Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone:) Just like to give my fellow amd fx owners a chance to get the performance out of there chips and gw2 that they would expect to get:) Before I get started here is my system setup…….

windows 7 64 bit
nvidia 570 gtx
8gb ddr3 ram
fx 6100 3.3ghz stock

Like many fx owners I figure my system is well then adequate to run gw2 mostly on high with shadows down and such, which I could but the performance seemed off and lacking. I had a friend who has an i5 2500k system build and gw2 runs flawless on his to say the least I was dissapointed. He then asked me though do you have your chip overclocked? I said no which he replied…….. thats your problem the fx chips are made to overclock, he said get it to about 4ghz and I bet your game will run 1000x better.

Well being noob to the whole overclocking thing, I had no idea where to start,but I new I could get better performance in gw2 with this chip, so there’s first time for everything. I went down to my local comp usa bought a Silent X EFZ-120HA5 after market cooler. Probably not the best but was 10x better then the stock fan I had. After installing this new fan called my friend up and asked him how I should go about overclocking, he replied start by bumping the multiplier up a notch then try to boot if it crashes or locks up, up the cpu voltage a little and try again , but said to watch the temperature of the chip not to exceed 60 degrees celcius if at all possible.

I’m no overclocking expert but using just multiplier, voltage, and $25 after market cooler, I was able to achieve 4.4ghz stable with max temps sitting at 55 degress celcius. The game performance is night and day, not only did I achieve my first sucessful overclock:) My game runs exactly on par to my friends I5 system and the way I always thought my system should run:) So my message for you fx chip owners overclock overclock overclock the difference is night and day wish everyone best with there fx chips:)

Another overclock n00b here

I have an AMD FX-4100 (3.6 ghz) with 20gb Ram. Previously I tried to overclock with the stock fan, but I started having ‘freeze-ups’ and so I reverted to the default settings.

So this really makes a big difference? Like can you describe where you see the biggest improvements? Thanks!

Congrats Im running a athlon II x3 445 (3.1ghz) overclocked to 3.8 ghz lol, while that may seem low, the athlon II cpus have locked multipliers so that means i cant change my multiplier its stuck at 15.5, even the unlocked phenom II cpus dont go much higher then 3.8ghz even with a good cooler, getting 4 ghz is as hard as 5ghz on a i5, as u can imagine it was hard since I have to pay carefull to every other voltage on my board cause Im overclocking by fsb, alsomeant I had to overclock my 2×4gb 1066 mhz (cl6) ram to 1750mhz , have it at cl 9-10-10-29 1.5v, wont bore you with my chipset voltages and such cause that would prob confuse most of you since not many ppl are running phenoms these days xD, along side that I have my old gigabyte 4850 1gb (with a zalman fan) oced from 700core/993mem to 850core/1200mem. Runs gw2 with eveything at high, enviroment at medium , vysnc on, shadows low, AA turned on. Which is pretty sweet cause I made this system 4 years ago for $450 lol. In spvp I average 50-60 fps (55-70 with no vsync) drops to 30-40fps in heavy intense fights tho but I dont really notice the lag.

Even phenon 2 × 4 and x6 are much better than fx and vishera, anyway i dont thing gw2 is optimised to amd users as i know.

Yes I would get 60 fps out in the open world with dips in large areas like rata sum, lion arc etc, performance was terrible with people around and in dungeons this is where I seen the biggest improvement.

( Tumbero.3945
Even phenon 2 × 4 and x6 are much better than fx and vishera, anyway i dont thing gw2 is optimised to amd users as i know. )

wrong… while windows maybe not optimized for AMD processors the newest Vishera core is def faster then any of the older Phenom/Phenom 2 series chips.

none of the current AMD processors would have any trouble running gw2 maxed out since its nearly all GPU bound, and matters nothing of what processor your using so much as what GPU and the amount of memory you have/using (as in is it an ideal amount for what you need it to do).

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/vishera_review?page=0,0

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/the-vishera-review-amd-fx8350-fx8320-fx6300-and-fx4300-tested

http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-FX-8350-Vishera-8Core-CPU-Review/?page=1

and keeping in mind synthetic benchmarks and what a application tells you your getting with regards to FPS ( frames per second ) real world playing and smoothness do not translate to the same things.

the CPU plays a very very minor roll in gaming within reason most synthetics checking CPU performance setup the test in a way to put more pressure on the CPU, in reality playing normally this will never occur and you would not be able to physically tell gaming if you were using a Intel i3/5/7 or an AMD APU/FX while playing any game provided they were using similar graphics/memory amounts-speed and chipsets.

