WEBVTT 00:00:00.640 --> 00:00:06.480 Today's episode of my video blog is actually going to be something I've 00:00:04.240 --> 00:00:11.519 never done before. This is a sneak preview of an upcoming NCIX PC 00:00:09.280 --> 00:00:16.720 newsletter. So, our newsletter goes out to all of our subscribers and uh it's an 00:00:14.080 --> 00:00:22.640 official NCIX communication and this particular one is going to be themed 00:00:19.439 --> 00:00:24.960 around uh Starcraft 2 as well as the GTX 00:00:22.640 --> 00:00:32.239 460. So, I've actually got a GTX 460 with me today. This is MSI's GeForce GTX 00:00:28.480 --> 00:00:34.000 460 1 gig cyclone OC card. That means it 00:00:32.239 --> 00:00:38.960 has an aftermarket cooler. It is factory overclocked and it's a 460 with 1 gig of 00:00:36.480 --> 00:00:42.559 video memory. And I just wanted to talk a little bit about Starcraft 2 in 00:00:40.719 --> 00:00:46.399 general. So, this article here, actually, if you're not subscribed to 00:00:43.920 --> 00:00:49.680 the MCX newsletter, and if you're not getting the PC newsletters about once or 00:00:48.320 --> 00:00:56.879 twice a month, you should definitely subscribe. If you go to uh NCIX 00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:58.879 and you go to Wow, it's been so long. Oh 00:00:56.879 --> 00:01:03.039 yeah, newsletters up at the top, then you can actually subscribe to our weekly 00:01:01.359 --> 00:01:06.159 uh weekly specials and all of our other newsletters. So, make sure you do that. 00:01:04.960 --> 00:01:10.400 Anyway, so this is going to be an upcoming PC newsletter. As a bit of a 00:01:08.320 --> 00:01:14.479 joke, we talk about the uh Brood War system specifications required by 00:01:12.320 --> 00:01:19.200 Blizzard versus the Wings of Liberty recommended specs. And uh you know, if 00:01:16.720 --> 00:01:22.240 you're not um if you haven't upgraded your PC since Brood War, you're probably 00:01:21.040 --> 00:01:26.320 going to be looking at a bit of an upgrade here. And we just talk a little 00:01:24.560 --> 00:01:30.560 bit about what the recommended configurations are for Starcraft 2. So 00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:34.720 really, that's the point of this video is what are the recommended 00:01:32.880 --> 00:01:39.600 configurations for Starcraft 2? Well, there's two levels from Blizzard and one 00:01:36.880 --> 00:01:43.280 of them is a fairly basic PC. Basically, the graphics card they recommend is 00:01:41.119 --> 00:01:47.520 about five plus years old, and they're saying that's what it takes to run the 00:01:45.119 --> 00:01:51.840 game. And then they have kind of a recommended level, and we've positioned 00:01:49.759 --> 00:01:55.759 a couple different PCs around their minimum spec as well as their 00:01:53.680 --> 00:01:59.840 recommended spec. But really, if you want to get the most out of it, I turn 00:01:57.600 --> 00:02:04.320 to my friends at Hardware Connects because they did a terrific GPU roundup. 00:02:02.719 --> 00:02:09.520 You can see we've actually featured that here because it is a third party site 00:02:07.520 --> 00:02:14.080 that really just took a whole bunch of cards from ATI as well as NVIDIA, put 00:02:12.480 --> 00:02:17.440 them through the ringer on Starcraft 2, and they came up with a recommendation 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:22.000 that makes a lot of sense and we're seeing echoed all over the place. The 00:02:19.200 --> 00:02:25.920 GeForce GTX 460. It offers the best price to performance balance. It has 00:02:24.400 --> 00:02:29.760 good power consumption. If you get it with a good aftermarket cooler, it's 00:02:27.440 --> 00:02:34.239 going to be very, very quiet. and it just kills in Starcraft 2 because even 00:02:32.560 --> 00:02:38.239 though Starcraft 2 will run on a 5-year-old card, in order to get the 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:42.560 most out of it, play HD resolution, turn up anti-aliasing. You will need a 00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:47.120 GeForce GPU at this time to enable anti-aliasing, by the way, but you're 00:02:45.040 --> 00:02:52.720 going to want a fairly beefy graphics card in order to actually run it at full 00:02:49.680 --> 00:02:55.680 strength. So, here you can see the uh 00:02:52.720 --> 00:03:00.959 Vesta i5 3200 SLI is the recommended config. It has a GTX 460 in it. And then 00:02:59.040 --> 00:03:05.120 if you click here when you get this newsletter, it'll actually take you to 00:03:03.040 --> 00:03:09.200 the Starcraft 2 GPU performance comparison that they do on hardware 00:03:06.640 --> 00:03:14.480 connects. So this uh actually leads us to our recommendation, the GTX 461 gig. 00:03:12.159 --> 00:03:18.159 And and there's another piece of news that's pretty cool is that if you're 00:03:16.400 --> 00:03:21.360 like me and you missed out on the beta, because I would have loved to do some 00:03:19.440 --> 00:03:25.920 testing on Starcraft 2 before release, but I didn't have a chance. Uh if you 00:03:23.440 --> 00:03:30.720 buy a GTX 460 after the Starcraft launch, you actually get a coupon to try 00:03:28.239 --> 00:03:34.560 Starcraft 2 for seven hours uh with multiplayer. So it'll have full support 00:03:32.799 --> 00:03:38.239 for the game for 7 hours. So you can actually find out if you like it, find 00:03:36.400 --> 00:03:42.239 out how well it runs on your new GeForce card, and then buy the game if you're 00:03:40.400 --> 00:03:46.640 not entirely sure. Thanks for checking out my video blog and don't forget to 00:03:43.920 --> 00:03:50.879 subscribe to the NCIX newsletter as well as to my Linus Tech Tips video blog.