I currently have a i5 4590 in my gaming rig, and I’m thinking about upgrading it to something stronger. I know GW2 doesn’t use a CPU’s entire potential, so I want a beefed up CPU that will give me the highest upkeep of FPS. I’m tired of turning my camera and experiencing FPS stutter because the cpu isn’t being fully utilized.
You’ll find even on a beast system that GW2 has issues with FPS stability.
Your GPU is fine.
I have a i5 3570K, GTX 760 & 16GB RAM@1600MHz and this seems to run the game excellently – and on par with my friends with much higher spec systems. Even when the i5 was at stock clock freqs. The client holds itself back.
Intel CPU for sure. Sorry AMD but your per core performance is inferior to Intel’s core by a wide margin. Maybe the new Zen architecture will make brand of CPU a coin flip again.
Hmm, I would recommend you to take a look at the technical issues part of the forums, there’s many threads regarding CPU, as of what I have read regarding your question … Intel is better than AMD as for what running the game matters. Another thing is that the bottom neck is not the CPU, the CPU usage is rather low in general except on big zergs. GPU seems to plays a bigger role in fps but every machine is different so who knows.
Suddenly in the Forums Everyone is now a Game designer!
Hmm, I would recommend you to take a look at the technical issues part of the forums, there’s many threads regarding CPU, as of what I have read regarding your question … Intel is better than AMD as for what running the game matters. Another thing is that the bottom neck is not the CPU, the CPU usage is rather low in general except on big zergs. GPU seems to plays a bigger role in fps but every machine is different so who knows.
Suddenly in the Forums Everyone is now a Game designer!
i5 4690K – 8Gb@2133, running win 7 Ult. on SSD 512 Gb , MSI Gtx 970 4G
Triple screen setup @6160x1080 : average 52 Fps , 25 Fps on WB’s (no stutter)
I’d say it’s not your cpu, it’s your GPU. And even then it ‘might’ get laggy on big events like WB’s. Side note : using 64 bit client improved a LOT, no more random crashes.
Yay for the client dev’s !
I have a 980 ti. The only upgrade would be the titan, but that’s too expensive xD
Task Manager says GW2 uses roughly 50-55% of my CPU. Even when playing games like TW3 I feel like I get much less FPS compared to people w better CPU’s
You’ll find even on a beast system that GW2 has issues with FPS stability.
^this. No need for a titan on a game that’s over 3y old. It’s not your Gpu (980ti) nor your cpu. It’s the game. They even have to remove the mini’s when there’s to many ppl around…. Either it’s not optimized properly or the game engine can’t handle the load.
I can run even the most demanding games on my setup, but GW2 drops fps like a nutter when ppl happen to be around. (Like Frozen Maw….just horrendous.)
Nobody knows for sure but when it comes to performance per dollar
I think Skylake wins by a long shot doesn’t matter if you go i5 or i7
Make sure you get ddr4 ram with fast timings.
Nobody knows for sure but when it comes to performance per dollar
I think Skylake wins by a long shot doesn’t matter if you go i5 or i7
Make sure you get ddr4 ram with fast timings.
Nobody knows for sure but when it comes to performance per dollar
I think Skylake wins by a long shot doesn’t matter if you go i5 or i7
Make sure you get ddr4 ram with fast timings.
Please I said THINK i haven’t bothered doing any scientific analysis.
Its still not a bad choice. I’m using lga 1366 and it works flawless for my 60hz monitor.
Skylake is Intel’s 6th gen right? DDR4 is new too right?
I’m not sure if both are compatible with the Z97 I have
Skylake will require a new CPU, new Motherboard, and new RAM.
the fastest CPU you can get (IF you are going to overclock) is the i7-5775c with out replacing your motherboard and ram.
And the cost of a decent skylake socket 1151 motherboard…might as well look at the X99 platform and wait for the Broadwell-e 8core CPUs to become available. THAT is going to be the best bang for your buck until Skylake-E comes into play.