Guild wars 2 is very unoptimised and videocards are even bottlenecked by i5s, not to mention having a directx 9 api gw2 is slightly more cpu bound then it would of been if it had been dx11, ofcourse the difference is very minor, so while cpu mamy not play a big role as the gpu in fps, u wont be able to make full use of your gpu without a good cpu, not because thats how games work (cause it doesnt) but because the game isnt super optimised, we should wait for devs to fix this, wasnt the brightest idea basing the game off the gw1 engine, but not really their fault since this game started developement VERY long time ago.

binarydaemon.5841:

( Tumbero.3945
Even phenon 2 × 4 and x6 are much better than fx and vishera, anyway i dont thing gw2 is optimised to amd users as i know. )

wrong… while windows maybe not optimized for AMD processors the newest Vishera core is def faster then any of the older Phenom/Phenom 2 series chips.

none of the current AMD processors would have any trouble running gw2 maxed out since its nearly all GPU bound, and matters nothing of what processor your using so much as what GPU and the amount of memory you have/using (as in is it an ideal amount for what you need it to do).

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/vishera_review?page=0,0

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6396/the-vishera-review-amd-fx8350-fx8320-fx6300-and-fx4300-tested

http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-FX-8350-Vishera-8Core-CPU-Review/?page=1

and keeping in mind synthetic benchmarks and what a application tells you your getting with regards to FPS ( frames per second ) real world playing and smoothness do not translate to the same things.

the CPU plays a very very minor roll in gaming within reason most synthetics checking CPU performance setup the test in a way to put more pressure on the CPU, in reality playing normally this will never occur and you would not be able to physically tell gaming if you were using a Intel i3/5/7 or an AMD APU/FX while playing any game provided they were using similar graphics/memory amounts-speed and chipsets.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/guild-wars-2-performance-benchmark,3268-7.html

Problem is a lot of people, including AMD marketing it appears, overlook the fact the Bulldozer/Piledriver architecture was designed to pit one FX module (two cores) to one Intel SB/IB core when they are loaded with two threads. FX’s major problem is if an FX module is only running one thread, it is much weaker than an Intel SB/IB core running one thread.

Also AMD for some reason always has a bad time with graphics compared to the last few generations of Intel. I’m wondering if the inclusion of the PCIex16 graphics interface on Intel’s CPUs simply eliminates a bottleneck that is still present in AMD since the graphics card interfaces to the AMD Northbridge and the Northbridge is then connected to the AMD CPU.

Of course if you crank up the settings in some games until the GPU is the bottleneck, then it really doesn’t matter whose CPU you use. Metro for instance will have mediocre performance regardless unless it’s a multiple GPU rig.

Can you guys tell me if I will be able to overclock my
Windows 7 64 bit
Nvidia gtx 560 ti
12 gb ddr3 ram
2.4 ghz stock

I don’t know much about computers…..

A cautionary tale if you’ve never installed a cpu cooler with thermal paste!
==========

Over the weekend I purchased a Cooler Master ‘Hyper N520’ (~35$) and installed it with little issue. However, the instructions were incorrect as the fans were incorrectly blowing air from the back to front; and so I then proceeded to remove the cooler, turn it around, and re-install it (the cooler has fans on the sides).

HOWEVER, upon trying to remove the cooler from the cpu, as the thermal paste created such a tight bond between the cpu and cooler, I actually yanked out the cpu from the motherboard!

And unfortunately, this mortally wounded my cpu as various pins were bent in the process (I tried to straighten them out but one broke off qq).

Basically, before trying to remove the cooler from the cpu, I should have wiggled the cooler ‘parallel’ to the cpu in order to weaken the suction created by the thermal paste (and ofc it didn’t help that the instructions for the cooler were wrong – which is the only reason I had to remove the new cooler in the first place).

Thankfully I just had to buy a new cpu (~125$) in order to get back up and running, but I just wanted to share my tale as a potential warning to others.