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United Kingdom20328 Posts
it'll stream 720@45-60fps
During single player max battles during streaming it'll slow down a bit but not so much that you can't micro (ie ~25fps+).
Both of these depend on the standards you use, i would say they are a little exaggerated (720p60/1080p30 standard is very close to edge of my standards on first gen i7 @4ghz with hypertheading off - that's quite a big performance lead over even overclocked phenom II and you might not want to get into overclocking)
But you can do pretty much anything on this build. Everybody always overstates numbers or gets them completely wrong in games like sc2, there's no standardized benchmark (Wait guys, lets make one?) but you can do pretty much anything.
The i5 setup will just do it a LOT better.
The type of system i would recommend if you have the money and want affordable but powerful: 3570k, same board belial said, 4-8gb RAM (personal preference, about ~1600mhz, cas9, 1.5-1.65v if it's not a low voltage kit, but all of this is pretty much irrelevant) with 128gb SSD (again belial hit that pretty well) and a 7770 just to round out the system, it's a lower end but very capable card, it's all you need for GPU to be a complete nonfactor in sc2 performance for 1920x1080 (in parts of the game where it matters, like later on and in battles) and it just doesn't really make sense to spend 400-600 on a really powerful i5 setup without getting at least a decent card: 7770 is cheap and has the price: performance to compete.
Belial's motherboard, cooling recommendation is for overclocking: If you want to do it on a modern i5 system, it's extremely easy and can be talked through: I don't know about phenom II (the other cpu mentioned) though. I know i5 overclocks easier, further, i don't know how much.
On a 3570k, an expected overclock would be, for example: 3.4ghz stock speed - with a couple hours an overnight test and a decent cooler, you can probably take 4.5 or 4.6 (though it's uncertain, depends on how lucky you are with lottery on how much voltage cpu needs)
One of my favourite anandtech.com/bench links: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/102?vs=701
People usually overpay for sc2 performance, spend extra for prebuilts that have low quality parts and massive over-charging on everything, not know what to use etc, you'd be amazed what you can do with a good build.
Husky for example went out and built a 3930k/3960x build, i guess his focus was not on starcraft (or he was reaaaally uninformed to do that) but basically, he spent like, $3000+ on a 3-way SLI gtx680 enthusiast 6-core CPU system, when a $700 build would run sc2 1.5x as fast. This is not a game where having 6 CPU cores - or three GPU's like gtx680 - or even ONE gpu like the 680, will even affect performance where it matters at all, you just need two or three CPU cores, as strong as you can get (more cores don't really add anything) and a light but capable GPU, and you can set any settings you want and run them like a boss.
You could argue very easily that he got the SB-E CPU for encoding reasons but he made it kinda obvious that he doesn't or at least did not have any kind of technical knowledge on that front so there's no justification for it, a tech informed person could probably meet or beat him in every way relating to sc2 and video encoding efficiency with a quarter or less of the budget, just by using the right software, settings and hardware config.
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The i3 isn't going to stream 720 HD. A stock phenom x4 won't either (well 720@30fps), but overclocked, it will shine for it's price (and still do good enough that you can micro smoothly at all times).
i dont like the 7770 at this particular moment because the 7790 is only $40 more but it comes with far cry and blood dragon, which you can sell for, to be conservative, $20, and it's worth the $20 extra. Likely it'll come to the exact same price. And you know how I go on about 460s and 480s are better to buy for mid-range, just the price on the 7790 is low enough.
But if you dont have the money for it, the $72 650 1gb with a $75 game coupon is a really, really good deal - that's basically free. Now I'm not exactly sure if you can ebay that coupon, but if you so much as buy a single game then a $40 650ti is sooo worth it.
No shame in a 650 on an i5 system, i got a 460 on a 5ghz i7, 2200mhz ram system lol. it fits my needs.
And I'm someone who had a phenom x4, an athlon ii x3, an i5, an i7, i streamed sc2 on all of them. I can tell you that the i5/i7 really, really kick ass in streaming, I'm keeping 45-55+ minimum fps while streaming which is pretty insane performance, but the phenom x4 overclocked will do 25+fps which is enough to micro just fine and, while it will slow a bit in big battles, it's still very playable.
