Budget GPU that could run Starcraft 2 at medium graphics.

Broseph Stalin · Mar 21, 2013

I'm looking to improve my performance in the game, and i'm noticing that most of the time my losses are due to me not being able to micro units around due to the low fps the game runs at for me. So i want to get a good GPU that would be able to increase the performance but wont break the bank. i was thinking something around the $50-60 range but if nothing around that price I'll take the next lowest thing.

jemm · Mar 21, 2013

An HD 6670 DDR3 will cost you around $60 -- better than that you can get an HD 7750 for about $90

Mind that for any of these cards you need at least a 400 Watt power supply.

blazorthon · Mar 21, 2013

At your price range, chances are the best we'd find is the Radeon 6670 DDR3. If you don't mind uping the budget to say $80 or even better, $90 to $100, you could get quite literally exponentially more performance for the money and greater power efficiency, but the Radeon 6670 DDR3 isn't a horrible card. IDK if it'll do what you want, but it should AFAIK. I don't think that SC2 is really an intensive game and medium settings are fairly light.

However, we don't know what will be better than what you already have without knowing what you already have. Current specs would be helpful in that.

EDIT: The above post is wrong about PSU needs. Seasonic's 300W PSU would be plenty for these cards unless you've got a monstrous CPU or otherwise ridiculously high power consumption computer. The PSU recommendations by AMD are far from accurate because they take into consideration crappy PSUs that lie about their power delivery as well as old PSUs that can't do the job of a new PSU with similar wattage rating for one reason or another.

atomicWAR · Mar 21, 2013

current system specs? hard to help unless we know what you have.

Broseph Stalin · Mar 21, 2013

@blazorthon what is AFAIK?

@atomicWAR AMD Sempron Processor LE-1300 ~2.3 GHz
2GB RAM
GeForce 6150SE nForce 430 integrated
anything else that would help?

Broseph Stalin · Mar 21, 2013

BTW sorry for not including specs in OP, kinda new to this.

blazorthon · Mar 21, 2013

AFAIK is As Far As I Know.

Your CPU is going to hold back any graphics upgrade. That whole system might be best replaced. SC2 is a pretty CPU intensive game from my experience and what I've read and I don't trust an old AM2 Sempron to handle it regardless of the graphics.

Broseph Stalin · Mar 21, 2013

Dang, thought that might be a problem. Any suggestion on CPU?

atomicWAR · Mar 21, 2013

blazorthon :

he's right its about time to rebuild. your CPU is a huge bottle neck. that said if you can't no matter what...then i would go for something in the amd 7770 range or nvidia gtx 650 . about $100ish

blazorthon · Mar 21, 2013

Broseph Stalin :

Tell us your mobo model if you can. If it's one of the nice boards that supports up to the AM3 CPUs, then we can easily recommend a decent Phenom II CPU upgrade to go along with a cheap graphics card such as a Radeon 6670, GT 640, or Radeon 7750. If it only supports AM2 (maybe also AM2+), then the board will also need replacement as will the RAM.

atomicWAR · Mar 21, 2013

if that's an am3 socket as i suspect you could find an athlon x4 in the 3ghz range that might help a lot. other wise am2 cpus are tough to come by but you may find one on ebay or craigslist.

ARICH5 · Mar 21, 2013

and need to know the resolution of the monitor

blazorthon · Mar 21, 2013

atomicWAR :

That CPU is an AM2 CPU, so unless OP gave the wrong model number, it must be an AM2 socket. It might support AM3 CPUs anyway, but that's still a distinction that must be made

blazorthon · Mar 21, 2013

ARICH5 :

Eh, that's not so important IMO. OP's low budget kinda makes it irrelevant.

Broseph Stalin · Mar 21, 2013

blazorthon :

Not sure what mobo it has. Anyway i could check, other than the obvious opening up my computer?

blazorthon · Mar 21, 2013

Broseph Stalin :

That probably depends on whether the system is OEM or uses a retail motherboard. If the system is OEM, then you can give the computer's model number (which should be on the exterior of the case). If it's not OEM or for some reason has a retail motherboard, then the motherboard's model number would only be printed on the motherboard itself. You might be able to check with a program such as CPU-Z/CPUID, but I'm not sure about that.

Broseph Stalin · Mar 21, 2013

ARICH5 :

native res is 1440x900, if it helps/

atomicWAR · Mar 21, 2013

Broseph Stalin :

blazorthon :

Not sure what mobo it has. Anyway i could check, other than the obvious opening up my computer?

yep very easy. get CPUID...just below you processor near the top it will tell you which socket you have.

Broseph Stalin · Mar 22, 2013

blazorthon :

Broseph Stalin :

That probably depends on whether the system is OEM or uses a retail motherboard. If the system is OEM, then you can give the computer's model number (which should be on the exterior of the case). If it's not OEM or for some reason has a retail motherboard, then the motherboard's model number would only be printed on the motherboard itself. You might be able to check with a program such as CPU-Z/CPUID, but I'm not sure about that.

I found a sticker on the side of the case that has a bar code on it and says "model: TS - 0004QC - AMDS401" is this what you mean?

blazorthon · Mar 22, 2013

atomicWAR says that you can get the mobo info right from CPU-Z (aka CPUID), so might as well just download that program (I usually get it right from softpedia at the following link) and run it.

http://www.softpedia.com/dyn-postdownload.php?p=6980&t=4&i=1

ASHISH65 · Mar 22, 2013

make sure you update your mobo's bios as old mobo has some compaibilty issues with pci 2.1 and 3.0gpu.

blazorthon · Mar 22, 2013

ASHISH65 :

That's only the PCIe 1 motherboards and as I recall, they only tend to have issues with PCIe 2.1, not 3.0.

blazorthon · Mar 22, 2013

Broseph Stalin :

blazorthon :

I found a sticker on the side of the case that has a bar code on it and says "model: TS - 0004QC - AMDS401" is this what you mean?

I just looked it up and it seems that that you have an old HP system. If that's right, then your computer is OEM and does not support AM3 CPUs. In that situation, it's best to replace pretty much the entire system because none of it is up to par nor is all of it capable of being upgraded and must instead be replaced.

ASHISH65 · Mar 22, 2013

so @op has pci 1.1mobo,then it is fine

blazorthon · Mar 22, 2013

ASHISH65 :

Should be fine either way with PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 2.0 and PCIe 1.1 should be fine with PCIe 2.1 cards too, but I can't guarantee that. There was oftentimes a lot of confusion between PCIe 1.0a, PCIe 1, and PCIe 1.1 as well as any other version(s) that I may be forgetting. Regardless, simply using a PCIe 3.0 card or a PCIe 2.0 card should prevent any issues that a PCIe 2.1 card may cause.

Still, it would seem that OP will need to replace that motherboard to get any decent CPU upgrade, so it probably doesn't matter anyway since any new motherboard will have PCIe 2.0 or PCIe 3.0 and should have no compatibility issues with any of the PCIe graphics cards.

Budget GPU that could run Starcraft 2 at medium graphics.

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