Nobody knows for sure but when it comes to performance per dollar
I think Skylake wins by a long shot doesn’t matter if you go i5 or i7
Make sure you get ddr4 ram with fast timings.
Please I said THINK i haven’t bothered doing any scientific analysis.
Its still not a bad choice. I’m using lga 1366 and it works flawless for my 60hz monitor.
Point is, since Ivybridge there has been no serious CPU gaming performance increase. And DDR4 makes no different compared to DDR3, because its in dual channel mode.
There is NO POINT in buying Skylake if you are on 3rd gen or newer Intel i5’s or i7’s. Just look at the benchmarks.
Nobody knows for sure but when it comes to performance per dollar
I think Skylake wins by a long shot doesn’t matter if you go i5 or i7
Make sure you get ddr4 ram with fast timings.
Please I said THINK i haven’t bothered doing any scientific analysis.
Its still not a bad choice. I’m using lga 1366 and it works flawless for my 60hz monitor.
Point is, since Ivybridge there has been no serious CPU gaming performance increase. And DDR4 makes no different compared to DDR3, because its in dual channel mode.
There is NO POINT in buying Skylake if you are on 3rd gen or newer Intel i5’s or i7’s. Just look at the benchmarks.
All right I’m just going to take you’re word for it.
Also i am aware of that x99 v3 processors are best and they also cost WAY more
While skylake is affordable for average customers.
Nobody knows for sure but when it comes to performance per dollar
I think Skylake wins by a long shot doesn’t matter if you go i5 or i7
Make sure you get ddr4 ram with fast timings.
Please I said THINK i haven’t bothered doing any scientific analysis.
Its still not a bad choice. I’m using lga 1366 and it works flawless for my 60hz monitor.
Point is, since Ivybridge there has been no serious CPU gaming performance increase. And DDR4 makes no different compared to DDR3, because its in dual channel mode.
There is NO POINT in buying Skylake if you are on 3rd gen or newer Intel i5’s or i7’s. Just look at the benchmarks.
All right I’m just going to take you’re word for it.
Also i am aware of that x99 v3 processors are best and they also cost WAY more
While skylake is affordable for average customers.
X99 is not the ‘best’, they are really completely different. They use QPI instead of DMI to talk to the chipset, they offer more PCIE lanes, and exceed the standard 4 core count (current are 6 and 8, Broadwell-e is bringing 10core for the top end CPU).
and dont take my word for it, do your own research. start by looking at the benchmark review i linked. You will see just how much of a ‘difference’ there really is between CPUs for gaming.
Nobody knows for sure but when it comes to performance per dollar
I think Skylake wins by a long shot doesn’t matter if you go i5 or i7
Make sure you get ddr4 ram with fast timings.
Please I said THINK i haven’t bothered doing any scientific analysis.
Its still not a bad choice. I’m using lga 1366 and it works flawless for my 60hz monitor.
Point is, since Ivybridge there has been no serious CPU gaming performance increase. And DDR4 makes no different compared to DDR3, because its in dual channel mode.
There is NO POINT in buying Skylake if you are on 3rd gen or newer Intel i5’s or i7’s. Just look at the benchmarks.
All right I’m just going to take you’re word for it.
Also i am aware of that x99 v3 processors are best and they also cost WAY more
While skylake is affordable for average customers.
X99 is not the ‘best’, they are really completely different. They use QPI instead of DMI to talk to the chipset, they offer more PCIE lanes, and exceed the standard 4 core count (current are 6 and 8, Broadwell-e is bringing 10core for the top end CPU).
and dont take my word for it, do your own research. start by looking at the benchmark review i linked. You will see just how much of a ‘difference’ there really is between CPUs for gaming.
I’m just going to take you’re word for it because i don’t want to prove anything.
I have a pc which works that’s all i know. I also care about performance per dollar.
In the 3rd,4th and 5th Gen the i7 4790k is the best CPU for your dollar. Next being the 5820k. If you really want a up these pick one of those or a 6700k. I vote for the 4790k.
Guild Leader of Lunar Tree[LT].
