New card for Starcraft II

[random betrayal]

So I am ready to upgrade my tired 4850 so I can max out settings in starcraft. This is the only computer game I play.

Any recommendations on a cost effective card to do this? Should say that the computer is heavily used in photoshop and lightroom editing. Don't know if all newer cards do hardware acceleration in Photoshop or not. I know that the 4850 did and that was the main point of buying it.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Leyawiin]

Monitor resolution? As for Photoshop its more on your CPU and yours is more than capable.

 

[Termie]

I believe nVidia has an edge in StarCraft, but that it's generally CPU-limited.

GPU: http://www.techspot.com/review/305-starcraft2-performance/page7.html

CPU: http://www.techspot.com/review/305-starcraft2-performance/page13.html

You'll definitely want to overclock your CPU to take advantage of a new GPU. For instance, an HD4850 gets 31fps at 1920, and while a GTX460 can hit 61fps at the same settings, it won't do so on a stock i7-750/760, which would cap the card at about 40fps.

This $115 GTX460 1GB Hawk would be perfect for you, if you can order it while it's still on sale: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2198592

nVidia may also give you some benefits in Photoshop: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/adobe-cs5-cuda-64-bit,2770-8.html

 

[random betrayal]

I have a 24 inch 1920x 1200 that I would like to play on. Currently only playing on the 21inch 1680 x 1050.

I should also add that I believe that I only have a 6 pin power connector to the modular 550 watt seasonic power supply.

I have never gotten close to 31 fps with my card, I tried and it was so bad I could not play and had to lower the settings. 31 fps would be decent to play with for an RTS as I don't need the precision of headshots or anything..

 

[Termie]

I have a 24 inch 1920x 1200 that I would like to play on. Currently only playing on the 21inch 1680 x 1050.

I should also add that I believe that I only have a 6 pin power connector to the modular 550 watt seasonic power supply.

I have never gotten close to 31 fps with my card, I tried and it was so bad I could not play and had to lower the settings. 31 fps would be decent to play with for an RTS as I don't need the precision of headshots or anything..

You'll find some more benchmarks on this page reflecting performance of cards in the $100-150 price range: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/radeon-hd-6790_9.html#sect2

At 1920/ultra/noAA, the 5770-class cards get about 30fps. So, you may be right that your 4850, which is slightly slower (~20%) than the 5770, couldn't quite get 30fps. But it should be around 25fps at this setting. Also note the GTX460 getting about 36, more when overclocked (this is on a hex-core i7, no overclock).

Keep in mind that AA flat out doesn't work in Starcraft on AMD, so make sure you're not forcing that in drivers.

By the way, any Seasonic over 500w would almost certainly have 2 PCIe power connectors, and most cards come with molex conversions anyway.

 

[random betrayal]

You may be right on the power supply, I will have to see what extra cables I have, it has been a little while since I originally built the computer, well before the last upgrade to the i-series chips.

I did not know about the AA with AMD in starcraft. I thought I set things to use suggested settings of the game in the catalyst software but will have to check.

Looking at the link you gave and the numbers the 460 looks like it should fit the bill, especially as the best new egg has the 6870 is $50 more after all the rebates.

Though I just looked at the NCIX page and the card is not available any longer. Too bad.

 

[Termie]

You may be right on the power supply, I will have to see what extra cables I have, it has been a little while since I originally built the computer, well before the last upgrade to the i-series chips.

I did not know about the AA with AMD in starcraft. I thought I set things to use suggested settings of the game in the catalyst software but will have to check.

Looking at the link you gave and the numbers the 460 looks like it should fit the bill, especially as the best new egg has the 6870 is $50 more after all the rebates.

Though I just looked at the NCIX page and the card is not available any longer. Too bad.

Sorry about that - didn't see NCIX had sold out. Luckily, Newegg has the same card for $130AR, which is still a good deal: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127518

Newegg also has the HD6870 for $150AR/FS: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102948

While the HD6870 is generally worth an extra $20 over the GTX460, for Starcraft it might not be, especially if you want to use AA. You can see the performance in the XBitLabs link I provided earlier.

