Upgrading Computer for Starcraft II and future releases

Okay, I know I'm being ridiculous, but I am a graphics nut.
At the moment, I am only running Starcraft II on high, but I really want to get everything I can out of my system. Furthermore, the upgrade will prepare me for future games.
Problem is, I don't have a damn clue what hardware to get (putting it together is the easy part)
Any advice for this would be greatly appreciated! Here's where my rig is at at the moment:

• ANTEC Nine Hundred Gaming Case
• ASUS P5N-D ( NVIDIA 750i SLI - Socket 775 - FSb 1333 ) 2 x PCIe
• INTEL Core 2 Duo 3.16GHz E8500 + Ventilateur [ LGA775 - 6MB - 45nm - 1333MHz]
• Two sticks of DDR2 2GB [1GBx2] DDR800 (PC2-6400) - CORSAIR TwinX (so 4GB total)
• 500W OCZ Technology StealthXStream Power Supply
• First RAID is two of: SATA300 80GB - 7200 SEAGATE Barracuda 7200.10 (8 MBytes)
• Second RAID is two of SATA300 1.0To (1000GB) - 7200 SEAGATE Barracuda 7200.11 (32 MBytes)
• EVGA GeForce 9800GTX+ PCIe ( GeForce 9800GTX+ 512MB 2xDVI )

And just an aside if anyone feels like a game of Starcraft, you can find me on Battle.net as Inveigler.

 

First off, if you're not happy with some of your stuff then just send it my way, they will come in handy ;-)

It seems SC2 is more dependant on the CPU than the GPU. So your graphics card is probably ok but the CPU could need an upgrade. Maybe go for a quad core. It take a lot of CPU power to render big battles in high graphic mode (hell my comp struggles on the lowest settings).
Here's a good article that examines this problem:
http://www.techspot.com/review/305-starcraft2-performance/page14.html

 

I upgraded my computer with these parts. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.445430 it runs sc2 like a charm on the highest settings.

 

Unfortunately the tech spot website doesn't seem to work. Bad Gateway error.
Hah, it's been over a year and a half since I built this thing, I think the hardware's a little old for the times.

So basically it seems I'm lacking a solid 1gig video card, a quadcore processor and I need a new motherboard...for some reason...(motherboards confuse me).
My biggest focus is something that's going to last at least for a while. I don't mind being slightly behind the curve, just so long as it can perform and computer is starting to strain a little for some games.

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll see what I can come up with.

 

The link I gave you has the mobo, 1g card, and quad core cpu. It's a $400 dollars combo, and worth every penny.

CPU= AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor
Mobo=ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard
Graphics card=SAPPHIRE 100283-3L Radeon HD 5770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP

 

Problem is, I live in Switzerland and I need to find the same thing. Prices are slightly different as well.
Does it matter if the card isn't made by Sapphire? can only find the XFX, ASUS, CLUB, GIGABYTE, etc. (aren't they all the same damn card???) I'm a dolt, I know.
http://prodimex.ch/pSearch.aspx?SEARCH=Radeon+HD+5770

Seem to have found the MoBo and Processor.
Thanks for the help. This might work out quite well.

 

I believe they would all run the same, but I would pick XFX out of them all since most of their cards run very well.

 

Thanks for that. I'll check it out.

 

Honestly, upgrading your computer makes no sense. Your Core2Duo is fast enough. It might help to buy a better graphics card, but you 9800GTX+ is still pretty good. Maybe you could buy a GTX 460 or a Radeon HD 5870, but I doubt it is worth the costs.

However, there actually is a problem with your PC: There are no recent quad core CPUs for your Socket 775 system available, and there won't be any new ones in the future. So an upgrade to Socket 1156, 1366 or to an AMD-based AM3 platform is inevitable in the future.

(If you live in Switzerland I suggest buying your components in Germany, since they are cheaper here.)

 

Ahh, so a motherboard upgrade in inevitable. Very good point.

I'm not upgrading just for Starcraft, but for everything else as well. I'm noticing that my computer just doesn't seem to be performing as well as it used to, not handling them as well. I'm a nut for the Total War series and they tax my PC a lot.

So at the very least, I need to look at a MoBo with a socket 1156...the rest can all kind of wait for a little while. Doesn't look like this M4A79XTD EVO has a 1156 socket though.

Where do you get your hardware in Germany?

 

Yeah, a socket 1156 system with a nice Core i5 quad core CPU is a really good choice.
The alternative would be an AM3 mainboard and a Phenom II X4 quad core AMD processor.

CPU: Core i5 2.66 GHz ~175€ (or AMD Phenom II X4 945 with 3.00 GHz ~135€)
Board: Asus, MSI or Gigabyte for ~100€
You will also need new DDR3 RAM, 4 GB at ~80€
As for the graphics card: The Radeon HD 5770 is just fine and costs only about 140€.
I guess you will also need a new power supply unit. Enermax or Seasonic are fine. 500 Watt is the most you will ever need. ~70€

This hardware would enable you to run SC2 smoothly at Ultra settings, and will be quite sufficient for future games. Maybe you will want a better graphics card in ~18 months though.

Good shops in Germany are e.g. Hardwareversand.de or Mindfactory.de

 

+1 on the i5-750/760. Although if I were you, I'd wait to see how Sandy Bridge performs. Your PC is still pretty good and you could easily make do with a graphics card upgrade for now. My vote's actually on the GTX 460 1GB (US $230-250, not sure how much it'll cost where you live).