Quick and Dirty Question

[JJChicken]

The only PC game I want to play is Starcraft 2. I am buying a 24" 1900x1080 monitor tomorrow so ideally, SC2 should run reasonably well on this monitor. I will also use my old monitor (VGA) as a dual-screen so I can IM/select music/browse net while playing SC2.

I currently have a 8500GT graphics card. Is this enough?

If I have to upgrade, what would be the cheapest (or best) option out of the below list:

(note prices in AUD not USD)

1G GT220 ECS/MSI /Inno3D/Gainward/Gigabyte/ASUS: 69/69/74/74/84/86
1GB GT 240 Inno3D / Gainward / MSI / Gigabyte / Asus: 99/99/99/105/118
1GB 9800GT ECS/Inno3D/Gainward/Gigabyte/Asus: 111/123/123/149/149
1GB 5450 MSI / HIS-OC / Gigabyte / ASUS: 68 / 74 / 74 / 80
1GB 5570 HIS / Gigabyte: 99 / 105
1GB 5670 MSI / Gigabyte / ASUS: 115 / 127 / 147

Remember my computer is about 2 years old (and was just a reasonable purchase then - not hi-end) so the card needs to be compatible with my system.

I'm going to the computer store tomorrow, so any help by then would be much appreciated.

Extra brownie points for choosing ASUS cards cause I am an ASUS Fanboy

 

[1h4x4s3x]

I haven't seen any benchmarks except for this one.

http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/starcraft_ii_wings_of_liberty_beta_performance,4.html

Note that AA as well as AF is disabled.. If you want to be on the safe side get a 5850. If you don't want to spend so much a 5770 should do but probably without additional eye candy.
The cards you listed are rather weak.

Also, how does your system look like? CPU, Mobo, PSU etc?

 

[crazylegs]

Can your buget reach to a GTS 250, or a 5750/5770?

No idea on the AUD prices, but they are considered some of the best mid-range buys atm

Sure your system will not hold them back, as unless its very underpowered the main consideration for gaming is *generally* the GPX card. Having said that i'm not sure about how SC2 runs and how CPU/GPU dependent it is, but either one of those cards should allow you to crank up the eye candy nicely

 

[crazylegs]

I haven't seen any benchmarks except for this one.

http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/starcraft_ii_wings_of_liberty_beta_performance,4.html

Note that AA as well as AF is disabled.. If you want to be on the safe side get a 5850. If you don't want to spend so much a 5770 should do but probably without additional eye candy.
The cards you listed are rather weak.

Also, how does your system look like? CPU, Mobo, PSU etc?

Nice benchmark. The OP is going to be playing at a slightly lower res and those. Admittedly the rest of their system would have been faster than the OP's but i'd take anythign with min rates above 40 as being 'playable'

OP does not seem like he has the budget to spend on a 5850, think he will be more than happy with 40+ FPS min.

I would reccommend spednign a couple more $$ and getting something equivalent to a GTS 250 or HD 5750/5770, perhaps wait till SC2 is actually released and keep an eye out for special offers in the time being. Also... you could possibly sell your current GPX card for a few $$ and put that towards the cost of a new card.

Good Luck.

 

[1h4x4s3x]

As you can see in my link, the game scales pretty well with CPUs, thus it's important to know how the rest of his system looks like. If he's running on a slow duo core a 5770 might not be enough to crank that shit up.
If that's the case though, you may want to do a complete upgrade.

 

[JJChicken]

Thank you both very much, this was useful. I was hoping to get by with my current set-up as Blizzard normally have very lenient system requirements. Looks like the higher resolution on the 24" is going to be the issue here.

For what its worth, the prices for the cards you listed crazylegs are

1GB GTS 250 Inno3D / Gainward / Gigabyte / Asus 138 /138 /155 /156
1GB 5750 Powercolor/HIS/MSI/Gigabyte/ASUS 148/149/155/163/172

I guess I'll just save up and possibly buy a 5750 later in the year.

The rest of my system isn't that good. I've got a entry level Core 2 Duo from two years ago (which works great with everything thus far). 2 gbs of RAM.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Go for the Powercolor 5750. Tiny, cool, low energy requirements and very competitive with the 4850/250.

Oh yeah and with a SN like that you better stay the hell away from the Politics and News forum, those guys are f'ing crazy in there.

 

[crazylegs]

A C2D and 2GB of RAM will be fine for any of the cards mentioned so far.

Only need a REALLY fast CPU for some of the most demanding games (also some where Quads are starting to excel) and if you want to feed a very powerfull card i.e. 5850+ or NV equivalent.

That beign said, i'm sure with your current system u'll notice a massive gain moving to a 5750/5770 or equivalent