Guild Wars 2

Hello I am planning on buying a new computer to run Guildwars 2 on in highest graphics settings I am looking for at least 60 fps and was wondering whether I’d be able to buy this set up for under £800 intel i7 3770k processor ivy bridge mainboard, a gtx 670 graphics card, corsair vengeance ram 16gb, good power supply 500+, Monitor and would it be able to achieve this performance?

If anybody was able to offer a more cost efficient system that’d be very helpful and whether this can achieve 60fps on max graphic settings also it’d be helpful if anybody would be able to recommend two monitors one to be included in the price ( a fairly good monitor for actual gaming) and the other not needing to be top quality and not needing to be included in that price.

If anybody could help I’d love you for life <3

800 pounds… that’s about 1000 euro.

i7 3770k – 330 euro
motherboard – 100 euro
16 gig ram – 75 euro
gtx 670 – 375 – 400 euro
hard drive – 60 euro (500gb)
power supply – 100 euro
case – 50 euro
good monitor – 200 euro (forget about the ips panel comment, it’s way off your budget)

This is assuming you don’t need a windows license, a dvd drive (20 euro), mouse and keyboard.

So that’s clearly out of your budget.
Things we can easily save on is the cpu and memory. You don’t need an i7 for gaming. Ok admittedly gw2 actually can make use of it, but it’s not needed and we save an easy 100 bucks if you go for an i5 3570k instead. Also 16gb is just overkill, 4gb should be enough but you should go with 8 to be a bit future proof and it’s already somewhat useful now. That’s another 30 bucks less. No need to bother trying to find “fast memory” because it won’t do a thing to your performance. Just pick a good reliable brand like corsair or crucial.You could find a good monitor with a bit of searching for probably 175 euro, maybe a tad more. The last and biggest factor in the cost is our video card. Not counting the videocard we’re now down to about 750 euro. So that leaves you with about 250 euro to buy a videocard from.

The only card in that price range is currently the amd radeon hd7870. nvidia will be releasing the gtx 660 in that price range. (dont know when, but you can find it if the date is available) If you’d be willing to go a bit higher you could go for the hd7950 or the gtx 660ti both are just under 300 euro atm.

edit: specified alternative cpu and memory

I too would like to know if anyone is getting solid 60fps in large WvW battles, even on lowest settings is fine. My system is bottlenecked due to 2009 CPU, motherboard, and RAM, and some idea of what I need would be helpful.

I have the following:
Core i7 920 @ 3.4GHz
18GB Ram
GTX 670
Monitor at 1920×1080

I get a solid 60fps at most places (I have vsync on), but in WvW large battles, it goes down to maybe 25-30fps. It is still easily playable and I don’t notice much lag tbh. I would say that the system you want to build will be plenty for you. I play at all max settings btw.

Roxim, what do you feel your bottleneck is? CPU, RAM (1600?), or video card? I mean for WvW =) Awesome everywhere else I’m sure.

Rox any clue how much your system costs to build?

Vexus.5423:

Roxim, what do you feel your bottleneck is? CPU, RAM (1600?), or video card?

If I had to guess, I would say it is both CPU and graphics card memory. I am not sure if putting settings down will improve it, but it might. I don’t think that I need better performance though as I don’t miss anything in the big battles.

Thechin.3201:

Rox any clue how much your system costs to build?

My components are a little older so I don’t think you could buy my exact components. I am also in US so I am not sure how much it would be for you. I would say all the components together would be around $800-$1000 if you are building the entire tower yourself.

Upgrading a processor is the most expensive change you can make to your computer, since it involves not only spending money on a newer, more expensive CPU but also upgrading the motherboard (because chances are a new processor wont fit into the socket of an older motherboard). If it can be avoided at all, then just get RAM. Upgrading from 2 gigs to 4 gigs of RAM will increase framerate, as will upgrading the graphics card.

However, if you’re processor isn’t a quad core, you can pretty much kiss 60fps goodbye. Heres a helpful article on performance of GW2 on several systems.

