Cpu for Starcraft 2

[tp4tissue]

5ghz 2500k here

I skipped ivy

Now Haswell,  Does anyone know if any of the CPU benchmarks mean increased performance in Starcraft 2 ?

Quite confident I can take Haswell to 5ghz with delid, so it will be clock for clock.

[WhiteFireDragon]

If you already have SB, no need to "upgrade" to Haswell. It definitely doesn't look good so far, but it's still only the first day it's been out. Even if future batches are better OC'ers, they won't be by much. And if you do decide to upgrade, you're looking at getting a whole new mobo too, not just the CPU like going from SB to IB. Definitely not worth it for marginal gains.

[baldgye]

How much more performance do you need? Can't you already run it maxed out at 60+fps?

[ApocalypseMaow]

Like WFD said. The gains from Haswell aren't big enough to justify a new MB and CPU. 

[tp4tissue]

How much more performance do you need? Can't you already run it maxed out at 60+fps?

I play with absolute minimum settings, disabled shadows, disabled most lighting, everything in graphics ini tweaked that doesn't crash the game.

My game more/less looks like starcraft 1,  so it's all down to cpu speed.


Experts say you also do not want to limit fps in anyway including vsync, because it introduces input lag.

most small battles are @ 300fps

very very big battles will still drop to 50-70, because of the CPU limit,  because starcraft 2 engineers don't give a ****.

so even then I want every frame I could get..

Seems like haswell will cost ~ $600 cpu/mobo/ram

[vun]

Experts say you also do not want to limit fps in anyway including vsync, because it introduces input lag.

In my experience this is only really happens when you turn vsync on, and for the most part the only real cases of note have been poor console-to-PC ports.
I limit my fps in the various CS games since I don't need my card doing 300+ fps when I only have a 60hz monitor, and I haven't noticed any kind of input lag by using the fps_max command.

Also, SC2 is not so much about precision that you need to freak out over it like they do in FPS games; one of the preferred mice among Koreans is the G9x with it's off-center laser sensor, and IdrA favoured the Kinzu which was all kinds of terrible. TLO I believe uses a cheap-ass generic mouse, or maybe that was WhiteRa. Either way, there is no way a marginal increase in precision from something like better equipment or a placebo-like removal of input lag is going to make up for poor decision making and strategy. This is also fairly valid for other games, not just SC2;
until you reach the higher levels of play(international tournaments etc) you will benefit next-to-nothing from better gear compared to simply getting better at the actual game, decision making etc.

So yeah, more FPS won't hurt, but spending $600 on it won't make you $600 better, more like $6 better. Just not worth it.

[tp4tissue]

Experts say you also do not want to limit fps in anyway including vsync, because it introduces input lag.

In my experience this is only really happens when you turn vsync on, and for the most part the only real cases of note have been poor console-to-PC ports.
I limit my fps in the various CS games since I don't need my card doing 300+ fps when I only have a 60hz monitor, and I haven't noticed any kind of input lag by using the fps_max command.

Also, SC2 is not so much about precision that you need to freak out over it like they do in FPS games; one of the preferred mice among Koreans is the G9x with it's off-center laser sensor, and IdrA favoured the Kinzu which was all kinds of terrible. TLO I believe uses a cheap-ass generic mouse, or maybe that was WhiteRa. Either way, there is no way a marginal increase in precision from something like better equipment or a placebo-like removal of input lag is going to make up for poor decision making and strategy. This is also fairly valid for other games, not just SC2;
until you reach the higher levels of play(international tournaments etc) you will benefit next-to-nothing from better gear compared to simply getting better at the actual game, decision making etc.

So yeah, more FPS won't hurt, but spending $600 on it won't make you $600 better, more like $6 better. Just not worth it.

Now, I am sad 

[ApocalypseMaow]

Experts say you also do not want to limit fps in anyway including vsync, because it introduces input lag.

In my experience this is only really happens when you turn vsync on, and for the most part the only real cases of note have been poor console-to-PC ports.
I limit my fps in the various CS games since I don't need my card doing 300+ fps when I only have a 60hz monitor, and I haven't noticed any kind of input lag by using the fps_max command.

