much? And how long have you been having the overclock?
Does the black screens ever happen outside of BF3/MW3/MW2?
To answer your question, most likely will both have cards that are better then the rivaling cards at certain price ranges, that's how it's always been.
There is usualy a big difference in time used on gaming and what kind of games they play. Also, kids are the ones that is most noticable usualy. It's like with girl gamers, many believe there are very few girl gamers, while it actualy is a LOT of them. They just aren't as noticable as all the 14 year old boys that make game commentaries on youtube.
I would like to point out that the "Palestinians" attacked with the support of Egypt and numerous NATO members from the middle east(I forgot the list, you can Google it if you want).
As far as i can find are NATO members only from North America and Europe. There are partnership programs that include countries outside North America and Europe, but they don't count as members of NATO.
I'm pretty sure it's not a overheating problem i'm at 40-55 C. All the time.
That sounds suspeciously low for a 6970, it should hit 80 or so on load if it's the stock cooler, and even with custom cooler 55 is still incredibly low. Do the fan on your 6970 ramp up at all when you start games?
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Getting 2gb of ram should improve general performance greatly. How a upgrade of your graphics card would affect minecraft is hard to say. But in general upgrading the graphics card of such an old computer is not reccomanded unless you'r able to find a old affordable card for sale.
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For PC BF3 is the best, for consoles it's MW3
If you play single player it's MW3, if you play multilayer it depends on how you play.
If you like to manage on your own it's MW3, if you like to cooperate with friends it's BF3
All in all I'd say BF3 is the best game as it's the best of its style. Where as MW3 have less players then CS (on PC alone that is)
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In general I'll have to agree with the previous poster that water cooling is the best solution even though it costs a little more. You get a far more silent system holding far lower temperatures. In addition you avoid all the drawbacks of the non radial air-coolers such as dumping hot air inside and taking up expansion ports. (make sure the ram and such parts on the graphics card are cooled too if you go with a water cooling)
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BF:BC2 just felt a lot less serious then BF3 and more about fun.
Really miss tracer guns and the more strategic helicopter flying and all that.
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For example, a new graphic cards would mean you'd need a new motherboard and possibly a new PSU (if the card requires external power, if not the new motherboard might require a new PSU anyway). The new motherboard would require new CPU, new RAM, most likely new harddrives. And suddenly you've changed just about every component anyway and could just have bought a new computer instead.
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What PSU do you have? It's probably not the problem, but just for ruling it out.
As for the lack of performance you could download 3Dmark11 or similar benchmark program to check if your computer is under performing i guess.
You also said you have overclocked your CPU, did you raise the vcore, and if so, how much? And how long have you been having the overclock?
Does the black screens ever happen outside of BF3/MW3/MW2?
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Be careful with the vcore
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Now give me proper sequels to Black&White, Beyond Good & Evil and Theme Hospital / Dungeon Keeper dammit!
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To answer your question, most likely will both have cards that are better then the rivaling cards at certain price ranges, that's how it's always been.
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That's not true, CoD4 was so good that they released it 3 more times! :biggrin.gif:
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Another personal favourite would be Suikoden.
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As far as i can find are NATO members only from North America and Europe. There are partnership programs that include countries outside North America and Europe, but they don't count as members of NATO.
"USA and its allies" is basicly NATO and a few more countries...
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That sounds suspeciously low for a 6970, it should hit 80 or so on load if it's the stock cooler, and even with custom cooler 55 is still incredibly low. Do the fan on your 6970 ramp up at all when you start games?