StarCraft II Revisited: How Much Gaming PC Do You Need?

Features
By
published

Benchmarks Results: Ultra Quality, 4x AA

As we've mentioned, AMD’s Catalyst 10.7 beta driver and Catalyst 10.8 allows for AA in StarCraft II, which means that we can test the feature on both manufacturers' GPUs.

We're limiting the benchmarks to cards that can handle the Ultra quality setting with 4x AA applied:

The Radeon cards are clearly bested by their similarly-priced GeForce counterparts here. Even the high-end Radeon HD 5870 is surpassed by the GeForce GTX 460, especially when it comes to minimum frame rates. None of the Radeon cards can really handle 4x AA in this benchmark at anything more than 1280x1024. Meanwhile, the GeForce cards can offer performance that is on the edge of playable up until 1920x1080.

Don Woligroski
169 Comments Comment from the forums
  • duk3
    Nice article.
    I wish the i5 750 was included as a comparison.
    Reply
  • Doom3klr
    5770 should run it with a 3 core amd
    Reply
  • Doom3klr
    5770 should run it with a 3 core amd
    Reply
  • ScoobyJooby-Jew
    a 5750+phenom II 945 runs smoothly with a mix of ultra and high settings. no aa.
    Reply
  • L0tus
    The Radeon cards are clearly bested by their similarly-priced GeForce counterparts here.

    Hence why I regret my ATI purchase.

    It's good hardware but the constant driver issues & benchmarks such as these make you think twice.
    Reply
  • letsgetsteve
    i wish the test was re-run with a bigger overclock so we could see how cpu limited the game really is and what card will really let it stretch its legs.
    Reply
  • nativeson8803
    I wish they would have included my cpu: q9550 OC'd to 3.5Ghz

    Still relevant!
    Reply
  • madass
    Are you guys sure the NV cards didnt beat the radeons due to bigger frame buffer?
    Reply
  • kingnoobe
    I don't reget my ati purchase at all. I'd rather deal with driver issues *which I never seemed to have with ati only nvidia.. for some odd reason*. Then deal with crap hardware with nvidia..

    Of course this is just personal exp.

    Some games will run better with nv, and some better with ati.. Don't really care as long as I can play it smoothly. And usually 1-5 fps don't determine that.
    Reply
  • dingo_d
    Doom3klr5770 should run it with a 3 core amdYep it worked flawlessly on my 5770 1GB + Athlon II X3 435...
    Reply