Officer of Power Overwhelming[ZERK].
First term Forum PvE Specialist.
I’m running a rather beefy CPU overclocked to 4.9GHz, and it’s still CPU bound. I’d say don’t spend your money and instead just save up for something else. Unless you somehow can get a 6GHz CPU, I’d say you won’t see much improvement with GW2.
(or somehow you convince ANet to update their engine to something less CPU bound.)
For your motherboard I’d get an i5 4690K. I got.mine quite cheap from amazon, £5 cheaper than a i5 4690. I don’t notice frame drops while.playing with everything on full. I’m also running Windows 10 pro, and using the 64 bit client. But as others have said, it’s the game doing it to it’s self.
Answer:
Well as is the best CPU would be an Intel i5( or i7) quad core… You could say why no a Hex or Octacore and my answer would be simple, Gw2 only uses 2-4 threads…
1st Remarks:
Use your PC while CPU OC-ed (if you are capable)
How much? : To your/the limit for 2 or 3 core performance, and as i5’s generally OC better and cost less if you’d burn ‘m I’d say use an i5. Which generation you buy is mostly depending on your will to spend, not so much on performance… tough some generations had better gains while OC-ing…
OC-ing voids guarantee and damages components! DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Requirements:
Cooler:
A (closed) or other waterblock solution or a high end cooler to facilitate the overclock. If you do want a better solution and never done it, ask a friend or proffesional. OC-ing voids guarantee and damages components! DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Motherboard: (your X97 is OC-able)
A good OC capable MB would be usefull…
OC-ing voids guarantee and damages components! DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Memory:
The 64bit client is preferable if you run a 64bit OS,
it requires preferably 8Gb(+) RAM , 6Gb RAM w-/could work, but I’ve seen 5.8 Gb of memory use before, and even though it’s said to be optimized now, while using 6Gb OutOfMemory errors (running no swap-fle) or heavy swap fileuse could still occur destroying loading and in some cases gaming performance.
If you choose to OC your CPU make sure you have memory whcih will allow for Overclocking (use better ram with margin,if you have a computer running 10% faster your ram should be able to cope with it so buy higher speed Ram modules if you really want to overclock…. for a base overclock most slightly ram will suffice (I use 1866 instead of 1600’s an get low OC’s stable (in my 3yr old abacus), but for the extreme buy ram with a BIG window…)
The 32bit OS requiring the 32 bit client for gw2 is limited to maximum 4Gb of memory adress space,and the 32 bit client is considered less stable at this point of time, the 32 bit client will run on 32 bit OS as well as on 64 bit OS (, BUT I’d recommend to download the 64 bit client!)
OC-ing voids guarantee and damages components! DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK!
Storage:
For faster loading kitten would be an obvious choice. most modern MoBo’s have SATA 6 or M2 options availabe, and if this is not over the top enough a PCI-E solotion could be nice as well (though some are only available if you have DEEP pockets)
Graphics: (still dx9)
GPU speeds are a lot less relevant for performance, a mid end (gaming) solution would generally be enough… As such Graphics Overclocks are NOT NECCESARY!
I will not state a preference here, I have Nvidia cards, but AMD would work as well, I’d strongly recommend NOT using an integrated GPU… as your performance will be miserable. SLi/X-fire solotions for performance is not needed. If youwant to run Multiscreens (eg: 3x 1920*1080(1200)=5860*1080(1200) like AMD Eyefinity or 4k’s (3840*2160) you will need a decent solution though. for most players using a standard 1920*1080(1200)screen the mid end gaming will suffice. If you do OC your graphics you do so at your own risk!
Power Supply
OC-ed components generally use more power, so make sure your PSU has some spare room in it’s wattage. Overtaxed PSU-s will tend to get hot and even burn, and give unstable voltages corrupting overclocks and cause boot fails, crashes and hangs.
This should be the list, present numbers are mostly irrelevant as prices will shift and DDR4 and 5th and 6th generation i5’ and i7s will be cheaper and a bit more powerfull soon™.
