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(Starcraft II) Taking readings during battles; 50 supply; 20 fps 100 supply; ~15 fps 200 supply; ~5 fps 400 supply; (impossible to record) in 2v2 games where there are no battles but high supply counts, I get ~5 fps just idling.
With the poor performance, battles become a coin toss (I usually can't even stop my units if they are moving), but the computer has specs WAY above recommended settings and shouldn't have any such issue! The only place I don't get this issue is in engagements of like 15 units or so.
System specs/info (Gateway)
Motherboard: Model RS780 CPU: AMD Phenom X4 9500 64-bit Quad-Core Processor (2.20GHz, 2MB L3 Cache, 3600MHz HT3.0 Bus) GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+ (512 mb) RAM: 8192MB 800MHz Dual-Channel DDR2 SDRAM (8GB) HDD: 750GB 7200rpm Serial ATA II/300 hard drive (650 gb free) PSU: 400W OS: Windows 7 (64 bit)
Internet Speed (speedtest and pingtest)
Ping: 55~70 Download: 15 mb/s Upload: 2.7 mb/s
To reduce the problem, I have...
SCII + Show Spoiler +turned all graphics to lowest quality settings turned all sound/other starcraft II components to lowest quality settings switched to a lower screen resolution (1280x720) limited framerates to min: 30 and max: 60 re-installed
Computer + Show Spoiler +stopped all unnecessary processes, services, startup programs, anything you could possibly think of there are no viruses present; I reformatted very recently (1 month ago) and have avast running defragmented everything switched SCII to my C drive made my windows theme as basic as possible allocated tons more virtual memory bunch of other crap that doesn't come to mind right now
~I have basically done all I can to optimize windows 7 in every way shape and form, the computer should be running as fast as possible! Help me out here guys. I am starting to wonder whether or not it's a hardware problem, like if my PSU is falling behind my graphics card as I actually upgraded my graphics card without upgrading the PSU. I have been considering overclocking to get better performance, but that shouldn't be necessary, my CPU should be damn fine and good enough to run SCII way better than its current capabilities.
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Download Furmark and MSI Afterburner.
Furmark is a stress test application for your GPU. Running it will help determine what your temperatures are like under full load. It should not exceed 85C or there may be some throttling issues due to heat.
MSI Afterburner is a overclocking / monitoring application. Use this to monitor what your core clock of your GPU goes up to when under load. An idle GPU lowers its clock speed to save power and sometimes it doesn't increase it back up during load. So you want to make sure it is running at the right speeds during load(~740).
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Have you installed the latest video drivers? Also, have you toyed with the graphic settings? I understand that your computer *should* be able to run it on high, but sometimes certain video cards have issues with certain settings. (My sister can't play the sims 3 on medium, but she can play it on high or low).
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While the videocard in that setup is pretty old, you should still be getting a lot better FPS with everything on low. The first things to check would be ensuring that you have the latest videocard drivers and then checking the temperatures of both the CPU and videocard. If either one is overheating, it is quite likely that thermal throttling kicks in to reduce heat output and prevent hardware damage and this will cause a very big performance hit.
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Thanks to all for your replies and help; I ran the furmark test (+downloaded the MSI thing, is useful) and it appears my temperatures are maxing out at 105C within ~20 mins and remain consistent after that. Is that the excessive temperature you guys are talking about? If so, do you have any advice as to how I can effectively counteract this?
Also, I'm downloading latest drivers - I'm fairly certain I'm up to date, but their installation will let me know for sure I guess.
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Yes, 105C is too hot unfortunately. Your graphics card is throttling itself so it won't overheat itself.
If your graphics card is getting this toasty, you may want to check your CPU temps as well just in case by downloading RealTemp (monitoring software) and Prime95 (stress testing software). Your CPU temps should not exceed 70C on load.
If you haven't cleaned your computer in a while than I suggest you get some compressed air and clean it of all the dust to see if that helps improves temperatures.