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

Im running an HD 5570 (old i know) and im stabilizing at 30 fps. I think an HD 6870 or higher will get you what you want

Well i will say the graphics would be a big point for fps. But ill just add. In most area’s of the game i run 50 to 55 fps on max setting on a gts450. So i would say the gtx660ti should be more than enough card to save some cash. Or if you could wait till mid month i beleave the gtx660 and gtx650ti are launching. Which both should handle it. Would avoid the gtx650 though as its basically just a supped up gt640. But the gtx650ti and the gtx660 are both decent cards from the leaked spec’s i have seen. As for other area’s i saw a boost in performance from a ssd. and make sure you have decent ram. CPU well thats up to you. But i personally run a amd 970be thats stock clocked. Hope this helps get your price down some.

Dont wast your money on a i7, get a i5k and overclock it.

Get a gtx 670. I wouldnt settle for less then that if buying new.

Quidel.2401:

Dont wast your money on a i7, get a i5k and overclock it.

Get a gtx 670. I wouldnt settle for less then that if buying new.

How much would it save? I’m probably going to end up overclocking the I7 anyway to be honest

Also can anybody recommend any good monitors?

Processor power is most important in WvW. Most assets and particles flying around who need to be calculated. I have an old (ati 4890) graphics card but my hexcore AMD has no problems keeping up. I run most graphics on high (shadows on med). No big fps drops yet. (8 gig ram)

As for monitors, get a nice resolution (full HD would be my choice, but if you like really like big screen (24 inch up) you might want more pixels. Also be sure your monitor has an IPS panel and not a TN panel, it will make thing prettier Also go LED, easier on the eyes + saves tons of energy

If you’re mostly interested in playing games, I’d go for the i5-3570k. The i7 isn’t really necessary for games, but can be useful for some other things. The gtx 670 should be able to get 60 fps most of the time, but I do have a friend who has crossfire 6870s and still frequently goes below 60 fps on max settings. I’m starting to think that it is really difficult to consistently get 60 fps in this game with such settings.

I use a HD5970 with v sync off, my fps fluctuates between 25-45 fps. I’ve not seen it reach 60 yet and most of my friends with high end cards are getting the same fps as me.

If you do native instead of supersampling, it helps a lot. But I don’t think people with fast cards should have to do that to get 60 fps more often.

I would stay away from Overclocking first off. It may be the latest fad with semi-professional IT specialists, but it can damage hardware and their lifespan reduced by doing this.

You don’t need an i7 yes, as the extra Mnemonics aren’t used yet, an i5 is fine as is a AM3+ CPU as long as either is 2.8ghz+ per core.

Also be wary of memory, if you plan on going above 4GB you will need a 64bit Windows to do this, and not all versions of Windows 7 or the future 8 will allow more than 8GB, so check up on this also if you plan on getting more than 8GB.

I would stick with Nvidia cards as they offer more hardware support, in terms of Physx and CUDA. AMD/ATI cards have more stream processing to help with the fact they don’t have hardware Physx or CUDA, so more work for your CPU.

DABhand.2079:

I would stick with Nvidia cards as they offer more hardware support, in terms of Physx and CUDA. AMD/ATI cards have more stream processing to help with the fact they don’t have hardware Physx or CUDA, so more work for your CPU.

Sad that you put this nonsense next to your otherwise good advise. There are alternatives to physx and cuda that do exactly the same but are not limited to nvidia cards. AMD had their own alternative called havoc. But either way most developers will be using standardized technologies, namely opencl and directcompute, that work on both. Thing is though, they don’t work very well yet for games. Same goes for cuda and physx. Physx only ever worked good with a second dedicated physx card and then there have only been a handful of games that actually used physx to an extent that it would actually be worth having it.

Also the reason that amd cards have more stream processors is simply because they use a different architecture than nvidia’s cards. Simply put you can’t compare them 1 on 1 like that. You can only compare them

In short there’s no real reason to choose one over the other besides price/performance or personal preference. Note that price/performance can easily differ from game to game so it could be worth to look at benchmarks of games that are relevant to you before deciding.