Until this game gets another engine capable of using 4+ threads this will likely be relevant….
(running
an Intel i7 3930K hex core 3.2Ghz @ 3.8Ghz on
Asus Rampage IV Extreme with 32 Gb of 1866Mhz DDR3 @ 1866,
Sli-ed dual Nvidia GTX 780 (3gb, stock, non-oc)
256Gb OCZ vertex 4,
250 GB WD velociraptor 10k rpm),
Raid 0 dual 1Gb WD-reds
(3+ yrs old) and not recommended for GW2)
23 lvl 80’s, 9 times map, 4ele, 4ncr, 3war, 3grd, 3rgr, 2thf, 2msm, 1eng, 1 rev.
Been There, Done That & Will do it again…except maybe world completion.
Get the 4790K. It has the highest clock per core, which is the only thing that matters for GW2.
It’s a beast and a lot cheaper that the enthusiast hexacores.
Plus is compatible with the Z97.
In your case the best cpus are either 4790k or 5775c. There’s also the 6700k, which is a bit better than both before, but that would require new motherboard and new ram.
Btw.: i found this graphic today from some tests in a german magazine, i think they
used the Witcher, GTA5, Battlefield 4 and LoL .. but in the end i guess the procentual
difference will be more or less the same in many other games..
So for me with my old i5 2500k i get a only 17% more from a i5 4690k and at least
30% from an i5 6600k. till not sure if thats worth it, and maybe my good old 2500
must do the job some years more
Attachments:
EVERY MMO is awesome until it is released then its unfinished. A month after release it just sucks.
Best MMOs are the ones that never make it. Therefore Stargate Online wins.
I know GW2 doesn’t use a CPU’s entire potential, so I want a beefed up CPU that will give me the highest upkeep of FPS. I’m tired of turning my camera and experiencing FPS stutter because the cpu isn’t being fully utilized.
S/n: My motherboard is a Z97
Just to point out few things you may or may not know.
1) If your CPU is not being fully used it’s usually because
—-A. CPU overheats (or reaches temps that are close to manufacturer defined maximum) and maximum frequency usable by CPU is limited by drivers and software on your PC.
—-B. GW2 has no use for more CPU power. Seeing what your current CPU is this is probably the case.
2) Most graphical problems you will find can be traced back to Graphics Card. (seeing as you say yours is already 980ti you should probably post the other PC specs)
3) It’s REAAAAALY hard to tell something based on CPU alone. If you’re having problems I highly doubt it’s caused by CPU alone (Unless you’re one of those people who overclock everything without proper cooling and expect it will work out, in which case it may have degraded)
I know GW2 doesn’t use a CPU’s entire potential, so I want a beefed up CPU that will give me the highest upkeep of FPS. I’m tired of turning my camera and experiencing FPS stutter because the cpu isn’t being fully utilized.
S/n: My motherboard is a Z97
Just to point out few things you may or may not know.
1) If your CPU is not being fully used it’s usually because
—-A. CPU overheats (or reaches temps that are close to manufacturer defined maximum) and maximum frequency usable by CPU is limited by drivers and software on your PC.
—-B. GW2 has no use for more CPU power. Seeing what your current CPU is this is probably the case.
2) Most graphical problems you will find can be traced back to Graphics Card. (seeing as you say yours is already 980ti you should probably post the other PC specs)
3) It’s REAAAAALY hard to tell something based on CPU alone. If you’re having problems I highly doubt it’s caused by CPU alone (Unless you’re one of those people who overclock everything without proper cooling and expect it will work out, in which case it may have degraded)
^ What this guy said.
To all those that OC’ed…
So, does GW2 use speeds past your normal clockspeed? Does it go past 4Ghz?
Like, now that you have all that power/speed, are you actually using it?
I know GW2 doesn’t use a CPU’s entire potential, so I want a beefed up CPU that will give me the highest upkeep of FPS. I’m tired of turning my camera and experiencing FPS stutter because the cpu isn’t being fully utilized.
S/n: My motherboard is a Z97
Just to point out few things you may or may not know.