Being that its a gateway system, I don't think there's much you can do to improve airflow except for leaving the side panel off.
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Your GPU is too hot (and liable to kill itself) but what's limiting your frame rates at your current settings is actually the CPU. The first-generation Phenoms had a TLB bug which Windows 7 works around at the cost of a massive performance drop. As a result they're hopeless for SC2.
Ideally you'd upgrade the CPU, as they're not great for SC2 even when uncrippled, but it's not easy to work out what's compatible with OEM motherboards. You could try disabling the TLB fix by following these instructions: http://www.rebelshavenforum.com/sis-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000111
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It's definitely the CPU and possibly overheating issues.
Starcraft 2 is very sensitive to CPU frequency (speed) and 2.20 ghz is not enough. The fact that it's quad core doesn't matter since SC2 only uses 2 cores.
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On January 23 2011 01:08 skyR wrote: Yes, 105C is too hot unfortunately. Your graphics card is throttling itself so it won't overheat itself.
If your graphics card is getting this toasty, you may want to check your CPU temps as well just in case by downloading RealTemp (monitoring software) and Prime95 (stress testing software). Your CPU temps should not exceed 70C on load.
If you haven't cleaned your computer in a while than I suggest you get some compressed air and clean it of all the dust to see if that helps improves temperatures.
Being that its a gateway system, I don't think there's much you can do to improve airflow except for leaving the side panel off. Thanks for those programs and the info. I did some stress tests on my CPU which maintains a temp of 62C so it seems healthy. I'm installing a water cooling system for my GPU so that should extend its lifetime and not make it a complete failure. I'll also be cleaning out the dust accumulation I found...
On January 23 2011 04:26 jaj22 wrote:Your GPU is too hot (and liable to kill itself) but what's limiting your frame rates at your current settings is actually the CPU. The first-generation Phenoms had a TLB bug which Windows 7 works around at the cost of a massive performance drop. As a result they're hopeless for SC2. Ideally you'd upgrade the CPU, as they're not great for SC2 even when uncrippled, but it's not easy to work out what's compatible with OEM motherboards. You could try disabling the TLB fix by following these instructions: http://www.rebelshavenforum.com/sis-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=13;t=000111 That's extremely relevant information, thanks for pointing that out. I'll try that fix, and if that doesn't work and the cooled GPU doesn't cure the problem enough, I will indeed have to upgrade to something else. Are there any processors that you know of that work well with SC2 without some obscure problem?
On January 23 2011 06:28 Sadistx wrote: It's definitely the CPU and possibly overheating issues.
Starcraft 2 is very sensitive to CPU frequency (speed) and 2.20 ghz is not enough. The fact that it's quad core doesn't matter since SC2 only uses 2 cores.
Hm, I suppose if I can keep my temps and stability at reasonable levels I could try overclocking it. I'll see how that goes. I didn't know SC2 doesn't utilize my processor's full capability.
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lol ... your psu!! cant use a 400w psu for a gtx 9800 512..with that setup ... need a min 550/600.. buy a new psu(power supply unit)
ps i used to have the same problem
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i got same problem since the last patch, my drivers are all upt to date and my pc is pretty good
lfor example on medium/high im like 60fps+ and around 25-40 during fights, but now since the patch im getting around 10 or less so im forced to use medium
i also have riva tuna to force fan speed to stop it from overheating so thats not an issue
iit must be from the patch
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On January 23 2011 06:41 veng3nce wrote: lol ... your psu!! cant use a 400w psu for a gtx 9800 512..with that setup ... need a min 550/600.. buy a new psu(power supply unit)
If there was a problem it would manifest itself as instability, not a performance issue. 400W is fine for what he's doing.
But it is your CPU's fault. If you can overclock it within reason, to say 2.5 or 2.6 ghz, you'll notice quite a large, linear increase in performance.