Zalastra.6290:

(dont know when, but you can find it if the date is available) If you’d be willing to go a bit higher you could go for the hd7950 or the gtx 660ti both are just under 300 euro atm.

The HD 7950 is under the 300euro range? 7950 or 7870?

Here is my setup, maybe this will help a little.

AMD X4 FX-4100
HD 6850
4gb RAM (yes i know)

So i am playing in HD resolution. Everything goes smooth at high settings in common areas.
Of course my fps drops to 20-25 in WvW but I didnt even tried to lower graphic settings or lower down the resolution. Its still playable in battles with high settings.

As you see i dont have a decent PC but still able to play the game and enjoy it.

With a 256bit GPU you can get good fps mostly, but in battles CPU is more important as far as i know.

Regards

If you’re on a tight budget, don’t get 16GB ram. You don’t need it unless you are running GW2, a video capture and 16 different instances of Photoshop at the same time. 8gb is more than enough for every single game out now and in the next 5 years and I doubt you’d see much of a decrease in performance if you went with 4gb (though that is probably less future-proof).

Aphasia.1803:

Zalastra.6290:

(dont know when, but you can find it if the date is available) If you’d be willing to go a bit higher you could go for the hd7950 or the gtx 660ti both are just under 300 euro atm.

The HD 7950 is under the 300euro range? 7950 or 7870?

I’ll admit average prices are higher, around 320, but the cheapest I can find is 282 euro for the 7950. 7870 is under 230 in the cheaper shops. I live in the Netherlands for the record.

Ok here is the current set up I have gotten from all of your suggestions along with some links from various websites for each item (Kinda made me realise how cheap amazon is on everything)
I5 3570k £180
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Generation-i5-3570K-3-40GHz-Technology/dp/B007RUZKK6

Asus P8Z77-V motherboard – £80
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007KZQE7Q

Corsair Vengeance 16gb RAM – £70
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004E0ZKLQ

EVGA GeF GTX 670 – £300
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00829L3W0

Hitachi 500GB Deskstar Internal Hard Drive – £40
http://www.pcworldbusiness.co.uk/buy-rent/P147558P?cidp=Froogle

Hanns-G HS233H3B 23"LCD HDMI – £140 Yay 120hz
http://www.ebuyer.com/255455-hanns-g-hs233h3b-23-lcd-hdmi-3d-monitor-hs233h3b

Coolermaster Elite 500W Power Supply – £30 ( Is this enough watts and a suitable power supply? Please correct me if I’m wrong)
http://www.cclonline.com/product/58931/RS500-PSARJ3-UK/Power-Supplies/Coolermaster-Elite-500W-Power-Supply-OEM/PSU0231/

Tower Case – undecided suggestions for a case? Preferably under £50 and suitable for this system

It would be appreciated if there could be any improvements to be made to this set up or any errors I may have made would be helpful to both price or performance because this is really stretching my budget to keep in my GTX 670 graphics card and 16gb’s of RAM if my tower and power supply do turn out to be a little over what I expect I will probably downgrade to 8gb of RAM.

Again any help would be really appreciated

Oh and any help already given has been really helpful thank you to everyone for there time

People seem to overlook the performance gains from using SSDs. Though arguably you won’t see any gains from playing in GW you’ll certainly see a gain when loading apps up and booting your machine. Check out some YT videos of SSD comparisons.

Oh and you can get much cheaper Graphics Cards than the 670 which have similar performance, look at some of the ATI ones.

500 watt output power is enough. It’s a reliable brand so you should be able to take that value for true. It’s a really cheap model though, I notice the warranty is only 2 years, while better ones come often with 3 – 5 years warranty. Also it seems to have a very low efficiency. Meaning you’ll be drawing a lot more power from the net. I generally would recommend getting something more expensive. If the cost is going to be a problem I’d save that on the ram, unless you actually maybe have a good reason to need that much like running multiple virtual machines or video editing.