The i5 really is a lot more expensive, i mean are you okay spending $700 (600 + 100 for wol/hots) just so you can play sc2? When you put it in those terms, it's a little outrageous to basically pay $700 for a single video game, as awesome as SC2 is. I think $400 for starcraft2 is a little easier to swallow - that's like an expensive console, but you can take comfort that your computer can do other things, it'll retain value very well, it's twice as strong as a console, and can be resold for like 80-100% of what you paid for it in a year or two (depending on what YOU pay, if you catch the right deals).
...but I don't think any amount of BS would make me pay $700 for a single video game lol.
Long story short i flipped my athlon ii into an i7 and made money in the process. but my athlon ii x4 was powerful enough for what i needed to do. Plenty of people report streaming and playing sc2 on medium, high, with APUs and much weaker systems than the proposed phenom build.
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United Kingdom20328 Posts
Yea the 7790 is a great deal, it's not really a big step up in performance, it's just everyone used the 7770 as a low end for a long time. If the bundle on 7790 has any value to you it's probably better to take it. When did that get added?
And i am upgrading from an i7 950 to an i5/i7 4xxxk (4'th gen) on a gtx260 because my focus is on playing sc2, stream, other games i play do not rely on the GPU very much. It's senseless to overpay on something like this when you be using the system for a week, and not realize like oh, my GPU got stolen and replaced with a 260 last saturday, that's literally how it is for me, i would not notice. The numbers in sc2 on max settings are exactly the same (so when my fps is down to 20, 30, 40 it doesn't matter if i had a better GPU or not) and on med shaders, i have >200fps at the start of game, where the 260 is under the most demanding load. By the time FPS is low enough to shatter your immersion (and it is a very real thing, you can play with poor performance but the MOMENT you notice "hang on a sec, my framerate is really bad" you take a massive amount of suffering in play experience - But anyway, the moment that happens, GPU is so long removed from the performance equation (all down to cpu as unit counts increase) that it's funny. If i were to load Crysis 3 on a GPU that i would be lucky to sell for $40, it would obviously be a massive deal but that's just not something i do right now - so a GPU upgrade would quite literally do nothing at all.
Plenty of people report streaming and playing sc2 on medium, high, with APUs and much weaker systems than the proposed phenom build.
That's because a GPU half as powerful as the 7770 will have the same minimums as a titan in sc2, though - graphics settings are so bad at changing your minimums, they just lower FPS at start of game and early towards midgame as the CPU's potential for FPS drops and drops until it eventually falls far enough and starts to pull the FPS of the game with it, once it can handle less than the GPU.
And streaming, well, it's not difficult, running the game is not difficult at all either - decent encoding settings AND MORE IMPORTANTLY decent FPS in-game is.
Again no benchmarking procedure for anything people can say and probably do whatever, it's meaningless what they do it with, only how well they do it - numbers are everything.
Phenom II is great for a budget system, i5 with a newbie, easy overclock will destroy it in every way, by factors of like, 1.6-2.4x depending on overclocks on both cpu's
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On April 25 2013 17:02 Belial88 wrote:
The i3 isn't going to stream 720 HD. A stock phenom x4 won't either (well 720@30fps), but overclocked, it will shine for it's price (and still do good enough that you can micro smoothly at all times).
i dont like the 7770 at this particular moment because the 7790 is only $40 more but it comes with far cry and blood dragon, which you can sell for, to be conservative, $20, and it's worth the $20 extra. Likely it'll come to the exact same price. And you know how I go on about 460s and 480s are better to buy for mid-range, just the price on the 7790 is low enough.
It's a strange reasoning imo, because for 40$ more you have a 7790 yes, but then for 20$ more you have a 7850 ! I didn't searched to see how much more the 7870 was, but a budget is a budget, you can't always say "for 40$ more", because you never stop =)
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What is your budget?
I am trying to spend as least as possible to build the most efficient build possible because I Alrdy have several Macs which I use for other purposes (sound/video editing) and don't want to mess with it for gaming. So I am trying to find a build ($500 or less if possible?) ONLY for gaming/streaming as I would like to stream SC2.
What is your resolution?
I will possibly be getting a new monitor as well. So I am not sure on this yet, any advice ?
What are you using it for?
Like I said before, will be using it strictly for Gaming/streaming. I would like to stream at high quality.