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On January 23 2011 07:16 Amui wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2011 06:41 veng3nce wrote: lol ... your psu!! cant use a 400w psu for a gtx 9800 512..with that setup ... need a min 550/600.. buy a new psu(power supply unit)
If there was a problem it would manifest itself as instability, not a performance issue. 400W is fine for what he's doing. But it is your CPU's fault. If you can overclock it within reason, to say 2.5 or 2.6 ghz, you'll notice quite a large, linear increase in performance. Yeah, PSU issues can cause serious problems, but not gaming performance degradation. But whether or not it's good for the system depends on the quality of the 400W PSU--this is an entirely separate issue than the system performance the OP is addressing though.
The issue is that it's a Gateway system. I don't think the CPU is going to be able to be overclocked because of motherboard restrictions.
Supposedly that motherboard supports AM2+ CPUs, but it's hard to tell which. This seems to suggest that at least some people have had success using a Phenom II on the motherboard, but with some issues. If you're just worried about SC2 performance, a Phenom II X2 would be fine. It'd be kind of weird upgrading from a quad core to a dual core, but whatever. With the first-gen Phenom TLB/Win7 issues and low clock speed, you'd be getting a lot better performance from a Phenom II or even Athlon II.
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Dominican Republic913 Posts
that PSU 400w is killing u bro, other thing to take into account why will u invest in a Watercooling whe u should better sell that card + the money u will waste in Watercooling = a better video card
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Again, the PSU is not his problem. While 400W is a bit on the low side of things, if it was the cause of his issues, he'd be seeing lockups and random reboots, which is how "not enough juice" manifests itself. The OP is experiencing nothing of the sort.
However I do have to question the idea of applying a watercooler to an old videocard like 9800GTX. chances are, you could get a newer, faster, cooler videocard for the price of your GPU watercooling kit alone.
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On January 23 2011 07:40 Myrmidon wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2011 07:16 Amui wrote:On January 23 2011 06:41 veng3nce wrote: lol ... your psu!! cant use a 400w psu for a gtx 9800 512..with that setup ... need a min 550/600.. buy a new psu(power supply unit)
If there was a problem it would manifest itself as instability, not a performance issue. 400W is fine for what he's doing. But it is your CPU's fault. If you can overclock it within reason, to say 2.5 or 2.6 ghz, you'll notice quite a large, linear increase in performance. Yeah, PSU issues can cause serious problems, but not gaming performance degradation. But whether or not it's good for the system depends on the quality of the 400W PSU--this is an entirely separate issue than the system performance the OP is addressing though. The issue is that it's a Gateway system. I don't think the CPU is going to be able to be overclocked because of motherboard restrictions. Supposedly that motherboard supports AM2+ CPUs, but it's hard to tell which. This seems to suggest that at least some people have had success using a Phenom II on the motherboard, but with some issues. If you're just worried about SC2 performance, a Phenom II X2 would be fine. It'd be kind of weird upgrading from a quad core to a dual core, but whatever. With the first-gen Phenom TLB/Win7 issues and low clock speed, you'd be getting a lot better performance from a Phenom II or even Athlon II. Yeah this sounds like some good advice. But if you do have a ~$700 budget its possible to build a computer that does high quality with ease. Just thinking that your current computer is getting a bit old. but if you can't afford it then definitely just go for an upgraded cpu.
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Dominican Republic913 Posts
On January 23 2011 08:02 Jago wrote: Again, the PSU is not his problem. While 400W is a bit on the low side of things, if it was the cause of his issues, he'd be seeing lockups and random reboots, which is how "not enough juice" manifests itself. The OP is experiencing nothing of the sort.
However I do have to question the idea of applying a watercooler to an old videocard like 9800GTX. chances are, you could get a newer, faster, cooler videocard for the price of your GPU watercooling kit alone.
man the 400w psu is the issue, those old video card are Dragons asking for food in Alaska the 9800GTX consume to much energy from that 400watts its not enough Nvidia said u need at least 500watts
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You should not keep anything but your hdd from that setup, none of the parts is good enough for sc2 really.
