Guild Wars 2

I’m not familiar with laptop cpu specs at all, so I figured I would just ask.

Are are there any refurbished laptops around that price on newegg, capable of running GW2 on low settings? I just need it for daily log in, gathering, and maybe some world bosses at 5 fps.

I’m currently laptop less, and soon I’ll have to spend some weeks out of the house, so I figured I would get one now.

I’m considering this one atm

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834298424

I think this is the cpu it uses, seems like it has HD 4000, which will cover the graphics.

2.5 GHz but turbo boost up to 2.9 GHz

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i5-3210M-Notebook-Processor.74458.0.html

The CPU has the HD4000 integrated so it will probably run GW2. What remains uncertain is the display resolution. If it’s a 1366×768 display, it might work out the way you plan it (all settings to low and heavy stuttering at world bosses), if it’s a HD+ or FHD display, I’m not sure if one could still consider it “playable”.
Since you already found out about notebookcheck, you might want to check their benchmarks for GW2 with the HD4000.
Best would be if someone on this forums plays on a laptop with a similar CPU using the HD4000 giving a short review how it handles GW2.

Good luck!

I’ve got an i5 surface pro 3 (HD 4400) and do exactly what you describe when I’m away from home. At the absolute lowest settings and resolution, it does run. Definitely not pretty though.

I have a two year old HP laptop that rides on a AMD A8-6410 processor which has ‘internal’ R5 graphics. Has remarkably low cooling requirement of 15 watts and so far no sign of it cooking the laptop. Plays GW2 no problem on low settings at around 20 to 30 fps, nothing jerky. Which is fine for its use – similar to your own.

There is a slightly faster processor upgrade in the A8-7410.

Roughly speaking the laptop equivalents – A10s/A8s/A6s -of the desktop Ax processors run with half the graphics power but at extremely low cooling requirements.

In my experience at the low end it is still very difficult for Intel to out match AMD if you want a ‘bit of graphics as well’. You effectively trade off better graphics for less powerful cores. And giving that the most common use of laptops is social – which has very low core power requirements – AMD is usually the way to go.

Would also suggest you get a SSHD rather than a HDD as Windows 10 does not half churn hard disks, which giving the slower speeds of laptop drives is a major general and random annoyance. Alternatively a 240GB SDD is a very good buy (any sort as you’ll be reading most of the time) but you will not find these yet on low spec machines.

So my advice is go cheap AMD R5 or if possible R7 laptop coupled with a 240GB SDD and you will not go wrong in regards of GW2 playability. It’s really quite impressive. There is plenty of free software to switch drive – I use Macrium Reflect. Do as soon as you get the laptop and checked working as advertised to avoid complications – will invalidate the warranty of course. The SDD is not required for GW2 but it doesn’t half improve the feel of the laptop and well worth the $$$ over a more powerful processor.

For what it’s worth most laptops produced within the last two years will easily meet your requirements at the price specified, for that reason I would suggest a new laptop rather than a refurnished one as there is less risk of getting kitten graphics that may come with the older Intel processors.

Also if you interested in comparing real machines then there is a website which can be found by typing in ‘userbenchmark’. The benchmarks are not great but you do get a good feel for the specs which you can alter and compare. Based on this the PC you mentioned would have roughly the same graphics performance but consume 35watts over the A8-6410 (15 watts) I mentioned- so I doubt you would have to put up with 5 fps either way!

Out of interest, I just ran the AB meta on my surface, and it was surprisingly playable. Main issue was not being able to see downed players because of the low player model setting, had to rely on the name labels when reviving.

Whoa, so much information

Thank you for the info all. Actually, I only suggested the $400 price point because what I thought I would have to spend at min. If I can get away with spending less I will because I really don’t plan on using the laptop for much.

On the other hand, I’m wondering if I Wil regret it in the future if I don’t spend a little extra. I have a lot to think about over the next couple days.