What is your upgrade cycle?
I essentially, want to begin with a cheap build and possibly be upgrading the set up over time to improve it. I don't wanna spend a whole bunch of money now to build a monster PC when I Alrdy have 4 other PCs.
When do you plan on building it?
As soon as I find the right build for me. So I could order it as soon as today.
Do you plan on overclocking?
Not sure on what the best route to go is on this. What do u guys think is more cost efficient ?
Do you need an Operating System?
No I do not.
Do you plan to add a second GPU for SLI or Crossfire?
Again not sure on this, please advise.
Where are you buying your parts from?
Probably new egg or one of the other similar sites.
Thanks for your time and I appreciate any help you guys send this way !!
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United Kingdom20328 Posts
You can't make a new system suitable for high quality streaming with all components at $500-monitor, you could pull something off with older, far weaker than current parts (phenom II x4 as talked about in above posts etc) but you wouldn't have any kind of upgradability unless you replaced two thirds of the system.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/SWXf
That's a template for the kind of build you would probably want (it's silly to get something other than phenom II x4 or i5 for streaming unless you have a ton of money and i5 + overclock is quite literally twice as good in terms of FPS in sc2 and encoding strengh) but it's missing case, optical drive and screen, yet still $8 over budget, after some rebates, and you can't get much cheaper than that.
It has no SSD, it compromises a bit on the CPU cooling (lowering max overclock if you wanted to push), compromises on the GPU (will be fine for sc2 - but REALLY hurt if you want to run games that need a good graphics card) etc
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Anybody have any thoughts on the Corsair 350D? I feel like there aren't any really good MicroATX enclosures out right now that I'm aware of.
(reviews just came out, Anandtech here)
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On April 25 2013 21:56 MrCon wrote:Show nested quote +On April 25 2013 17:02 Belial88 wrote:
The i3 isn't going to stream 720 HD. A stock phenom x4 won't either (well 720@30fps), but overclocked, it will shine for it's price (and still do good enough that you can micro smoothly at all times).
i dont like the 7770 at this particular moment because the 7790 is only $40 more but it comes with far cry and blood dragon, which you can sell for, to be conservative, $20, and it's worth the $20 extra. Likely it'll come to the exact same price. And you know how I go on about 460s and 480s are better to buy for mid-range, just the price on the 7790 is low enough.
It's a strange reasoning imo, because for 40$ more you have a 7790 yes, but then for 20$ more you have a 7850 ! I didn't searched to see how much more the 7870 was, but a budget is a budget, you can't always say "for 40$ more", because you never stop =)
wow they really dropped the price on that 7850. It was $169 + few games a week ago, that's why I didn't mention it. 7870 is a $100 more.
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It's pretty gigantic for a mATX case. It restricts the size of the motherboard you can use, and really doesn't look to be much smaller than most ATX mid cases. That said, I like that the case is pretty open and the build quality looks to be pretty good. If you don't care about using a mATX instead of a full ATX motherboard, and don't have use for 7+ internal drives, it seems good. But, for most people, I don't see the point of getting a somewhat gimped form factor when it's only gonna be less than 10% smaller than most ATX mid cases.
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Good case for a two graphics card custom loop watercooling mATX build? Likewise I don't much see the point for most people.
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That was kind of what I thought... What's the best real mATX or smaller case now? Only thing I've seen that seems good is the bitfenix prodigy, which is mITX. That said, I'm not too informed with the case market 
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And Prodigy is huge for mITX.
Silverstone TJ08-E is 2-3" shorter and less deep, probably better for air cooling, similar price.
It depends what you're looking for. If you don't want to lose any features from a typical ATX tower, you end up with Prodigy for mITX and say 350D or Define (or Arc) Mini for mATX. To get a smaller size, you have to give up support for something or make installation and maintenance more annoying, or possibly make thermals and/or acoustics worse.
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hey,
does anyone of you have a guide that he can recommand about how to build your PC. I will have all my parts tomorrow, but have no clue how to do it. A friend of mine will do it for me but only next week so I´d like to start by myself because in the end, I want to learn it to be able to do it on my own the next time.
Greetings
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I purchased/ordered everything except the CPU, GPU and MoBo yesterday. Thanks for the input everyone.