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On January 23 2011 08:26 2GRe-Play- wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2011 08:02 Jago wrote: Again, the PSU is not his problem. While 400W is a bit on the low side of things, if it was the cause of his issues, he'd be seeing lockups and random reboots, which is how "not enough juice" manifests itself. The OP is experiencing nothing of the sort.
However I do have to question the idea of applying a watercooler to an old videocard like 9800GTX. chances are, you could get a newer, faster, cooler videocard for the price of your GPU watercooling kit alone. man the 400w psu is the issue, those old video card are Dragons asking for food in Alaska the 9800GTX consume to much energy from that 400watts its not enough Nvidia said u need at least 500watts
A quality 400w PSU would be enough. Under load, his CPU might draw about 30W more than the one in their test setup, but it still doesn't bring him close to using 400W.
And, again, the problems he's describing are not of the sort that a PSU inadequacy would cause.
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At some point you might just want to invest in a new computer. As some people have said for about 600-700 you can get a setup that will run sc2 very well.
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On January 23 2011 08:26 2GRe-Play- wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2011 08:02 Jago wrote: Again, the PSU is not his problem. While 400W is a bit on the low side of things, if it was the cause of his issues, he'd be seeing lockups and random reboots, which is how "not enough juice" manifests itself. The OP is experiencing nothing of the sort.
However I do have to question the idea of applying a watercooler to an old videocard like 9800GTX. chances are, you could get a newer, faster, cooler videocard for the price of your GPU watercooling kit alone. man the 400w psu is the issue, those old video card are Dragons asking for food in Alaska the 9800GTX consume to much energy from that 400watts its not enough Nvidia said u need at least 500watts 400W is not ideal, I know, but if it runs SC2 without issue it gets the job done. If you think that without an upgraded PSU my framerate issue will continue, I will have to consider it. However, if the poster above is correct in how PSU problems materialize then my problem is most definitely not the PSU for I have experienced nothing of that sort and my system has been reliably running for the past ~3 years.
On January 23 2011 07:40 Myrmidon wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2011 07:16 Amui wrote:On January 23 2011 06:41 veng3nce wrote: lol ... your psu!! cant use a 400w psu for a gtx 9800 512..with that setup ... need a min 550/600.. buy a new psu(power supply unit)
If there was a problem it would manifest itself as instability, not a performance issue. 400W is fine for what he's doing. But it is your CPU's fault. If you can overclock it within reason, to say 2.5 or 2.6 ghz, you'll notice quite a large, linear increase in performance. Yeah, PSU issues can cause serious problems, but not gaming performance degradation. But whether or not it's good for the system depends on the quality of the 400W PSU--this is an entirely separate issue than the system performance the OP is addressing though. The issue is that it's a Gateway system. I don't think the CPU is going to be able to be overclocked because of motherboard restrictions. Supposedly that motherboard supports AM2+ CPUs, but it's hard to tell which. This seems to suggest that at least some people have had success using a Phenom II on the motherboard, but with some issues. If you're just worried about SC2 performance, a Phenom II X2 would be fine. It'd be kind of weird upgrading from a quad core to a dual core, but whatever. With the first-gen Phenom TLB/Win7 issues and low clock speed, you'd be getting a lot better performance from a Phenom II or even Athlon II. Thank you for the suggestion, I have done some research on the Phenom II X2 and it appears I can obtain one for ~80$, which is good for my budget if I can scrap the old one for ~40$ (probably an optimistic estimate). However, after doing some other research, I have found that gateways can be reliably overclocked using some back door methods and specific software, just not by much, so if I can't sell the thing for a reasonable price I'll try overclocking and overcoming the tlb problem before buying the suggested dual core. Nothing to lose if I end up trashing it I guess.
