Need help on my budget build - Page 3

@Name of desire
If you're considering a 570, you have the budget for a real computer without buying some crap one and upgrading on bad components. It's a particularly bad idea to go the AMD route on a motherboard that will probably not allow for much overclocking.

As for SC2 on the laptop in particular, the problem is probably not related to graphics at all. Most likely, your processor isn't up to snuff, or something has changed. For laptops, this is often some a power saving feature being turned on. Power saving features throttle processor speed, the key resource needed by SC2. So look around to see if you've put that setting on or it got tripped somehow. Might clear up your problems.

Quick guide on how to tell if your slowdown problems in SC2 are related to CPU speed: does the game play fine in the beginning, nice and smooth, but as soon as you get to late game and the big battles in particular everything slows to a crawl or even locks up? Textbook CPU problem. The reason being SC2's biggest challenge is calculating all the pathing & AI requirements of the units on the map. So more units = high CPU resources needed. If the problem is graphics related, then the slowdowns will be pretty consistent throughout the game, but that's rare.

With sudden problems in laptops it's almost always a power-saving feature. Though in rare cases there's overheating problems or the player started playing team games regularly instead of single player or 1v1 (more units = more CPU-related slowdows).

As a side note, if SC2 is an important game for you, particularly team games, Intel processors are better than AMD processors (faster per-core).

try a fresh install of the game and if that doesn't do anything try a fresh install of windows. have you updated your bios/drivers?

About the main topic of this forum, to buy a computer pre-built and upgrade it, essentially. I went through the same debate recently and decided to just dive in and build my own system. You can save money and get all high quality parts yourself. You are going to spend a grip buying a mediocre computer for $400 and then put another $400+ in upgrades? I built mine for $700, i have some regrets on parts choices, but that is a part of learning. When it comes to computers i am always learning. I am no expert, but from my recent personal experience, just build yourself a $500 system and then upgrade that system, in doing that it will give you a proper case and MoBo, for starters. Also, if you build your own you do not have to deal with shoddy manufacturer squished together internals. I have seen the inside of my friends HP rig and its a hot mess, just downright scary. In the end you are going to do what your wallet will allow, maybe wait and save until you can do it proper instead of putting together some zombie rig. I just think it will be less of a headache in the long run. Good luck with either decision.

build your pc from scratch at the start, trust me, i did what you are planning to and was kicking myself after realising all the money I had wasted

but there are some good gaming pc's available from hp and dell like hp elite series or dell xps series..? maybe he can get one of these and then upgrade in the future when he feels like he needs more power..? could be a cool idea..

anything a OEM maker can make I can do for the same or less and is better quality