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United Kingdom20275 Posts
On April 10 2013 06:47 ScrApeD wrote:
Hi there guys,
i'd like to ask you for helping me. I've decided, that i will build a new desktop PC for SC2.
My first goal is with this new build is to MAX OUT SC2 (WoL, HotS and even LotV in the future), with playable (+60) FPS.
I'd like to build this PC:
i5 3570k 3,4 Ghz
GTX 660 2Gb
4 GB RAM
What are you saying? Can i max out SC2 whit this rig?
Thx,
scraped
Yea, you don't need a GPU that strong just for SC2 though. 8gb RAM might be useful, and minimum+average framerates are very much decided by how far you overclock (and if you overclock) which is down to acceptable power delivery on a z77 board (not the cheapest one), cooling potential (hr-02 macho is a great mid range air cooler, insane price:cooling ratio and low noise) and luck on how well that individual CPU overclocks (some need 1.3v for 4.4ghz, others will do it on 1.1v)
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On April 10 2013 06:51 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +On April 10 2013 06:47 ScrApeD wrote:
Hi there guys,
i'd like to ask you for helping me. I've decided, that i will build a new desktop PC for SC2.
My first goal is with this new build is to MAX OUT SC2 (WoL, HotS and even LotV in the future), with playable (+60) FPS.
I'd like to build this PC:
i5 3570k 3,4 Ghz
GTX 660 2Gb
4 GB RAM
What are you saying? Can i max out SC2 whit this rig?
Thx,
scraped Yea, you don't need a GPU that strong just for SC2 though. 8gb RAM might be useful, and minimum+average framerates are very much decided by how far you overclock (and if you overclock) which is down to acceptable power delivery on a z77 board (not the cheapest one), cooling potential (hr-02 macho is a great mid range air cooler, insane price:cooling ratio and low noise) and luck on how well that individual CPU overclocks (some need 1.3v for 4.4ghz, others will do it on 1.1v)
I dont want to overclock at all, Blizzard does not support that... :-/
The basic i5 3570k cant run the game on maxed setting with high fps??
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United Kingdom20275 Posts
I dont want to overclock at all, Blizzard does not support that... :-/
What do you mean? And 3570(k) is overclocking variant of the CPU, 3570 is non-OC which costs less and turbo boosts 100mhz higher, it's basically the same just not unlocked for overclocking, you just said 3570"k" which is why i assumed OC.
It's tricky to run with high framerates.. SC2 is extremely CPU limited with most of the work on a single thread (core) so basically, with an adequate GPU, the game runs the same in endgame battles on low vs extreme settings, it's just Physics, Effects and Reflections that hurt your FPS.
With all of them maxed, you are looking at perhaps 25fps worst case 1v1 endgame battle minimums (HOTS physics..) and with them down, maybe 35-40, it's just you can improve that by like 50% by overclocking. An ideal system for SC2 would be pretty much 3570k overclocked with a GPU like the 7770
You can still run the game fine and if you don't want to overclock it's ok, but you cant expect >60fps on even modern hardware, even in 1v1, and 2v2/3v3/4v4 are much more intensive if supply counts start to rise past the 400 hard cap of 1v1
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On April 10 2013 07:02 Cyro wrote:What do you mean? And 3570(k) is overclocking variant of the CPU, 3570 is non-OC which costs less and turbo boosts 100mhz higher, it's basically the same just not unlocked for overclocking, you just said 3570"k" which is why i assumed OC. It's tricky to run with high framerates.. SC2 is extremely CPU limited with most of the work on a single thread (core) so basically, with an adequate GPU, the game runs the same in endgame battles on low vs extreme settings, it's just Physics, Effects and Reflections that hurt your FPS. With all of them maxed, you are looking at perhaps 25fps worst case 1v1 endgame battle minimums (HOTS physics..) and with them down, maybe 35-40, it's just you can improve that by like 50% by overclocking. An ideal system for SC2 would be pretty much 3570k overclocked with a GPU like the 7770 You can still run the game fine and if you don't want to overclock it's ok, but you cant expect >60fps on even modern hardware, even in 1v1, and 2v2/3v3/4v4 are much more intensive if supply counts start to rise past the 400 hard cap of 1v1
Sorry, i made a mistake, i wanted to write i5-3570.
I dont want to buy Radeon, i saw so many people saying Blizzard games run better on Nvidia cards... so i left my vote for the GTX 660. You know, it is so strange to see, that i5-3570 with 3,4 Ghz (4 cores) cant max the game... the recommended sys. req is a dual core 2,4 Ghz :-/
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United Kingdom20275 Posts
A core 2 duo at 2.4ghz can run the game fine (and min vs max settings do not matter, that's down to GPU - aside from physics, effects, reflections), you just have like 1/3'rd of the FPS in a battle
In a couple years a heavily overclocked Skylake CPU might be able to keep >60fps minimums in real world 1v1's, but pretty much everything runs sc2 like shit these days =P
It's just a question of how bad it will be in bad situations for performance
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Quick question:
If my mobo only has PCI 2 slots, can a PCI 3 graphics card work on that?