1) If your CPU is not being fully used it’s usually because
—-A. CPU overheats (or reaches temps that are close to manufacturer defined maximum) and maximum frequency usable by CPU is limited by drivers and software on your PC.
—-B. GW2 has no use for more CPU power. Seeing what your current CPU is this is probably the case.
2) Most graphical problems you will find can be traced back to Graphics Card. (seeing as you say yours is already 980ti you should probably post the other PC specs)
3) It’s REAAAAALY hard to tell something based on CPU alone. If you’re having problems I highly doubt it’s caused by CPU alone (Unless you’re one of those people who overclock everything without proper cooling and expect it will work out, in which case it may have degraded)
^ What this guy said.
To all those that OC’ed…
So, does GW2 use speeds past your normal clockspeed? Does it go past 4Ghz?
Like, now that you have all that power/speed, are you actually using it?
honestly, I’ve gotten better performance out of OC’ing my ddr4 ram than OC’ing cpu clock than anything in this game.. it just loads so much garbage, esp. in dragon stand
So my setup for GW2 is as follows and I run stable 110 FPS without dips:
Skylake i5 6600k OC’d to 4.5 Ghz
Asus Gene VIII Z170 chipset
LPX Vengeance DDR4 16GB RAM oc’d at 3200~ mhz, CPU ring bus non-OC’d
R9 390 (8GB GDDR5 memory)
Running lower clock speed around 4.0 Ghz only really dropped me 10ish FPS, the most gain I got was running RAM from 2800Mhz to 3200 Mhz and using the R9 390 8Gb card vs. my old 970 GTX w/ “4GB” (3.5GB)
went from 85+ FPS to 110 FPS going from the 970 GTX to an R9 390 w/ double the memory pool
So my setup for GW2 is as follows and I run stable 110 FPS without dips:
Skylake i5 6600k OC’d to 4.5 Ghz
Asus Gene VIII Z170 chipset
LPX Vengeance DDR4 16GB RAM oc’d at 3200~ mhz, CPU ring bus non-OC’d
R9 390 (8GB GDDR5 memory)
Running lower clock speed around 4.0 Ghz only really dropped me 10ish FPS, the most gain I got was running RAM from 2800Mhz to 3200 Mhz and using the R9 390 8Gb card vs. my old 970 GTX w/ “4GB” (3.5GB)
went from 85+ FPS to 110 FPS going from the 970 GTX to an R9 390 w/ double the memory pool
So going from a 670 to a Pascal 1070 should give me a drastic boost from 30fps? I can’t find any new information or rumors on a release date and I don’t want to read TomsHardware because the layout is atrocious by being overly scrunched.
honestly, I’ve gotten better performance out of OC’ing my ddr4 ram than OC’ing cpu clock than anything in this game.. it just loads so much garbage, esp. in dragon stand
Yeah I can see OC’ing RAM being more helpful, especially running 64 bit client.
I just find it interesting that so many seem to OC…. why? what for? are you really pushing things to the limits? are you really going to be using all that power? Can you even do that?
You don’t need to overclock to get GW2 to run well. If you do, you’ve done something horribly, horribly wrong. Find how much you’re willing to spend here, then look up and down the list for CPUs that match the socket type on your motherboard. http://www.logicalincrements.com/
I know GW2 doesn’t use a CPU’s entire potential, so I want a beefed up CPU that will give me the highest upkeep of FPS. I’m tired of turning my camera and experiencing FPS stutter because the cpu isn’t being fully utilized.
S/n: My motherboard is a Z97
Just to point out few things you may or may not know.
1) If your CPU is not being fully used it’s usually because
—-A. CPU overheats (or reaches temps that are close to manufacturer defined maximum) and maximum frequency usable by CPU is limited by drivers and software on your PC.
—-B. GW2 has no use for more CPU power. Seeing what your current CPU is this is probably the case.
