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.

Boblion

France8043 Posts

July 08 2010 16:50 GMT

#24

^
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.

Dakk

Sweden572 Posts

July 08 2010 16:58 GMT

#25

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.

Moloch

Canada222 Posts

July 08 2010 18:16 GMT

#26

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.

mahnini

United States6862 Posts

July 08 2010 20:42 GMT

#27

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.

nineninja9

United States194 Posts

July 08 2010 21:34 GMT

#28

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.

semantics

10040 Posts

July 08 2010 21:37 GMT

#29

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.

Boblion

France8043 Posts

July 08 2010 21:40 GMT

#30

On July 09 2010 05:42 mahnini wrote:

Show nested quote +

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..

FragKrag

United States11538 Posts

July 08 2010 21:41 GMT

#31

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.