Worth it to upgrade?

[Azile]

I'm not getting the performance I want from Starcraft 2, and I think my CPU is holding me back as the game stresses it a lot more than it does the GPU. I'm trying to hold off for a little while longer before a complete rebuild so i'm wondering if it's worth it to get a new CPU.

What I have:

M3A78-EM (AM2+/AM2)
Phenom II X3 710 (kick myself every day for not getting the 720) this is stock at 2.6 have never overclocked it
8gb G.Skill DDR2 1066
Sapphire 4870 1gb

I see plenty of people with my card running the game at all ultra settings with decent framerates.. however they all have better CPUs than I do. I quite literally get the same framerate (meh) at Ultra, High, or Medium settings.. hence my thought of the CPU.

So is it worth it with my old chipset to grab a Athlon II X3 445 or something? Or should I just hold off completely until I can afford a total rebuild (at best 8-12 months).

 

[scione]

I say buy a cheap aftermarket fan and overclock your current cpu

 

[popatim]

Starcraft 2 has pretty low requirements, I play at good frame rates on my laptop (dual core 2.2Ghz) with integrated video. I think you have something else going on.

What frame rates are you seeing?

 

[Azile]

Dips into the teens at ultra in 1v1 games once supply is over 100. On high this is maybe 17 instead of 15.. I play on medium settings right now as this is unacceptable framerates for RTS competition. Normally the game will start out at 50-60 but once again as army counts raise, i'll still dip into the low 20s.

I find it hard to believe the difference between ultra and medium settings is 5~ fps.

Fresh reformat, Win7, low temps, updated drivers, there's no issue. There's plenty of posts from people on various forums as to what settings they play at on what machines and yes there are a lot of people playing the game 'flawlessly' in their own words at 'max settings'.. on very underpowered computers. But flawless is very subjective, any dips below 35 FPS are unacceptable to me.

Thing is I see post after post after post from people with my exact video card playing @ all ultra with 60 fps.. and i'm just not seeing that.

I say buy a cheap aftermarket fan and overclock your current cpu

I haven't overclocked anything since.. like 2002.

I heard the 710 was not very good for it and I have no idea about how to work with a locked multiplier, any advice?