As for a case, this should do: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Antec-Three-Hundred-Midi-Case/dp/B0017Q8IAA/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1346929296&sr=1-1-spell

ant.7135:

People seem to overlook the performance gains from using SSDs. Though arguably you won’t see any gains from playing in GW you’ll certainly see a gain when loading apps up and booting your machine. Check out some YT videos of SSD comparisons.

If it’s possible in the budget then yes it could be a nice upgrade. However it isn’t. Also the noticeable performance gain is much lower on a fast system, which this will be. I find ssd’s more interesting for laptops, don’t bother for the desktop unless you have the money.

edit: @Thechin, you mentioned overclocking. Consider an aftermarket cpu-cooler if you’re going to do that.

Thechin.3201:

Tower Case – undecided suggestions for a case? Preferably under £50 and suitable for this system

It would be appreciated if there could be any improvements to be made to this set up or any errors I may have made would be helpful to both price or performance because this is really stretching my budget to keep in my GTX 670 graphics card and 16gb’s of RAM if my tower and power supply do turn out to be a little over what I expect I will probably downgrade to 8gb of RAM.

I would change the power supply, there’s no point in build a good system then scrimping on the PSU and having a chance it’ll blow comonents, the Coolermaster Elite really isn’t very good. You should really be looking at something like this as minimum for quality http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-167-CM

For the case something like the Bitfenix Merc Beta will be fine http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-011-BX or go with one of the Xigmatek that are in your budget.

If you need to bring the cost down my suggestion would be dropping the RAM to 8GB Kingston HyperX or swap out the Nvidia 670 for the AMD 7950 which can be had for £228 with 3 free games http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-049-HS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1673

Zalastra.6290:

Sad that you put this nonsense next to your otherwise good advise. There are alternatives to physx and cuda that do exactly the same but are not limited to nvidia cards. AMD had their own alternative called havoc. But either way most developers will be using standardized technologies, namely opencl and directcompute, that work on both. Thing is though, they don’t work very well yet for games. Same goes for cuda and physx. Physx only ever worked good with a second dedicated physx card and then there have only been a handful of games that actually used physx to an extent that it would actually be worth having it.

Actually more and more games are using hardware Physx and CUDA, and havoc will be used of course also, but the main point is any Physx instructions used in a game works off better on an Nvidia card than an AMD which has to use the CPU to emulate it. Unless as you said the game supports Havoc.

Was a bit rude of you to say Nonsense, when you just instructed someone to get 16GB ram without warning them about the 64bit OS requirement (like I did). :P

Also the reason that amd cards have more stream processors is simply because they use a different architecture than nvidia’s cards. Simply put you can’t compare them 1 on 1 like that. You can only compare them

Actually there is a reason why they have more stream processors, of course they have different architecture thats common sense right there, but they had to since Nvidia bought the Physx brand and started putting them on their cards, the only thing AMD could do at that time was to include more stream processing to combat it.

In short there’s no real reason to choose one over the other besides price/performance or personal preference. Note that price/performance can easily differ from game to game so it could be worth to look at benchmarks of games that are relevant to you before deciding.

Many people are too engrossed between the companies, and become (dare I say it) fanboys, so they are one sighted on GPUs.. so you will always have people who will buy Nvidia or AMD only. For me I am giving my honest opinion on what is coming out the next couple of years (in terms of software) vs the hardware available, and at the moment Nvidia is trumping what AMD has to offer. So far that is.

Also to OP, consider buying from Ebuyer.co.uk at the moment they have good prices.

Hi there !

You build idea looks pretty good. I would however trade that 500 Gb HDD for a 1Tb one. You can get one for around the same price, or very little difference. I don’t know what you use your computer for, but these days with people getting movies and games on-line from iTunes / et cetera, you will eat up space very quickly !

I’ve already used 300Gb of a 1Tb drive and the computer is barely a week old ! (and I’m not torrenting, that was mostly just my old stuff + GW2 and the like).