 

[Silverforce11]

SC2 favors NV cards, like all blizzard games. A good bang for buck NV card would be a used gtx460 or 560 ti. If you can get a good deal new, its pretty good also.

 

[MustangSVT]

the gtx460 at $110 sounds good. but the game is such a cpu hog that it'll bog down in heavy battles still.

 

[nenforcer]

Your CPU is ideal for Starcraft 2 and you could get a Geforce GTX 460 768MB or GTX 460 1GB and max it out on Ultra settings compared to your 512MB 4850.

I just upgraded to the GTX 460 768MB but I only run at 1600x1200.

I don't know about Photoshop, but the Premiere Pro Mercury Playback engine is highly optimized for nVidia GPU's.

 

[3DVagabond]

I don't know about Photoshop, but the Premiere Pro Mercury Playback engine is highly optimized for nVidia GPU's.

Not just any nVidia GPU. There are only a limited number of supported cards for the Mercury playback Engine (Although there is apparently a hack to make others work. Typical of nVidia to unnecessarily limit which hardware you can use.). Photoshop doesn't use CUDA at all. Although there are a couple of Photoshop plugins that do.

Be that as it may, an nVidia GTX-460 is still a very good card. The HD6850 is the equivalent AMD card. The GTX-560 and HD6870 are the next step up. Shouldn't be comparing the prices of the GTX-460 with the HD6870.

 

[timma]

buy 6850 OC ,have good one-6 pin power useage C/P~

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Not just any nVidia GPU. There are only a limited number of supported cards for the Mercury playback Engine (Although there is apparently a hack to make others work. Typical of nVidia to unnecessarily limit which hardware you can use.). Photoshop doesn't use CUDA at all. Although there are a couple of Photoshop plugins that do.

Be that as it may, an nVidia GTX-460 is still a very good card. The HD6850 is the equivalent AMD card. The GTX-560 and HD6870 are the next step up. Shouldn't be comparing the prices of the GTX-460 with the HD6870.

IIRC there is a very simple file tweak to enable support for unofficially supported GPUs, although I'm also pretty sure you need at least 1GB of memory buffer on the video card for MPE to function correctly, although for 1920x1200 you wouldn't want less than 1GB for gaming either.

 

[3DVagabond]

IIRC there is a very simple file tweak to enable support for unofficially supported GPUs, although I'm also pretty sure you need at least 1GB of memory buffer on the video card for MPE to function correctly, although for 1920x1200 you wouldn't want less than 1GB for gaming either.

Yes, I said there was a hack to make "unsupported" cards work (don't confuse able to function with support). I still think it sucks that we have to resort to that when the hardware is obviously capable. Add to that if you use a 460 and there's a bug, nVidia will just remind you that they don't "support" your card.

MPE is not in PS though, which is what the OP says he uses. Premiere is a completely different type of software. They just both happen to be made by Adobe.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

to be fair, CS5 is a multi thousand dollar software suite, and even just Premiere Pro and Aftereffects alone will run several hundred dollars, I'm really not surprised that there is limited support for the GPUs as they simply want to make sure the product will function correctly when a video card costs a fraction of what the software does. And I wouldn't blame it all on nVidia, I'm sure a lot of it has to do with Adobe not wanting to test and verify dozens of different GPUs.

At any rate I think its lucky that we get any official support at all from the GeForce line as nVidia would much rather have us buying a Quadro card with the same GPU for a couple grand

and if someone really wants an official GPU for MPE acceleration, finding a used GTX470 won't set you back much more than a new GTX460.

 

[3DVagabond]

to be fair, CS5 is a multi thousand dollar software suite, and even just Premiere Pro and Aftereffects alone will run several hundred dollars, I'm really not surprised that there is limited support for the GPUs as they simply want to make sure the product will function correctly when a video card costs a fraction of what the software does. And I wouldn't blame it all on nVidia, I'm sure a lot of it has to do with Adobe not wanting to test and verify dozens of different GPUs.