I've decided to go with the 7770 instead of the 7750 as its only $15 more. Is there any difference between the GIgabyte and Sapphire models? I'm leaning toward the Sapphire as it's cheaper.
I'm leaning towards the Gigabyte GA-H77-DS3H motherboard and i3-3220 CPU to round out my system.
Also concerning my monitor: I'm currently using the blue connector (D-Sub?), but I've read DVI provides better quality so I'll switch. I don't currently have any DVI cables.
I noticed there's a lot of variation between the DVI sockets and don't know if I'll need any other compatibility connectors to make it work. My monitor has a DVI-D socket (3 rows of 8 and a dash). The Sapphire 7770 (from what I can make out in pictures) appear to have a DVI-I socket (has a total of 4 extra holes above and below the dash).
Are DVI-D and DVI-I compatible? What DVI cable should I buy? or does one come with the Sapphire7770? and, if any, what compatibility connectors would I need?
Thanks
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On April 26 2013 05:45 Bentus wrote:
hey,
does anyone of you have a guide that he can recommand about how to build your PC. I will have all my parts tomorrow, but have no clue how to do it. A friend of mine will do it for me but only next week so I´d like to start by myself because in the end, I want to learn it to be able to do it on my own the next time.
Greetings
There's lots of guides, just youtube and pick one or watch them all.
+ Show Spoiler [here are some] +
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On April 26 2013 05:49 syzygy wrote:
I purchased/ordered everything except the CPU, GPU and MoBo yesterday. Thanks for the input everyone.
I've decided to go with the 7770 instead of the 7750 as its only $15 more. Is there any difference between the GIgabyte and Sapphire models? I'm leaning toward the Sapphire as it's cheaper.
I'm leaning towards the Gigabyte GA-H77-DS3H motherboard and i3-3220 CPU to round out my system.
Also concerning my monitor: I'm currently using the blue connector (D-Sub?), but I've read DVI provides better quality so I'll switch. I don't currently have any DVI cables.
I noticed there's a lot of variation between the DVI sockets and don't know if I'll need any other compatibility connectors to make it work. My monitor has a DVI-D socket (3 rows of 8 and a dash). The Sapphire 7770 (from what I can make out in pictures) appear to have a DVI-I socket (has a total of 4 extra holes above and below the dash).
Are DVI-D and DVI-I compatible? What DVI cable should I buy? or does one come with the Sapphire7770? and, if any, what compatibility connectors would I need?
Thanks
DVI-D is digital, DVI-I combines both analog (DVI-A) and digital (DVI-D) so yes DVI-D is compatible with DVI-I. The graphics card does not include any cables, some manufacturers / models provide adapters such as DVI to VGA (D-Sub) or HDMI to DVI or DP to DVI etc.
From what I remembered, you said your monitor is 1366x768 or somewhere around there. I'd forget about the cable and just buy a new monitor. The U2312HM is on sale right now for $190.
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@syzygy: DVI-I means you can connect all possible variants of DVI to the graphics card. You only have to worry about your monitor's connector when buying the cable. DVI-D is the digital variant of DVI, the one you've read about that's better than what you are using now, guaranteed to not have blurry edges or whatever else bad quality there can be with an analog signal.
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Thanks guys - my monitor is this. Its a 1600x900, but I never used it fully as its very ugly on my old PC. I think I'll be okay with that for a few more years.
As for the cable, would this be suitable - dvi cable
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There's a cable at amazon.ca for $7 with $3 shipping.
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On April 26 2013 05:43 Myrmidon wrote:
And Prodigy is huge for mITX.
Silverstone TJ08-E is 2-3" shorter and less deep, probably better for air cooling, similar price.
It depends what you're looking for. If you don't want to lose any features from a typical ATX tower, you end up with Prodigy for mITX and say 350D or Define (or Arc) Mini for mATX. To get a smaller size, you have to give up support for something or make installation and maintenance more annoying, or possibly make thermals and/or acoustics worse.
Yeah something the size of the prodigy would be fine. I think that's what I'm going to end up going with. I'll probably get that or the Silverstone TJ08... how quiet/difficult to assemble is it, if anybody knows?
If I got the prodigy, would a modular rosewill capstone fit in it? Or would I need something like this? (A silverstone strider which I think is the best quality thing I could find that was smaller?)
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EPT
