What do I need for get locked-in 60fps?

[dizzyorange]

If my goal is vsync'ed 60fps 100% of the time @ 1080p in Starcraft 2 HOTS, what hardware do I need? I'm running 680 SLI but even they can't achieve that. For example in the 3rd (or 4th?) mission where you have 400 zerglings/banelings in the water, it drops to 30fps! My CPU is a 3570 @ 4.4Ghz and the 680s are overclocked about 10%... Do I need SLI Titans? I can't afford them All I want is 60fps @ 1080p, not too much to ask I think. Do AMD cards do better?

 

[Greenlepricon]

Starcraft 2 needs a crazy cpu. Wrong approach with throwing money into the gpu Also the vsync is responsible for the 30fps thing. My guess is you'll have to be happy with the 30fps drops if you want vsync on, or you'll have to OC your cpu a bit more.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Get a 3930k or wait for haswell. Remove MSAA. Use adaptive vsync

 

[dizzyorange]

Starcraft 2 needs a crazy cpu. Wrong approach with throwing money into the gpu Also the vsync is responsible for the 30fps thing. My guess is you'll have to be happy with the 30fps drops if you want vsync on, or you'll have to OC your cpu a bit more.

I turned off vsync and reduced the graphics options described as "CPU dependent" on the tooltips (physics, reflections, etc..) and I'm still getting like 45fps. It's not unplayable, and I don't think I'll ever have 400 units on screen like that in multiplayer, but I just thought that for $950 of GPU I could really get 60fps 100% of the time.

Hmm, my CPU needs 1.28V to run 4.4Ghz stably. I've seen others run faster at much lower voltages, so I think I got a little unlucky in the silicon lottery. I can get it stable at 4.6Ghz @ 1.33V but I've heard it's not good for the voltage to be over 1.3 for a daily overclock.

 

[dizzyorange]

Get a 3930k or wait for haswell. Remove MSAA. Use adaptive vsync

Does the default in-game AA use MSAA? I thought it used FXAA, but I'll give it a try. I can't stand tearing so adaptive vsync is not really an option. I'd rather have 30fps than tearing @ 50fps. The 3930k is 6 cores right? Would SC2 use the additional cores? I've busted my budget on my current system so no upgrades for a year at least. I'll probably wait for the successor to Haswell. Intel CPUs don't seem to get that much faster with each generation (like 10-15%?).

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Has well will help you a lot with min fps. Trust me on this. A stock haswell will be better than 3970k oc for real world smoothness and min fps.

 

[KingFatty]

The 3930k is 6 cores right? Would SC2 use the additional cores?

I think SC2 is still mostly dual-core, so going from 2 core to 4 core, or 2 to 6, won't really help. This was definitely true for the original SC2, but now that the Heart of the Swarm expansion is active, there is a possibility they use more, but nothing I've seen indicates more than 2 cores. In my situation, I saw 2 cores heavily used, then the other cores were doing very little work.

 

[Greenlepricon]

There isn't a lot of indication about the speed of Haswell right now, so don't put all your eggs into one basket just yet. It even seems a little underwhelming without optimized code with what we've seen so far. I think KingFatty is correct that Starcraft isn't multithreaded much at all, but the 3930k has better IPC. I would say it's definitely not worth the cost for what you're going for. I don't even know if it would boost you the 15fps you want.

 

[hyrule4927]

If you're worried that low frame rates are going to hurt you in multiplayer, you probably don't need to stress. I think campaign has some extra eye candy that might bog things down, but even my laptop can run steady 60 FPS when I am playing 1v1 online (with medium settings of course).

 

[Fx1]

Has well will help you a lot with min fps. Trust me on this. A stock haswell will be better than 3970k oc for real world smoothness and min fps.

Stock Haswell will be better than an OC 3930k?

LOL please explain this nugget.

 

[Jacky60]

Has well will help you a lot with min fps. Trust me on this. A stock haswell will be better than 3970k oc for real world smoothness and min fps.

Well either you know far more than you're letting on or you're talking out of your a**e. I vote for the latter, stock Haswell (which will be 4 cores) better-smoother, better minimums than overclocked 3930k -trust you on this?