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Hey everyone, so basically I want to upgrade my graphics card for sc2. I get like 25 - 40 FPS most of the time right now, and I don't want to sacrifice my graphics ingame. Basically what I'm looking for is a pwn graphics card that will get me highest settings and run very good FPS (not this low 25- 40 crap, more like 70 - 80 if possible). My budget is about $400
Here are my current settings:
![[image loading]](http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/383/settingsk.jpg)
Here is my current set up: AMD Phenom II x4 940 Deneb 3.0GHz Socket AM2+ Quad Black edition | 4 GB DDR2 1066 RAM | Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P | Sapphire Radeon 4870 512mb | OCZ 700W StealthXStream | Samsung SH-S223F | Antec 900 Case | Acer 22" Black | Seagate Barracuda 7200 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0GB/s |
and here is some of the key pieces:
Case Power Supply Motherboard Current Video Card
   
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I was under the impression that a 4870 could run SC2 just fine.
That being said, look into the 5850, 5870, and 470.
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5850 or 470 is more then enough even at 1920x1080.
If it's less then that resolution a 5770 can do the trick pretty well.
On July 08 2010 15:50 nineninja9 wrote: I was under the impression that a 4870 could run SC2 just fine.
That being said, look into the 5850, 5870, and 470. he has the 512mb version which suffers if you increase the resolution i'm guessing his 22" is a 1920x1080/1200 so it could be sufferin
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5770/4890/5830 should be plenty if you're running at 1680x1050 otherwise 5850/gtx470
oh post processing. i'm not sure but you'd probably be better off with the 5850/470 in that case.
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oh yeah forgot to mention I won't be overclocking, I have nothing overclocked on this rig.
Also my resolution is 1680 x 1050
sorry that I didn't mention those in OP
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My 5770 runs everything beautifully, except I get small lag spikes when I move my screen while my texture quality is on Ultra. Perfect when it's on high though.
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at 1680x1050 you should be able to get away with a 5770 pretty dam well. 5770 tends to get drops in mid 20's at 1920 but from benches i've seen and done myself 5770 is pretty solid at 1650 if you're looking to save money.
else 5830/465(wouldn't get these poor performance/price)
5850/470 sure fire way to get +60fps
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yeah, the more i think about it the more i think a 5770 should be able to handle it fine actually.
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You should wait until July 12th to see if the Nvidia GTX 460 is worth getting.
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On July 08 2010 16:06 semantics wrote: at 1680x1050 you should be able to get away with a 5770 pretty dam well. 5770 tends to get drops in mid 20's at 1920 but from benches i've seen and done myself 5770 is pretty solid at 1650 if you're looking to save money.
else 5830/465(wouldn't get these poor performance/price)
5850/470 sure fire way to get +60fps
by 5850/470 you mean these? (The post by FragKrag) + Show Spoiler +
that 4th one seems pretty beastly, the EVGA one.
also whats the difference between pci express 2.1 and 2.0 slots? does it change anything or can a 2.1 fit in 2.0 and vice versa?
and maybe a link or two to a recommended 5770?
Also gotta remember if the card will fit in my case or not. My current one barely fits in there
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I'd definitely go with a 5850 just for the value. You can easily overclock it to run past the performance of a 5870.
There's one on ebay and you can find used ones on newegg sometimes.
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On July 08 2010 15:44 Raydog wrote:Hey everyone, so basically I want to upgrade my graphics card for sc2. I get like 25 - 40 FPS most of the time right now, and I don't want to sacrifice my graphics ingame. Basically what I'm looking for is a pwn graphics card that will get me highest settings and run very good FPS (not this low 25- 40 crap, more like 70 - 80 if possible). My budget is about $400 Here are my current settings: ![[image loading]](http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/383/settingsk.jpg) Here is my current set up: AMD Phenom II x4 940 Deneb 3.0GHz Socket AM2+ Quad Black edition | 4 GB DDR2 1066 RAM | Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P | Sapphire Radeon 4870 512mb | OCZ 700W StealthXStream | Samsung SH-S223F | Antec 900 Case | Acer 22" Black | Seagate Barracuda 7200 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0GB/s | and here is some of the key pieces: CasePower SupplyMotherboardCurrent Video Card
so when you upgrade what you plane to do with old card, cuz i get lousy framrates off my 7600GT blehh,
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On July 08 2010 15:50 nineninja9 wrote: I was under the impression that a 4870 could run SC2 just fine.
That being said, look into the 5850, 5870, and 470.
I have a 4870, I run it just fine, I'm only held back by my budget priced 60 dollar 2 year old processor, but I still get around 30-50 FPS on ultra all the way at 1280x720 no AA.
Technically his setting is much better than mine, he just may need to optimize certain things, turn off the AA, save your money, and put it towards a whole new computer later.
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when the ATi 5870 first released in my country I bought it for 350euro, now the same card costs after 1 year 480euro. I mean I would never recommend to a friend right now seeing this is a rip off to buy such a card. 480e for a gfx is way too much, if you can find some better prices through the internet go for it.
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Kyrgyz Republic1462 Posts
ATi 5850 or if you want to save money 5770 (it will run SC2 perfectly on high)
Don't bother with the new nVidia cards (470-480), they are unjustifiably power hungry, noisy, and heat up to 100C.
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He has a 4870... Why people tell him to buy a 5770 ? Even the 1Gb version is barely more performant.