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Yes, it should have little to no impact.
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Thanks to everybody for the advice! Now to just wait for the arrival and find the time to build it...
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PCI 3.0 is practically useless right now, and it will be useless for quite a while longer. The only time PCI-E 3.0 really comes out, is on triple-SLI with the highest end cards, as in triple SLI with 680s or tri-crossfire with 7970s. On top of that, it only matters on odd resolutions, and on shitty games no one plays (dirt 2 and batman basically). And, on top of that, at most, it's less than 8% performance drop (ie less than 10% = not noticeable basically).
Otherwise pci 3.0 is totally backwards compatible, ie you can use pci 3.0 cards in pci 2.0, you can use pci 3.0 boards with 2.0 cards. Even compatible with pci 1.0.
It's more like it should have zero point zero 1 impact to zero impact.
Scraped it seems like you have a lot of misconceptions and need to do some more research before really buying parts. You should avoid bad forums like tomshardware and anandtech, and stick to high quality places like overclock.net, overclockers.com, ocuk... You should especially avoid places like game forums for tech advice (teamliquid being the one exception I've ever seen). It is true that AMD GPUs have buggy drivers compared to nvidia, but that's a temporary problem, it's an issue that doesn't affect everyone, and it's more of an issue on extreme systems.
As for overclocking, due to how blizzard games and most games in general, especially a game as old as sc2, only cares about single threaded performance instead of core count, overclocking is really the only way to get the most. The only CPUs that can really play sc2 perfectly smoothly through everything are intel chips that are heavily overclocked. As in, a modern, 5ghz dualcore intel chip will be much smoother than the $1000 intel i7-3990x hexacore at stock or even with a 4.5ghz overclock, it just has to do with the way the game is coded.
You don't need much to play sc2 smoothly, but when you are talking about perfect performance, like 60fps 100% of the time, even in big battles in team games, I'm not sure any CPU can do that. But I mean an athlon ii x2 will play multiplayer 1v1 just fine, it'll still be smooth enough to micro just fine in big battles, it's just you'll notice the performance get worse, while some i5 overclocked will be super smooth and noticeably better.
You dont need to overclock, an athlon ii, a pentium, will play sc2 well, and a stock i5 will play sc2 very, very fast. But if you want absolute top notch performance, you are going to have to overclock. So when we say sc2 will bring any game to it's knees, it means that all CPUs will fall to 20-40FPS for a split second during some huge battle with vortexes and cloaking and broodlings and creep. You should still be playable through even with weaker CPUs, and it can even be good enough, but if you are asking for absolutely perfect, crisp performance, well, you could either say a higher end CPU is necessary for that, or that no CPU can do that.
Graphics cards these days are marketed specifically to be overclocked, many of them come auto-overclocked. Be aware that all RAM runs at 1333mhz CL9, and when RAM says it's 1600mhz or 1333mhz CL8, that just means it's guaranteed to overclock that far, and YOU have to overclock it to that level. And really when you get down to it, any CPU being sold at X frequency is an 'overclock' to a certain level (just a level the manufacturer feels comfortable guaranteeing it can do, ie 'binning', as chips will all vary in how much they can do, so it's a balance for manufacturers on more speed for a more attractive, expensive product, and less people asking for refunds/returns for chips that can't do the advertised speed, which will always exist).
It's the silicon lottery, our technology simply isn't strong enough to control how argon gases accumulate and silicates rinse after chemical washes to the molecular level yet. My point is that overclocking has come a long way from the shadows of where it whence came, and some products, like graphics cards, are encouraged to be overclocked, with all the major GPU companies saying overclocking is covered by warranty, if not overvoltage (not that they have any way of telling you overclocked, either).
Overclocking can be done quickly, or it can take a lot of time. It's about how much time you want to put into it. If it doesn't sound like fun to you to overclock though, well, it'd simply be a matter of how important more performance was worth to you because the value that can come from overclocking is immense - an extra 1 GHZ overclock, a 40% overclock, can translate to almost a 40% increase in minimum FPS.
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I'm thinking about building a small, home server to act as NAS, maybe a music streaming server, and to seed torrents. I was thinking about using FreeNAS as the OS, although I've never used it before.
Here's the hardware I've spec'ed out so far:
Case: Rosewill RS-MI-01 BK (small, comes with a built-in 250W power supply)
Mobo: ASUS C60M1-I (mini-ITX, passively cooled, with an AMD APU built in)
RAM: 4GB DDR3
Some big hard drives thrown in, a small SSD boot drive, and a cheap NIC that plays nice with FreeNAS since the mobo's onboard doesn't.
How's it sound?
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im not sure what you are asking for. why would you need an apu just to seed torrents. people make servers out of much, much less (use 2 servers!). Do you want something nice? Is the small form factor important? Are you trying to save money?
