 EneMecH United Kingdom. June 03 2012 21:49. Posts 218 | Profile # |
Hey. So I have around £200 budget for upgrading a computer for the best performance at sc2.
It has already 6 cores 2.8 2.6ghz AMD Phenom. (I worry that even with a nice GPU this will lag me in large battles... would I be forced to play on lowest even with a 560 TI?)
GTX 430
6GB Ram
How do you guys think the money would be best spent to increase sc2 performance?
an i3/i5 processor? Or maybe just a 560 TI or something? How about an I3 and a Gtx 460? :/
Thanks for reading.Last edit: 2012-06-04 00:41:59 |
| | Tears soaks each hand the dealer's dealt. But time taught me how to see every second as heaven even when they're perfectly disguised as hell. |
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| iTzSnypah United States. June 03 2012 22:22. Posts 1206 | Profile Blog # |
| your budget is too low. an i3, H61 motherboard and gtx460 costs ~250. Also there is this thing called the computer build resource thread. |
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| EneMecH United Kingdom. June 03 2012 22:26. Posts 218 | Profile # |
£200 being $300 USD, I assume you know?
Also, I'm afraid you misunderstand how a budget works. You see, a budget is how much money you can afford to spend on any given thing. Henceforth, the sentence "your budget is too low" has an integral flaw that stops it being at all helpful.
I'm asking how I can best upgrade my computer with the money I have. |
| | Tears soaks each hand the dealer's dealt. But time taught me how to see every second as heaven even when they're perfectly disguised as hell. |
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| Eisregen Germany. June 03 2012 22:44. Posts 901 | Profile # |
First of all. After a certain point, SC2 is more CPU heavy than GPU heavy.
You own a Phenom II 6 core. Did you ever think about overclocking that one? Should do in my opinion.
But make sure to have a decent CPU cooler.
Maybe look at a better GPU, the older ATI HD6xxx cards are pretty cheap at the moment or an older GTX460, maybe a 560Ti.
Before you upgrade to Intel, do you use your 6 core actually? I am asking, because games mostly only use 2 cores and the other 4 are idle.
Looking into Intel I'd say it would mainly be an i3-2100 (2cores) or an i5-2400(4 cores) with a H61/67 mobo, which gives you more or less room for an additional GPU |
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| Leetley Finland. June 03 2012 22:57. Posts 1783 | Profile # |
Buying new mobo + processor is stupid, because Phenom II X6 is still a great processor and it would cost too much money. The wisest thing par none would be to buy a 560 Ti, which brings a huge performance boost so you can enjoy SC2 with pretty much any settings.
Edit: You could also save money to buy an aftermarket CPU cooler (Noctuas are great) after buying the new GPU, then OC your CPU to get everything out of it. Buy a good/high performance cooler, so you can use it in your future PC builds. Coolers last pretty much forever apart from the fans that can be replaced.
Edit 2: Stupid people suggesting i3, even when Phenom II X6 can give you the same/better performance.Last edit: 2012-06-03 23:04:27 |
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| Eisregen Germany. June 03 2012 23:06. Posts 901 | Profile # |
On June 03 2012 22:57 Leetley wrote:
Edit 2: Stupid people suggesting i3, even when Phenom II X6 can give you the same/better performance.
actually, even an i3-2100 gives you a better performance in most games X.x
But as I said, OC the Phenom and you will be fine
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| Leetley Finland. June 03 2012 23:08. Posts 1783 | Profile # |
On June 03 2012 23:06 Eisregen wrote:
Show nested quote +On June 03 2012 22:57 Leetley wrote:
Edit 2: Stupid people suggesting i3, even when Phenom II X6 can give you the same/better performance.
actually, even an i3-2100 gives you a better performance in most games X.x But as I said, OC the Phenom and you will be fine
Might even be, but the higher performance given is quite marginal that it would be insanity to buy a brand new set of a mobo and a processor. The OP's older GPU (430 GTX), which is a fucking horrible bottom of the bottom tier card and is the real bottleneck for good framerates.Last edit: 2012-06-03 23:11:37 |
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| Myrmidon United States. June 03 2012 23:28. Posts 8478 | Profile Blog # |
Yeah, an i3 is better for SC2, but it's not worth the time spent upgrading or the cost just for a marginal improvement. Overclock the Phenom II X6. If the extra cores aren't needed in general, you can disable some if the cooling and motherboard aren't that great, since overclocked Phenom II X6 power draw is no joke.
While you're at it, some graphics settings (e.g. physics calculations) use a decent amount of CPU cycles, so you can turn those things down, or keep them down if they're already at lowest. To be honest, turning most details higher don't really enhance visibility anyway and are just distractions.
Unless the monitor is higher than 1920x1200, more than a GTX 460 is not really necessary. Better to have a GTX 460 and aftermarket cooler for overclocking the CPU, than a GTX 560 Ti.Last edit: 2012-06-03 23:29:00 |
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| EneMecH United Kingdom. June 04 2012 00:26. Posts 218 | Profile # |
<3 Thanks a lot!