You can drop to 8Gb RAM without any worry. You really don’t need the 16. Looking at my RAM usage right now – I have tons of internet tabs open, GW2 is actually running (was going to do WvWvW, but got a phone call), iTunes, and a bunch of other stuff and it’s only about ~4Gb being used. I wouldn’t worry about RAM unless like others have said, you need to do a TON of heavy lifting while playing.

I’m very happy with my HAF 912 case. It was $50 USD so something less than 50 pounds, I’d imagine ? You’d need to upgrade the cooling if you’re going to overclock. Speaking of, you will need to put that in your budget as well – I see you do mention overclocking. You will most definitely need an aftermarket CPU cooler.

I would not get that power supply. It’s not even rated for 80+ efficiency. I used the Antec Neo Eco 520W and am pleased with the quality, but if you’re going to overclock, you may be looking at needing more than 500W to give you wiggle-room. Check your 12v rails – how many amps do you get on them as opposed to how much you’ll need to draw – and single or multiple rails ? If you’re overclocking an expensive system, the LAST thing you want is a crappy PSU. It can destroy everything hooked up to it. This is your most important component. With your system, I’d expect to pay at least double what you have listed now for the PSU. I paid $60USD for a good one, and that was about baseline for a decent no-frills 500W.

Brand is only a vague guide to PSUs – they’re made by many differnet companies under many different brands. Even Rosewill has a line of decent PSUs made by Super Flower, when most the rest of theirs aren’t worth looking at. This is something you really need to research and Google reviews for each PSU you consider.

I’d also save a chunk of money and get an i5 unless you have a situation where you’d really be using an i7 – which isn’t in video games. You can still get an overclockable i5.

I have an i5 right now – it’s not taxed in GW2 and I’m getting 60fps. I’m not even overclocking. I have the HD 6870 – and I get a solid 60fps in the world, even in group fights. I doubt that will hold up in WvWvW – but we’ll see soon. And in a situation with 30+ players in the same area, I’m expecting to see a drop in performance no matter what the system.

If you are going to overclock and will need an after market cooler – you’ll probably need to get a less expensive GPU.

One idea is get a 560/570/et cetera for now – you’ll see 60fps in world, no problem – and get another one when you have the budget and CrossFireX. Along with this, I might suggest dropping that monitor and getting a 60Hz (is there a reason you want a 120Hz one ?) one and planning on going to three when you have CrossFireX. Just an idea – it will give you a great experience now and you’ll have time to build it into an even more awesome one with a few simple upgrades that you can do as you save up for them.

Be aware that with CrossFireX, you’ll of course need a higher-wattage PSU. Just take a look at what the card suggests, the higher-end ones typically will tell you what you need for XFire, too.

DABhand.2079:

Zalastra.6290:

Sad that you put this nonsense next to your otherwise good advise. There are alternatives to physx and cuda that do exactly the same but are not limited to nvidia cards. AMD had their own alternative called havoc. But either way most developers will be using standardized technologies, namely opencl and directcompute, that work on both. Thing is though, they don’t work very well yet for games. Same goes for cuda and physx. Physx only ever worked good with a second dedicated physx card and then there have only been a handful of games that actually used physx to an extent that it would actually be worth having it.

Actually more and more games are using hardware Physx and CUDA, and havoc will be used of course also, but the main point is any Physx instructions used in a game works off better on an Nvidia card than an AMD which has to use the CPU to emulate it. Unless as you said the game supports Havoc.

Was a bit rude of you to say Nonsense, when you just instructed someone to get 16GB ram without warning them about the 64bit OS requirement (like I did). :P

In short there’s no real reason to choose one over the other besides price/performance or personal preference. Note that price/performance can easily differ from game to game so it could be worth to look at benchmarks of games that are relevant to you before deciding.

Many people are too engrossed between the companies, and become (dare I say it) fanboys, so they are one sighted on GPUs.. so you will always have people who will buy Nvidia or AMD only. For me I am giving my honest opinion on what is coming out the next couple of years (in terms of software) vs the hardware available, and at the moment Nvidia is trumping what AMD has to offer. So far that is.