At any rate I think its lucky that we get any official support at all from the GeForce line as nVidia would much rather have us buying a Quadro card with the same GPU for a couple grand

and if someone really wants an official GPU for MPE acceleration, finding a used GTX470 won't set you back much more than a new GTX460.

But the OP doesn't want a GPU for MPE acceleration. It was mentioned as a reason for the OP to buy an nVidia card that wasn't valid. I was merely pointing that out. I mentioned the lack of official support because there are people that matters to. YMMV, of course.

 

[random betrayal]

Sorry about that - didn't see NCIX had sold out. Luckily, Newegg has the same card for $130AR, which is still a good deal: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127518

Newegg also has the HD6870 for $150AR/FS: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102948

While the HD6870 is generally worth an extra $20 over the GTX460, for Starcraft it might not be, especially if you want to use AA. You can see the performance in the XBitLabs link I provided earlier.

I guess I am not the sure that AA is worth taking a lower grade card for. I don't know that I would notice that much of a difference. I have mainly played halo on the xbox so the graphical abilities their are not even up to what my 4850 is putting out. I am thinking that taking an extra 8 fps on the 6870 would be better then the AA. For that matter the 6850 has better fps then the 460 with no AA.

We use CS4 at the moment with no future plans to go to CS5. Premiere is only used for playing with the kids videos. It is truly just Photoshop and lightroom that get the heavy use.

These two pages are what I found on Adobe that led me to the 4850 originally.
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404898.html
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/405/kb405711.html

It basically states
"Photoshop CS5 and CS4 leverage the video adapter's chip (the graphics processing unit, or GPU) instead of the computer's main chip (CPU) to speed some functions. Photoshop accesses and uses the GPU when the GPU:

1. supports OpenGL, a software and hardware standard that accelerates video processing when working with large or complex images, including 3D.
2.has at least 256 MB of RAM.
3.has a display driver that supports OpenGL 2.0 and Shader Model 3.0, which the GPU uses to perform rendering effects."

Appreciate all the thoughts and recommendations so far.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

I have two systems that I play SC2 on. One is a 2500K (@4.2) + 6870, the other is an i5 750 (@4.0) + 560Ti. Despite the slower CPU on the latter system, I find the game runs smoother. I think it's related to the way the drivers manage vsync on each system... the difference is most noticeable when I'm mouse scrolling... the 560 system seems buttery smooth while the 6870 is a bit choppy sometimes.

Both machines will slow down in large battles with a lot of effects or near cliffs (on some maps) that disappear into an abyss... the graphical effects here seem to tax GPU a lot, especially on my ATI. Both systems are at 1920x1080, no AA.

People say that SC2 is easy on GPUs, but in my experience even with a fast CPU and a high-mid graphics card, constant 60fps at that resolution is not possible.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I guess I am not the sure that AA is worth taking a lower grade card for. I don't know that I would notice that much of a difference. I have mainly played halo on the xbox so the graphical abilities their are not even up to what my 4850 is putting out. I am thinking that taking an extra 8 fps on the 6870 would be better then the AA. For that matter the 6850 has better fps then the 460 with no AA.

We use CS4 at the moment with no future plans to go to CS5. Premiere is only used for playing with the kids videos. It is truly just Photoshop and lightroom that get the heavy use.

These two pages are what I found on Adobe that led me to the 4850 originally.
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404898.html
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/405/kb405711.html

It basically states
"Photoshop CS5 and CS4 leverage the video adapter's chip (the graphics processing unit, or GPU) instead of the computer's main chip (CPU) to speed some functions. Photoshop accesses and uses the GPU when the GPU:

1. supports OpenGL, a software and hardware standard that accelerates video processing when working with large or complex images, including 3D.
2.has at least 256 MB of RAM.
3.has a display driver that supports OpenGL 2.0 and Shader Model 3.0, which the GPU uses to perform rendering effects."

Appreciate all the thoughts and recommendations so far.

Imo the only areas where I can appreciate AA are the cinematics and wandering around in the hyperion.