Will look into a 560 TI + Aftermarket Cooler and overclock on the Cores! |
| | Tears soaks each hand the dealer's dealt. But time taught me how to see every second as heaven even when they're perfectly disguised as hell. |
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| WTFZerg United States. June 04 2012 00:26. Posts 648 | Profile # |
| Overclock the Phenom II and use that. I've got a 1090T and have never, ever had performance issues on the ladder. |
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| EneMecH United Kingdom. June 04 2012 00:41. Posts 218 | Profile # |
Yep! But I just noticed the cores are 2.6 not 2.8!!!!
does this matter? |
| | Tears soaks each hand the dealer's dealt. But time taught me how to see every second as heaven even when they're perfectly disguised as hell. |
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| Myrmidon United States. June 04 2012 00:53. Posts 8478 | Profile Blog # |
Not really. It means you have a 1035T instead of a 1055T, which means that the final overclock may not be quite as good in the end (percent increase may be higher). It depends on your particular chip, but on average the ones sold as lower-end models don't have as good electrical characteristics and thus may not overclock quite as well. There also may be issues with having to drop the memory speeds when overclocking because of the fixed CPU multiplier.
Actually, what's your motherboard? I think most 1035Ts came with OEM systems with motherboards without the hardware and BIOS options to overclock anyway. |
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| EneMecH United Kingdom. June 04 2012 01:09. Posts 218 | Profile # |
| I have no idea what the motherboard is, since it doesnt show in dxdiag :/ |
| | Tears soaks each hand the dealer's dealt. But time taught me how to see every second as heaven even when they're perfectly disguised as hell. |
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| Myrmidon United States. June 04 2012 01:15. Posts 8478 | Profile Blog # |
Open up the computer case or use something other than dxdiag:
http://www.piriform.com/speccy
For that matter, do you have any idea what power supply you have? If this is a typical OEM system, you're not going to be able to overclock, and you're not going to be able to upgrade to something like a GTX 460 or GTX 560 Ti without upgrading the power supply.Last edit: 2012-06-04 01:15:25 |
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| EneMecH United Kingdom. June 04 2012 01:35. Posts 218 | Profile # |
| No idea.... we'll have to look inside to find out? :/ |
| | Tears soaks each hand the dealer's dealt. But time taught me how to see every second as heaven even when they're perfectly disguised as hell. |
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| SiNKami United States. June 04 2012 02:00. Posts 1754 | Profile Blog # |
| Overclock your processor and use your budget to get a nice video card. You will be able to use that rig for several years. |
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| iTzSnypah United States. June 04 2012 02:11. Posts 1206 | Profile Blog # |
On June 03 2012 22:26 EneMecH wrote:
£200 being $300 USD, I assume you know?
Also, I'm afraid you misunderstand how a budget works. You see, a budget is how much money you can afford to spend on any given thing. Henceforth, the sentence "your budget is too low" has an integral flaw that stops it being at all helpful.
I'm asking how I can best upgrade my computer with the money I have.
Er with both the i3 and 460 being about 100euro's each... and the motherboard being ~50...Last time I checked that equal's ~250. All of this is of course factoring in you finding sales/cheapest.
Also 1euro = ~1.25usd...
http://finance.yahoo.com/currency-converter/#from=EUR;to=USD;amt=1Last edit: 2012-06-04 02:15:28 |
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| garbodor June 04 2012 02:14. Posts 252 | Profile # | |
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| WTFZerg United States. June 04 2012 02:14. Posts 648 | Profile # |
On June 04 2012 02:11 iTzSnypah wrote:
Show nested quote +On June 03 2012 22:26 EneMecH wrote:
£200 being $300 USD, I assume you know?
Also, I'm afraid you misunderstand how a budget works. You see, a budget is how much money you can afford to spend on any given thing. Henceforth, the sentence "your budget is too low" has an integral flaw that stops it being at all helpful.
I'm asking how I can best upgrade my computer with the money I have.
Er with both the i3 and 460 being about 100euro's each... and the motherboard being ~50...Last time I checked that equal's ~250. All of this is of course factoring in you finding sell's/cheapest. Also 1euro = ~1.25usd... http://finance.yahoo.com/currency-converter/#from=EUR;to=USD;amt=1
£ = pound sterling. |
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| iTzSnypah United States. June 04 2012 02:17. Posts 1206 | Profile Blog # |
On June 04 2012 02:14 WTFZerg wrote:
Show nested quote +On June 04 2012 02:11 iTzSnypah wrote:
On June 03 2012 22:26 EneMecH wrote:
£200 being $300 USD, I assume you know?
Also, I'm afraid you misunderstand how a budget works. You see, a budget is how much money you can afford to spend on any given thing. Henceforth, the sentence "your budget is too low" has an integral flaw that stops it being at all helpful.
I'm asking how I can best upgrade my computer with the money I have.
Er with both the i3 and 460 being about 100euro's each... and the motherboard being ~50...Last time I checked that equal's ~250. All of this is of course factoring in you finding sell's/cheapest. Also 1euro = ~1.25usd... http://finance.yahoo.com/currency-converter/#from=EUR;to=USD;amt=1
£ = pound sterling.
Well then I'm wrong. However my appraisal of prices is correct. |
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