Also, SC2 is not so much about precision that you need to freak out over it like they do in FPS games; one of the preferred mice among Koreans is the G9x with it's off-center laser sensor, and IdrA favoured the Kinzu which was all kinds of terrible. TLO I believe uses a cheap-ass generic mouse, or maybe that was WhiteRa. Either way, there is no way a marginal increase in precision from something like better equipment or a placebo-like removal of input lag is going to make up for poor decision making and strategy. This is also fairly valid for other games, not just SC2;
until you reach the higher levels of play(international tournaments etc) you will benefit next-to-nothing from better gear compared to simply getting better at the actual game, decision making etc.

So yeah, more FPS won't hurt, but spending $600 on it won't make you $600 better, more like $6 better. Just not worth it.

Now, I am sad 

So you're just looking for a reason to buy Haswell... 

[tp4tissue]

Experts say you also do not want to limit fps in anyway including vsync, because it introduces input lag.

In my experience this is only really happens when you turn vsync on, and for the most part the only real cases of note have been poor console-to-PC ports.
I limit my fps in the various CS games since I don't need my card doing 300+ fps when I only have a 60hz monitor, and I haven't noticed any kind of input lag by using the fps_max command.

Also, SC2 is not so much about precision that you need to freak out over it like they do in FPS games; one of the preferred mice among Koreans is the G9x with it's off-center laser sensor, and IdrA favoured the Kinzu which was all kinds of terrible. TLO I believe uses a cheap-ass generic mouse, or maybe that was WhiteRa. Either way, there is no way a marginal increase in precision from something like better equipment or a placebo-like removal of input lag is going to make up for poor decision making and strategy. This is also fairly valid for other games, not just SC2;
until you reach the higher levels of play(international tournaments etc) you will benefit next-to-nothing from better gear compared to simply getting better at the actual game, decision making etc.

So yeah, more FPS won't hurt, but spending $600 on it won't make you $600 better, more like $6 better. Just not worth it.

Now, I am sad 

So you're just looking for a reason to buy Haswell... 

I plead the 5th

[baldgye]

Experts say you also do not want to limit fps in anyway including vsync, because it introduces input lag.

In my experience this is only really happens when you turn vsync on, and for the most part the only real cases of note have been poor console-to-PC ports.
I limit my fps in the various CS games since I don't need my card doing 300+ fps when I only have a 60hz monitor, and I haven't noticed any kind of input lag by using the fps_max command.

Also, SC2 is not so much about precision that you need to freak out over it like they do in FPS games; one of the preferred mice among Koreans is the G9x with it's off-center laser sensor, and IdrA favoured the Kinzu which was all kinds of terrible. TLO I believe uses a cheap-ass generic mouse, or maybe that was WhiteRa. Either way, there is no way a marginal increase in precision from something like better equipment or a placebo-like removal of input lag is going to make up for poor decision making and strategy. This is also fairly valid for other games, not just SC2;
until you reach the higher levels of play(international tournaments etc) you will benefit next-to-nothing from better gear compared to simply getting better at the actual game, decision making etc.

So yeah, more FPS won't hurt, but spending $600 on it won't make you $600 better, more like $6 better. Just not worth it.

Well said

[tp4tissue]

Experts say you also do not want to limit fps in anyway including vsync, because it introduces input lag.

In my experience this is only really happens when you turn vsync on, and for the most part the only real cases of note have been poor console-to-PC ports.
I limit my fps in the various CS games since I don't need my card doing 300+ fps when I only have a 60hz monitor, and I haven't noticed any kind of input lag by using the fps_max command.

Also, SC2 is not so much about precision that you need to freak out over it like they do in FPS games; one of the preferred mice among Koreans is the G9x with it's off-center laser sensor, and IdrA favoured the Kinzu which was all kinds of terrible. TLO I believe uses a cheap-ass generic mouse, or maybe that was WhiteRa. Either way, there is no way a marginal increase in precision from something like better equipment or a placebo-like removal of input lag is going to make up for poor decision making and strategy. This is also fairly valid for other games, not just SC2;
until you reach the higher levels of play(international tournaments etc) you will benefit next-to-nothing from better gear compared to simply getting better at the actual game, decision making etc.

So yeah, more FPS won't hurt, but spending $600 on it won't make you $600 better, more like $6 better. Just not worth it.