2) Most graphical problems you will find can be traced back to Graphics Card. (seeing as you say yours is already 980ti you should probably post the other PC specs)
3) It’s REAAAAALY hard to tell something based on CPU alone. If you’re having problems I highly doubt it’s caused by CPU alone (Unless you’re one of those people who overclock everything without proper cooling and expect it will work out, in which case it may have degraded)
^ What this guy said.
To all those that OC’ed…
So, does GW2 use speeds past your normal clockspeed? Does it go past 4Ghz?
Like, now that you have all that power/speed, are you actually using it?
Here with an i5 4690k oced to 4.5GHz. I see cpu usage between 75-90% at that speed in WvW zerguing.
I’m running a rather beefy CPU overclocked to 4.9GHz, and it’s still CPU bound. I’d say don’t spend your money and instead just save up for something else. Unless you somehow can get a 6GHz CPU, I’d say you won’t see much improvement with GW2.
(or somehow you convince ANet to update their engine to something less CPU bound.)
What? my is overclocked to 3.5ghz right now and i have no issues at all.
You don’t need to overclock to get GW2 to run well. If you do, you’ve done something horribly, horribly wrong. Find how much you’re willing to spend here, then look up and down the list for CPUs that match the socket type on your motherboard. http://www.logicalincrements.com/
Yeah, if you have to OC to play GW2, you have messed up somewhere.
You don’t need to overclock to get GW2 to run well. If you do, you’ve done something horribly, horribly wrong. Find how much you’re willing to spend here, then look up and down the list for CPUs that match the socket type on your motherboard. http://www.logicalincrements.com/
Yeah, if you have to OC to play GW2, you have messed up somewhere.
Its only a 20% oc its not even optimised and im not using more than 40% load
40% is the macro performance, the entire CPU average across all cores. However the game’s main event thread, like any thread, can’t exceed the performance of a single core. This is a primary factor that limits overall frame rate since this main thread is looping for every frame. Therefore overclocking the CPU, or using a CPU that can do more instructions per second, will allow more loops of this thread in the same amount of time and thus more frames.
Now there’s a 2nd major thread, actually a pair, which is the calls to Dx9 in the game and the graphics driver. Together these pair of threads also don’t exceed the performance of a single core and usually takes less time to run than the primary thread. Improving your GPU reduces the overall time of the driver thread takes to run but the pair is dependent on the main thread to assemble all the information for the next frame, the performance gain isn’t as great as games where GPU performance is the bottleneck.
This information is from watching the various threads in the game code running while playing.
40% is the macro performance, the entire CPU average across all cores. However the game’s main event thread, like any thread, can’t exceed the performance of a single core. This is a primary factor that limits overall frame rate since this main thread is looping for every frame. Therefore overclocking the CPU, or using a CPU that can do more instructions per second, will allow more loops of this thread in the same amount of time and thus more frames.
Now there’s a 2nd major thread, actually a pair, which is the calls to Dx9 in the game and the graphics driver. Together these pair of threads also don’t exceed the performance of a single core and usually takes less time to run than the primary thread. Improving your GPU reduces the overall time of the driver thread takes to run but the pair is dependent on the main thread to assemble all the information for the next frame, the performance gain isn’t as great as games where GPU performance is the bottleneck.
This information is from watching the various threads in the game code running while playing.
I dont want to get started on this topic but in my case .
all the cores share the load equal.
I just leave it at that.
Yes and no. A thread may move around between cores when it’s running but it still can’t exceed the performance of a single core since a thread can’t be running on more than one core at any particular moment.
Wait for Cannonlake unless you have a really old processor (Sandybridge or older), then go for a Skylike i7 if possible. RoG boards like Asus Maximum Hero and such tend to be awesome. It isn’t enough just to have a cheap board you need to have a good board that has features like jumper cables, a good sound chip, BIOS, NVMe features or at least AHCI, surge protection, and decent overclocking potential.
I know you said you have a Haswell i5 but the advice was general for anyone who reads and has the same question as you. For you personally I’d totes wait on Cannonlake, preferably an i7 since you might wanna get into recording so it’s great to have the extra processor headroom.
