GeForce GTX 460 768MB with quadcore CPU good for Starcraft II ?

[Valhalla1]

I am not a pc gamer, but a friend wants me to help him build a pc for starcraft II for under $700

I pieced parts for a gaming box in a shopping cart on newegg including these key components -

intel quadcore q8300 2.5ghz / 4gb ddr2 800
msi Geforce GTX 460 768mb video card

is this cpu / video card a good choice ?

 

[drizek]

The video card is good. THe CPU is not. Either go with AMD for less or go with Sandy Bridge for more.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

If you are buying new, go with an AMD quad. If you already have the q8300, get that to 2.8-3ghz and Starcraft 2 plays just fine.

 

[Arkadrel]

starcraft 2 doesnt require much from a grafics card.... ATI cards have the advantage of MLAA which looks quite good with it though.

You need a really fast cpu for starcraft to see good FPS.... RTS games are like that.

rts = fast cpu
mmo = fast hdd
shoot em up = lots of memory

 

[cusideabelincoln]

If you are building this PC from scratch then the Q8300 is not a good choice; there are better alternatives from both AMD and Intel.

If your friend already has an LGA775 platform and the Q8300 is a drop-in upgrade or he already has it, then it's not that bad and should do the job.

If SCII is his only gaming concern, then the best performance at the price you're targeting is to go for an Intel Core i3. A Core i5 quad core would be even better if it fits in his budget.

The video card is fine.

 

[Emulex]

amd's run hot.

asus essentio c2q8300 pc's cost about $184 used shipped (weird slant case) with video card and win7 license and 1tb drive. great htpc machines if you shoehorn them into a antec microfusion.

 

[Campy]

starcraft 2 doesnt require much from a grafics card.... ATI cards have the advantage of MLAA which looks quite good with it though.

You need a really fast cpu for starcraft to see good FPS.... RTS games are like that.

rts = fast cpu
mmo = fast hdd
shoot em up = lots of memory

^The general advice in this post is really bad, however it is correct that you should have a good cpu for sc2.

A q8300 would certainly do a good job for sc2, especially with overclocking, but there are better options on the market. I don't know whether q8300 would be a bottleneck paired with a gtx460 though.
I guess it depends on what resolution your friend will be gaming at and how good performance he feels he needs etc.
Also if the target res. is 1920x1080 he might want to look at getting a graphics card with 1GB memory.

 

[bubapapua]

Yes, your choice is good enough, Geforce GTX 460 and Intel quadcore q8300 2.5ghz will be able to play Starcraft II with a smooth, even for the max settings. I think the video card plays a very important role when playing a game.

 

[Concillian]

Starcraft II doesn't really make use of quads. It wants really good single core performance, plus at least one more core available.

When you look at CPU charts for Starcraft II, they pretty much threaded efficiency. Unfortunately, the best single threaded CPUs are also more expensive.

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

Note that a basic i3 @ 3.06 performs about on par with an AMD Phenom x4 @ 3.4, and scales well with CPU speed. An i3 Overclocked to ~4.0 GHz is the best CPU choice if you're on a tight budget.

The extra cache and memory controller configuration of the i5 750 at it's stock 2.66 GHz performs puts it in quite a good position, and when overclocked, you can see why this CPU was a popular option among gamers.

Even with that the case, I'd caution against buying the i5 right now. The sandy bridge CPUs are out, but the mobo issues are holding them back. the sandy bridge i3s aren't really an optioon, as you can't OC them and they have no turbo mode. But the i5 2400 is fast out of the box, with 3.1 GHz / 3.4 Turbo and faster per clock than the i5 750 / 760. Even stock a 2400 is about the speed of an overclocked i5 750, but consumes less power and it's about the same total price with motherboard and CPU prices near identical to the i5-760.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3871/the-sandy-bridge-preview-three-wins-in-a-row/11
has Starcraft II and WoW benchmarks for these CPUs (the i7 8xx is essentially the same CPU as the 7xx, consider it slightly overclocked. It enables hyperthreading as well, but that feature is worth nothing to these particular games.)

I have an i3 540 overclocked to slightly over 4.0GHz. Not a quad, but more games prefer a fast dual to a slower quad, though there are a few exceptions.

 

[jiffylube1024]

The GTX 460 768MB is great - I had one and ran everything on Ultra at 1920x1200 (no AA), though I was using a Core i5 750.

 

[sanzen07]

It'll be fine. I run it at 1920x1080 @ Ultra fine on my aging rig (in sig). It's only a dual core and everything is stock speed.

 

[Valhalla1]

awesome, thanks for the suggestions. We went with the Core i3 3.5ghz, same cpu price.

 

[SickBeast]

If all you care about is Starcraft 2, then a previous-gen i3 overclocked to 4.6ghz is your best bet. The problem with that approach is that a Phenom II X4 overclocked to 3.8ghz will destroy the i3 in multi-threaded apps and games.

 

[Valhalla1]

I don't think we are going to overclock anything, not yet anyway. I haven't overclocked anything since my Celeron 300a to 450mhz in 1999. Guess I'm too chicken

also for some reason I've been avoiding AMD cpu's since my dual thunderbird machine from several years ago and just prefer Intel and nVidia chips. Had issues with some applications I wrote not running correctly for unknown reasons on AMD cpus - but thats another story.

thanks for the help, the motherboard for the i3 was a little bit pricier but with the faster ram and everything this should hopefully work well for my gamer buddy

 

[nyker96]

SC2 is more cpu bound, your graphics card will do fine, it's not really very graphics intensive. You do need to OC your cpu to say 3+ to make it run SC2 well.

 

[dust]

^The general advice in this post is really bad, however it is correct that you should have a good cpu for sc2.

A q8300 would certainly do a good job for sc2, especially with overclocking, but there are better options on the market. I don't know whether q8300 would be a bottleneck paired with a gtx460 though.
I guess it depends on what resolution your friend will be gaming at and how good performance he feels he needs etc.
Also if the target res. is 1920x1080 he might want to look at getting a graphics card with 1GB memory.

I'm fine at the same res with 4870x 512mb, everything on ultra. There are other issues, like I don't win all the time ;P

 

[soccerballtux]

SC2 is horribly coded in the CPU department, even 4.5ghz Core I7's aren't good enough for it.