Well said

Here's my current CRAZY reasoning that's running through my mind..


I can't really "practice more"  I don't have the time..

I can spend this $600...  even for $6 +starcraft power 


my god, is this a shopping addiction like clothes for women?

OMG, this totally is... women can't really get prettier, but they buy expensive cloths, even thought it at best only makes them $6 dollars prettier for $600 investment..

****.. well... ok.... so given that..... more sad   

[baldgye]

lulz, I wish it worked like that LOL

[tp4tissue]

lulz, I wish it worked like that LOL

Everything I read about haswell yesterday and today/  Good or bad, says "buy buy buy" in cramer's voice

[WhiteFireDragon]

vun said it well. If you're at the grand masters level of play, it might affect your game play. At anyone other level, you hit skill limitation much quicker than hardware limitation that affects game play. This reminds me of bronze players *****in about race imbalance, and think they lose a game because of the race. Pretty ridiculous.

C'mon tp4, I expected you to be in-the-know about these kind of tech stuff.

[Leslieann]

Haswell is just Intel's way of staying that much further ahead of AMD, who is about 3 or 4 generations behind. Thing is, the newer AMD systems are plenty powerful for pretty much anything as it is, so anything more is just the cherry on top.

Only way I'm going Haswell is if a customer makes an offer on my current (SB) system, then I can upgrade for pretty much nothing.

[tp4tissue]

vun said it well. If you're at the grand masters level of play, it might affect your game play. At anyone other level, you hit skill limitation much quicker than hardware limitation that affects game play. This reminds me of bronze players *****in about race imbalance, and think they lose a game because of the race. Pretty ridiculous.

C'mon tp4, I expected you to be in-the-know about these kind of tech stuff.

I am not blind to the stuff you guys are saying... I think I have enough to ward off my tech shopping binge for now.. Haswell is shiny though, And I didn't get to do the whole delid thing on Ivybridge... "which i consider -looks like fun-"

Anyway thanks...sigh....

[vun]

Just keep thinking, you'll probably find a decent excuse to buy it soon.
I know the feeling all too well.... Usually I just got "**** this, I don't have to answer to anyone else so might as well get it", but that's usually not with something expensive.

I've got a friend who tends to get me to tell him it's OK to buy something, usually a new gfx card or something, just so he knows he can buy it and not feel all that guilty about it.

[tp4tissue]

Just keep thinking, you'll probably find a decent excuse to buy it soon.
I know the feeling all too well.... Usually I just got "**** this, I don't have to answer to anyone else so might as well get it", but that's usually not with something expensive.

I've got a friend who tends to get me to tell him it's OK to buy something, usually a new gfx card or something, just so he knows he can buy it and not feel all that guilty about it.

Will you be my "that-guy"


jkjk, I think I've decided to get haswell, I'm just going to wait for the sale on BF, because I know there's gonna be one.. And if there isn't I might just buy Ivybridge if they have a sale on that..

I wouldn't be able to resist a sale on EITHER, at this point.

[sleepy916]

I used to play SC2 om my Thinkpad T61p with a Core2Duo. Mind you everything was pretty much on low but it played well enough where it didn't affect the game, only my terrible skills did.

[ApocalypseMaow]

I found a reason to join the Haswell club... ROG Itx. It has a built in supreme fx card. ugh.

[WhiteFireDragon]

supreme FX? Are you sure it's not just a glorified onboard chip that's just on an extension board since they were not fit in such a small form factor? I haven't been following a lot of recent motherboards, but Asus and Gigabyte has been putting sound chips on extension since the s775 days, especially on their RoG series. They were not true discrete sound cards, but rather just an extension of the motherboard.

[tp4tissue]

I found a reason to join the Haswell club... ROG Itx. It has a built in supreme fx card. ugh.

LOL,

I agree supreme FX is Very good, even fantastic for motherboard sound..  Buhhhh''' any used budget receiver would sound better

[tp4tissue]

supreme FX? Are you sure it's not just a glorified onboard chip that's just on an extension board since they were not fit in such a small form factor? I haven't been following a lot of recent motherboards, but Asus and Gigabyte has been putting sound chips on extension since the s775 days, especially on their RoG series. They were not true discrete sound cards, but rather just an extension of the motherboard.