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On April 10 2013 14:59 Belial88 wrote:
im not sure what you are asking for. why would you need an apu just to seed torrents. people make servers out of much, much less (use 2 servers!). Do you want something nice? Is the small form factor important? Are you trying to save money?
Small form factor would be nice, and doing it on the cheap would be preferable. The parts I listed come in at about $170, minus the hard drives. Do you think I could do it for even less?
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How many drives?
btw those freebie Rosewill power supplies are pretty trashy. AL-8250SFX. It's a Deer I think, very poorly regarded. I think some of the In Win options (with included power supplies) are better.
Regarding the APU, we're talking C-60 here, Bobcat cores (competitive with low-end Atom). You don't really get (much) cheaper or lower power than that. That's fine. But is there a reason to go with that board if you're not using its SATA ports? I guess the APU is heatsinked well and passively, but hard drives and other noise sources would drown out a small CPU fan anyway.
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Successfully installed the new cpu cooler and intake fans! Not as bad as I thought it would be, but not totally sure I plugged everything back in exactly how it was lol. BIOS now reading 28-30C, down from 55-80C and no more shutting down when trying to play a game! Thanks again for the help. 
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On April 10 2013 17:03 screamingpalm wrote:Successfully installed the new cpu cooler and intake fans! Not as bad as I thought it would be, but not totally sure I plugged everything back in exactly how it was lol. BIOS now reading 28-30C, down from 55-80C and no more shutting down when trying to play a game! Thanks again for the help.
Hah good job man - glad to see this end as a success story.
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Hi guys. I have put together the following build for $1000 (I don't need an OS but I do need a monitor so that kind of evened out) I want to be able to play/stream sc2 on about medium graphics or so at >40 fps. Will this be adequate? Also, is my graphics card overkill? Obviously if I could get away with some for less I would prefer to do that.
Here is a link to the build:
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/apryor/saved/1s7a
And here is it copied for those who don't want to click that:
CPU Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core $219.98
CPU Cooler Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing $19.99
Motherboard ASRock B75 PRO3 ATX LGA1155 $79.98
Memory Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 $51.99
Storage Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM $69.98
Video Card MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2GB $278.98
Case Raidmax Smilodon Extreme ATX-612WEB ATX Mid Tower $82.98
Power Supply Corsair 430W ATX12V $44.99
Optical Drive Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer $17.99
Monitor Asus VE198T 19.0" $107.99
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On April 10 2013 23:37 slayj wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Hi guys. I have put together the following build for $1000 (I don't need an OS but I do need a monitor so that kind of evened out) I want to be able to play/stream sc2 on about medium graphics or so at >40 fps. Will this be adequate? Also, is my graphics card overkill? Obviously if I could get away with some for less I would prefer to do that. Here is a link to the build: http://pcpartpicker.com/user/apryor/saved/1s7aAnd here is it copied for those who don't want to click that: CPU Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core $219.98 CPU Cooler Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing $19.99 Motherboard ASRock B75 PRO3 ATX LGA1155 $79.98 Memory Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 $51.99 Storage Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM $69.98 Video Card MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2GB $278.98 Case Raidmax Smilodon Extreme ATX-612WEB ATX Mid Tower $82.98 Power Supply Corsair 430W ATX12V $44.99 Optical Drive Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer $17.99 Monitor Asus VE198T 19.0" $107.99
3570k is for overclocking. B75 can't overclock. If you aren't overclock than get a core i5 3570 and remove the Coolermaster Hyper 212 as it isn't needed. If you are overclocking than you need a Z77 board.
GTX 560 Ti is dated and overpriced at $279 and overkill for medium settings and an ancient resolution. Pretty sure a 19" for $108 is also overpriced? If you want to play medium at such a low resolution, you can get away with a sub $100 graphics card, something like a 6670 for around $70.
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GTX 560 Ti is overkill and also way way way way way overpriced. It's a last-generation price going for higher than it used to before newer and better stuff was released many months ago. fyi it's worse in performance than ~$170 graphics cards while using almost twice the power.
If you want to run ultra or so at resolutions like 1920x1080 (not even to mention 1440x900), HD 7770 around $120 is okay.
B75 doesn't let you overclock the CPU. You need Z75 or Z77.
The case is uh... skipping over aesthetics, it's a dated model, not that convenient, potentially a little cheaper in design and feel than less expensive models.
Corsair CX430 is enough but kind of skimping on a $1000 build.
An ordinary 19" monitor is really cheaping out. Do you have a really strong preference for the smaller size?
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Oh wow that's great. I guess sc2 is not as demanding graphically as some other games then if a 7770 would allow me to run at ultra. And I don't think I plan on overclocking, does it really make a big difference? If not id rather drop down in price on the graphics card, drop the cooler, keep the mobo I have, and upgrade my monitor all while cutting the overall build cost
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United Kingdom20275 Posts
And I don't think I plan on overclocking, does it really make a big difference?
Depends how much you care about min FPS. Returns seem to be greater than linear so as much as 40-60% higher min FPS depending how far you go
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EPT