@Everyone else, I will explain in the spoiler why I would not like to invest in a new GPU or computer.
+ Show Spoiler +On January 23 2011 08:02 Jago wrote: Again, the PSU is not his problem. While 400W is a bit on the low side of things, if it was the cause of his issues, he'd be seeing lockups and random reboots, which is how "not enough juice" manifests itself. The OP is experiencing nothing of the sort.
However I do have to question the idea of applying a watercooler to an old videocard like 9800GTX. chances are, you could get a newer, faster, cooler videocard for the price of your GPU watercooling kit alone. On January 23 2011 07:58 2GRe-Play- wrote: that PSU 400w is killing u bro, other thing to take into account why will u invest in a Watercooling whe u should better sell that card + the money u will waste in Watercooling = a better video card I got a good watercooling kit for 60$ that should (under guarantee) reduce my temp to the 70-80C range and I doubt I could sell a thing that has probably undergone overheating damage for the past year. The newer gen nvidia GPUs are on sale for a couple hundred dollars to several hundred dollars and given that my only intention for my GPU is to run SC2 without issue, I don't think I want to invest voluminous amounts of money in a new one that may require the water cooling anyway. On January 23 2011 08:26 luKrek wrote: You should not keep anything but your hdd from that setup, none of the parts is good enough for sc2 really. On January 23 2011 09:18 Marradron wrote: At some point you might just want to invest in a new computer. As some people have said for about 600-700 you can get a setup that will run sc2 very well. My computer meets and exceeds the recommended requirements for SC2, which is good, because all I want it to do is run SC2 (1v1 only even) without issue. Since it is not doing exactly what it should, I want to fix it, but not completely trash it, because I don't even intend to run any newer games on it either. I would be seriously considering your suggestions and would be all for a new desktop I build myself, but I'll be buying a laptop in the coming years as I will be traveling a lot more so investing in a new desktop is a no go for me. Also thanks for all the help - I've received more information here than I would have gotten over a week on my own. I know now that I am probably not justified in naming the topic 'good computer', but technology really pulled a fast one on me!
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Dominican Republic913 Posts
On January 23 2011 09:03 Mindcrime wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2011 08:26 2GRe-Play- wrote:On January 23 2011 08:02 Jago wrote: Again, the PSU is not his problem. While 400W is a bit on the low side of things, if it was the cause of his issues, he'd be seeing lockups and random reboots, which is how "not enough juice" manifests itself. The OP is experiencing nothing of the sort.
However I do have to question the idea of applying a watercooler to an old videocard like 9800GTX. chances are, you could get a newer, faster, cooler videocard for the price of your GPU watercooling kit alone. man the 400w psu is the issue, those old video card are Dragons asking for food in Alaska the 9800GTX consume to much energy from that 400watts its not enough Nvidia said u need at least 500watts A quality 400w PSU would be enough. Under load, his CPU might draw about 30W more than the one in their test setup, but it still doesn't bring him close to using 400W. And, again, the problems he's describing are not of the sort that a PSU inadequacy would cause.