The supreme FX is Very close to true HiFi..

Though, it's still plagued by noise, circuit crosstalk if you're running the gpu/cpu at high loads..

On the ATX version, they even used some wimas, so we know it's the real deal.

Not so on the itx version though.

[ApocalypseMaow]

It's better than on board, but I will wait till head-fi dudes get a hold of it. They will get it lined out in layman's terms for folks like me. If it is just glorified on board, I will look into the creative 5.1 usb setup. Either way it's hard not to want all the shinny new stuff.

[tp4tissue]

It's better than on board, but I will wait till head-fi dudes get a hold of it. They will get it lined out in layman's terms for folks like me. If it is just glorified on board, I will look into the creative 5.1 usb setup. Either way it's hard not to want all the shinny new stuff.

Sound will always be iffy if it's so close to the rest of the box..

Digital out + external isolated DAC + amp will always give you better sound..

In that way, Supreme fx is glorified onboard, , but compared to onboard vanilla, it's as close to Hifi as you're ever going to get.

[ApocalypseMaow]

^tru dat!

[Leslieann]

Just a minor thing to nite...
Early users of Haswell are saying that the processors Intel handed out for early testing and benchmarks are different than the production processors. Not only are they not overclocking what was expected, but the processors are running EXTREMELY ho. Even mild overclocking seems to be triggering thermal throttling.

From Bit-Tech:
"while we were able to get our chip up to 4.7GHz it wasn't without difficulty: despite using a Corsair H100i sealed-loop cooler, the temperature of the chip hit a whopping 98 degrees Celsius - giving us cause to question just how far a Haswell chip can be pushed for long-term use. "

[linziyi]

I don't think Starcraft 2 is very CPU dependent. If you want to increase the performance of the game you better buy a graphic card, that's WAAAYYYYY better than spending $600 on mobo+cpu.

[tp4tissue]

Just a minor thing to nite...
Early users of Haswell are saying that the processors Intel handed out for early testing and benchmarks are different than the production processors. Not only are they not overclocking what was expected, but the processors are running EXTREMELY ho. Even mild overclocking seems to be triggering thermal throttling.

From Bit-Tech:
"while we were able to get our chip up to 4.7GHz it wasn't without difficulty: despite using a Corsair H100i sealed-loop cooler, the temperature of the chip hit a whopping 98 degrees Celsius - giving us cause to question just how far a Haswell chip can be pushed for long-term use. "

did they delid?  I've read the lid temperature is identical to ivy, which makes sense since they're still using non-solder

[tp4tissue]

I don't think Starcraft 2 is very CPU dependent. If you want to increase the performance of the game you better buy a graphic card, that's WAAAYYYYY better than spending $600 on mobo+cpu.

I take the game seriously, so i play at minimum graphics settings

[linziyi]

I don't think Starcraft 2 is very CPU dependent. If you want to increase the performance of the game you better buy a graphic card, that's WAAAYYYYY better than spending $600 on mobo+cpu.

I take the game seriously, so i play at minimum graphics settings

Then it's even less dependent on CPU :S

[tp4tissue]

I don't think Starcraft 2 is very CPU dependent. If you want to increase the performance of the game you better buy a graphic card, that's WAAAYYYYY better than spending $600 on mobo+cpu.

I take the game seriously, so i play at minimum graphics settings

Then it's even less dependent on CPU :S

ah, LZY, i'm not trying to sound douche-y, but SC2 minimum frames/sec scales linearly with cpu frequency.  large battles drop down to 50fps due to cpu limitation 5ghz.   with 3.3ghz or 3.6 turbo, you're looking at 36 fps in large battles, which is very hard to micro with.

[linziyi]

So that implies that if somehow you manage to force sc2 to use more than one core in the CPU the problem is solved (with a mere 2 GHz quad core we are looking at 80fps). But I am not pro so I have no say in this

Anyway if you want to buy something you don't really need a logical reason --- I always wanted a dual CPU mobo and two 8 core CPUs, but I can't really find any practical uses for it, the physics and math I am doing now is not complicated enough for it, that's why I study math and physics --- to use a fast computer lol.

[Leslieann]

did they delid?  I've read the lid temperature is identical to ivy, which makes sense since they're still using non-solder

You shouldn't have to delid to keep your processor cool.