-> 5850 or higher. Buying a 5830/4890/5770 doesn't make sense when you have already a 4870.
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get 5770, 5870 and 5850 are overpriced
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5391 Posts
Anything better than an Nvidia GT 240 512mb will run starcraft 2 smoothly in highest settings. How do I know this? I have one. It runs SC2 flawlessly with no visual lag on the highest settings. You can pull this off in <$100. (mine was ~$45 after rebate).
Unless you have a higher budget because you will be playing other games too, save the money and get one that runs SC2 in best quality for now.
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^ The 4870 512mb is way better than the GT 240 512mb... I guess he has some sort of software/drivers issue. Or maybe you aren't running Sc2 in full HD like him.
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Get the radeon 5850.. The effect difference in 5850 and the 470 is not worth the Price difference, we have equal systems, you got 1 moore processor core then me (i got 3x core)
And i run it problemless at 90 fps with 5850.
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I have a 512 4870 with e8400 and 4GB ram and I am able to run about 40-60fps with everything on max in 1920x1080 resolution.
But, if you still want to upgrade, go minimum 5850.
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On July 08 2010 20:23 Boblion wrote: He has a 4870... Why people tell him to buy a 5770 ? Even the 1Gb version is barely more performant.
-> 5850 or higher. Buying a 5830/4890/5770 doesn't make sense when you have already a 4870. the 5700 series seems to fair better than the 4800 series in sc2 according to that legion bench
for reference i'm running 1680x1050 with a e8400 3.6 and 9600gt. i don't find it playable at ultra at all, performance is acceptable at medium i guess but i prefer low and knowing i wont get any fps loss. i'm also unsure how much post processing stresses the gpu, i think if you turn that off you will see your fps skyrocket because it seems to add a lot of visual fluff.
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The issue is the 5770 is at best a marginal improvement over the 4870, so there's very little point in spending ~$150 for a 5770. You can either pay $150 for at most a 15% increase in performance, or spend $300 for something like an 80% increase in performance, and this is according to that benchmark. Even then, I'm still suspicious why that benchmark is showing such great results for the 5770 compared to the 4870, and I can't figure out why that benchmark was done in dx9 only.
If you read the original post again, you can see that Raydog is getting 25 FPS minimums in busy situations with a 4870 and wants 60 fps in the same situations, getting a 5770 will not give him that, given even the most generous estimations of relative performance between 4870 and 5770.
I'm not trying to say that the 5770 is a bad, but given what Raydog seems to want out of a new graphics card, there is literally no reason to get a 5770. His best choices, as most other people have said, are the 5850/5870 or the 470.
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Yeah i would have recommended a slight oc to 3.6 or 3.8 on his cpu for better performance too, but i just assumed the texture buffer is reduced due to his 4870 being a 512mb vs a 1gig.
there can be other factors dealing with his loss in fps, under a clean boot conditions http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353 i'd recommended uninstalling the drivers and ccc then using driver sweeper clean out all of it, http://www.guru3d.com/category/driversweeper/ then only install the driver. Do not install just dl the driver only version.
ccc is known to cause image quality problems usually, but in other instances a loss of performance.
On my rig running a 5770 1gig and a E8400 at 4.0ghz i get drops in mid 20's at ultra for 1920x1020 but at 1680x1050 i can do ultra pretty well with only minor drops into the lower 50
full 60's fps when i oc my 5770 to core:1050/mem:1400
ofc my 470 with a i7-860 gets full 60+ fps at 1920x1080
A 5850 or a 470 would be more full proof ofc cost twice as much. Also there is also a slight preference of the engine to nvidia cards last time i checked.
I also see real performance gains when overclocking my cpu's and underclocking them, sc2 is very cpu dependent apparently.
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On July 09 2010 05:42 mahnini wrote:Show nested quote +On July 08 2010 20:23 Boblion wrote: He has a 4870... Why people tell him to buy a 5770 ? Even the 1Gb version is barely more performant.
-> 5850 or higher. Buying a 5830/4890/5770 doesn't make sense when you have already a 4870. the 5700 series seems to fair better than the 4800 series in sc2 according to that legion bench for reference i'm running 1680x1050 with a e8400 3.6 and 9600gt. i don't find it playable at ultra at all, performance is acceptable at medium i guess but i prefer low and knowing i wont get any fps loss. i'm also unsure how much post processing stresses the gpu, i think if you turn that off you will see your fps skyrocket because it seems to add a lot of visual fluff. I don't think spending 130$ to get 10 more fps in Sc2 is a good idea especially if you get the same performance or sometimes lower in many other games. The 5850 isn't cheap but at least you will see a real difference.
On July 09 2010 06:34 nineninja9 wrote: Even then, I'm still suspicious why that benchmark is showing such great results for the 5770 compared to the 4870, and I can't figure out why that benchmark was done in dx9 only.
It seems that the 48XX underperform in Sc2. The 5770 even beat the 4890, maybe it is some sort of driver issue. That's quite weird..
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Just as a reference, my GTS 250 512MB @ 785/1200 does 40ish average APM in a normal 1v1 SC game at 1920x1080, and I haven't seen it dip below 30 at Ultra. Most stressful game so far has been a Marine Mass UMS where my GTS 250 was trucking around in the low 30s with around 200 or so marines/lings on screen.
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