man his PSU maybe it just one that come with the Case, those PSU are bad for highend videocard like 9800GTX he has a Quad Core that consume much energy too and take into consideration his CPU is old tecnology witch mean consume a lot. if u dont want to boy a PSU blindly go to a friend house and test ur PC with a good PSU at least 500Watts
if your pc have been working last 3 years doesnt mean was running ok, maybe have a failure due to bad PSU because it was under hardwork most of the time, PSU have a limit on load wattage maybe, u use that PSU always over the recomended 80% or 85%
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I looked up my computer's power supply and found this information about it, if that helps;
Model DPS-400RB A
Input 100 - 127 V ~ /10 A 200 - 240 V ~ /5 A
Frequency 50 Hz - 60 Hz
Output +12V1: 12 V / 16 A (max) +5V: +5 V / 14 A (max) +3.3V: 3.3 V / 20 A (max) +12V2: +12 V / 16 A (max) +5VSB: +5 V / 2.0 A (max) -12V: -12 V / 0.3 A (max)
Maximum Power 400 watts
Notes +5V and +3.3V output cannot exceed 140 watts. +12V and +12V2 combined current cannot exceed 30 A
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Dominican Republic913 Posts
On January 23 2011 09:42 Skeptic wrote:I looked up my computer's power supply and found this information about it, if that helps; + Show Spoiler + Model DPS-400RB A
Input 100 - 127 V ~ /10 A 200 - 240 V ~ /5 A
Frequency 50 Hz - 60 Hz
Output +12V1: 12 V / 16 A (max) +5V: +5 V / 14 A (max) +3.3V: 3.3 V / 20 A (max) +12V2: +12 V / 16 A (max) +5VSB: +5 V / 2.0 A (max) -12V: -12 V / 0.3 A (max)
Maximum Power 400 watts Notes +5V and +3.3V output cannot exceed 140 watts. +12V and +12V2 combined current cannot exceed 30 A
here what Nvidia suggest for a 9800GTX
Requirements Minimum of a 450 Watt power supply. (Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 24 Amp Amps.) Minimum 550 Watt for SLI mode system.
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It says 12V (both 12V rails combined) cannot exceed 30A, so that's 360W. The unit is manufactured by Delta, which is a highly-reputable OEM that tends to put out units with good build quality. It's probably some lower-end Delta design, so I wouldn't expect something amazing, but that should be fine.
GPU manufacturer power supply recommendations are very general guidelines. They obviously have no idea what other parts you have in your computer and whether or not your PSU is a lying POS unit that can't do what its label says it can, so they always give an estimate on the high side to be safe.
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Dominican Republic913 Posts
OK dont bother with this, and just buy a new pc, u did everything a person should to fix a problem in FPS, but as i see many ppl think u are ok with that PSU, fine im done
u will come back to me and said u were right.
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Stop with this psu. 400W is MORE than enough to run like 90% of all the cpu you have. Unless obviously you're using like 4 cores + 2 video card which isn't the issue here. We're talking about sc2. 105C is way to high for ur videocard. It's more likely fucked up, so better invest in another video card rather than watercooling it really. Just save urself the pain and try another video card to see if that's the issue. If not then look at the cpu.
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On January 23 2011 09:38 2GRe-Play- wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2011 09:03 Mindcrime wrote:On January 23 2011 08:26 2GRe-Play- wrote:On January 23 2011 08:02 Jago wrote: Again, the PSU is not his problem. While 400W is a bit on the low side of things, if it was the cause of his issues, he'd be seeing lockups and random reboots, which is how "not enough juice" manifests itself. The OP is experiencing nothing of the sort.
However I do have to question the idea of applying a watercooler to an old videocard like 9800GTX. chances are, you could get a newer, faster, cooler videocard for the price of your GPU watercooling kit alone. man the 400w psu is the issue, those old video card are Dragons asking for food in Alaska the 9800GTX consume to much energy from that 400watts its not enough Nvidia said u need at least 500watts A quality 400w PSU would be enough. Under load, his CPU might draw about 30W more than the one in their test setup, but it still doesn't bring him close to using 400W. And, again, the problems he's describing are not of the sort that a PSU inadequacy would cause. man his PSU maybe it just one that come with the Case, those PSU are bad for highend videocard like 9800GTX he has a Quad Core that consume much energy too and take into consideration his CPU is old tecnology witch mean consume a lot. if u dont want to boy a PSU blindly go to a friend house and test ur PC with a good PSU at least 500Watts
You need to look at the numbers and stop making blind assertions.
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Your CPU is at 2.2ghz I think the requirements is 2.4ghz and if I am correct Sc2 only uses 2 threads so it's like your using a dual core at 2.2ghz thus giving you fps drops. Not sure if you have fixed this yet just thought I would give my 2 cents.
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