Regardless, 100c on a dual 240mm water cooler? Not exactly a model of efficiency.

[tp4tissue]

did they delid?  I've read the lid temperature is identical to ivy, which makes sense since they're still using non-solder

You shouldn't have to delid to keep your processor cool.

Regardless, 100c on a dual 240mm water cooler? Not exactly a model of efficiency.

Not really, that's probably worst case, IBT or some other linpack

Ivybridge did the exact same thing though, so IDK what people were expecting

[linziyi]

Let me know if you are selling your old spec  , wanted to upgrade my stuff a little

[noisyturtle]

IBM chipset upgrades at this point in time are too little gain for too much money. Even very little performance gain going from a i5 2500k to an i7 3770k. It's sad how pointless it is, better to just get a new GPU.

[tp4tissue]

Let me know if you are selling your old spec  , wanted to upgrade my stuff a little

I am not selling my sandybridge, but I'd caution you about knowingly purchasing overvolted chips

[Leslieann]

Ivybridge did the exact same thing though, so IDK what people were expecting

I think they expected better.

Doesn't matter to me, I'm quite happy with my 2600K.

[tricheboars]

i play starcraft with an i7-3770k and a EVGA GTX 680. both are liquid cooled and operate perfectly.

i max out my graphics/performance and still be AI on elite every time.

tp4tissue unless you are GM bracket turn up the graphics. this is a pretty game!

also save yourself 600 bucks and buy a GPU instead of a new CPU.

[tp4tissue]

i play starcraft with an i7-3770k and a EVGA GTX 680. both are liquid cooled and operate perfectly.

i max out my graphics/performance and still be AI on elite every time.

tp4tissue unless you are GM bracket turn up the graphics. this is a pretty game!

also save yourself 600 bucks and buy a GPU instead of a new CPU.

but, i'm reading 15%-20% improvements for Sc2 on the german sites..

[tricheboars]

i play starcraft with an i7-3770k and a EVGA GTX 680. both are liquid cooled and operate perfectly.

i max out my graphics/performance and still be AI on elite every time.

tp4tissue unless you are GM bracket turn up the graphics. this is a pretty game!

also save yourself 600 bucks and buy a GPU instead of a new CPU.

but, i'm reading 15%-20% improvements for Sc2 on the german sites..

I am thinking you are looking too much into this. It's like increasing the polling rate on  a keyboard. All that matters is my ping. My system runs butter smooth yo.

[tp4tissue]

i play starcraft with an i7-3770k and a EVGA GTX 680. both are liquid cooled and operate perfectly.

i max out my graphics/performance and still be AI on elite every time.

tp4tissue unless you are GM bracket turn up the graphics. this is a pretty game!

also save yourself 600 bucks and buy a GPU instead of a new CPU.

but, i'm reading 15%-20% improvements for Sc2 on the german sites..

I am thinking you are looking too much into this. It's like increasing the polling rate on  a keyboard. All that matters is my ping. My system runs butter smooth yo.

100fps and above is very smooth for heavy micro,  but sc2 I see as low as 50 due to cpu limit, this is when things get a bit harder for me..

[Moosecraft]

Well I use an I5-3570k  and I don't feel like I drop alot of frames in big battles.

[tp4tissue]

Well I use an I5-3570k  and I don't feel like I drop alot of frames in big battles.

well, if you're playing with the graphics up, you may indeed not feel much of a change in frame rate, because you'd be going from say frame capped 60 down to 55.

But if you're playing frames unlocked, then usually it's like 300+ to 55,  that you can feel..

[y0fate]

Your 2500k is fine. It's not worth it to spend $500+ on a motherboard and CPU, and not to mention the hassle of swapping motherboards without getting a new harddrive...

[tgujay]

I don't think you understand PC performance very well...

[tricheboars]

I don't think you understand PC performance very well...

who are you talking to?

[IPT]

what would be a better investment is to get Blizzard to optimize the damn game for more than 1.5 cores.

[tp4tissue]

what would be a better investment is to get Blizzard to optimize the damn game for more than 1.5 cores.

and how would we do that?

starcraft 2 sells cpus.. lots and lots of cpus to people like me..