You’re right, didn’t need to be rude about it. Btw I recommended 8, not 16. Not that would change your argument. Either way I kinda assume that people know this by now, but yeah maybe I shouldn’t.

Anyway about the argument. I’ve considered hardware physx as good as dead. Anyone still using it is likely doing so for using the libraries and will actually take into account that it will need to run on the cpu. As I said as far as I know it only ever was worth the trouble if you actually had dedicated physx card. If you have evidence that goes against this I’d be interested to see it.

CUDA support was something that could’ve been a deciding factor the last few years because Nvidia was ahead of opencl and directcompute and AMD’s havoc. However as far as I know products coming out now that support gpu acceleration will all have support for both amd cards and nvidia. If not, the developer is either stupid or produces for a small niche of expensive professional software.

DABhand.2079:

Actually there is a reason why they have more stream processors, of course they have different architecture thats common sense right there, but they had to since Nvidia bought the Physx brand and started putting them on their cards, the only thing AMD could do at that time was to include more stream processing to combat it.

Just no :P Ofcourse they’ve been putting more of them in their chips, nvidia has obviously been doing the same. That’s the main reason graphic-cards get faster. Because they can do more calculations at the same time. That’s all graphic-cards are about do a ton of calculations in parallel. It has nothing to do with Physx whatsoever. Physx has actually very little to do with the hardware itself, but more so with interfacing with the hardware. Anyway I’ll stop here before it gets too technical since we’re getting a bit off-topic here.

Just wanted to re-iterate that there’s really little reason to choose any over the other unless you have some specific demands that don’t apply to the majority of users.

Yeah I kind of thought the power supply wouldn’t of been up to scratch so I’m happy to put a little extra money in it and I know that all of my links will pretty much be very competitive prices if anyones interested in any of these components in the UK

Updated list

I5 3570k £180
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Generation-i5-3570K-3-40GHz-Technology/dp/B007RUZKK6

Asus P8Z77-V motherboard – £80
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007KZQE7Q

Corsair Vengeance 16gb RAM – £70
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004E0ZKLQ

EVGA GeF GTX 670 – £300
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00829L3W0

Hitachi 500GB Deskstar Internal Hard Drive – £40
http://www.pcworldbusiness.co.uk/buy-rent/P147558P?cidp=Froogle

Hanns-G HS233H3B 23"LCD HDMI – £140 Yay 120hz
http://www.ebuyer.com/255455-hanns-g-hs233h3b-23-lcd-hdmi-3d-monitor-hs233h3b

Cooler Master Silent Pro Modular 500W power supply – £50
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-167-CM&tool=3

Tower Case – BitFenix Merc Beta Midi Tower Chassis – £25
http://www.amazon.co.uk/BitFenix-Merc-Beta-Tower-Chassis/dp/B005JRICQ8

Thanks for all the help it’s really appreciated trying to convince myself to buy a better more stylish case but I think I have to budget on something hope this can help somebody else who’s interested in buying

@Zalastra – I shant quote what you said, the quoting would end up 10 pages long :P

Physx is still majorly used, the upcoming Generals 2 that I have been working on will make use heavily of the hardware Physx chip on Nvidia cards, for AMD users they will lose on some things graphically but the game will use the havoc system also.

CUDA is great for water/fire effects among other things. Just Cause 2 was really the first game to use it extensively.

Physx has been the same, over the years it has been used in games, Sacred 2, Mirrors Edge, Alice Madness Returns, GRAW 2, Mafia II, Batman AA/AC, .. among others. Future titles that will use the hardware Physx chip – Metro Last Light, Borderlands 2, Hawken, Generals 2 (first in a set of new C&C games, including remakes — yep the Tiberium and Red Alert games will be remade too).

The only thing the CPU will be involved in between the Physx and CUDA chipset is just the transferring of the data from chipset to GPU. And any other stuff the game needs that doesn’t require a GPU, maths etc.

You say its little to do with the hardware itself in terms of Physx, but that is wrong if the game supports the hardware usage it will use it, but most developers will not do so because of AMD cards and they want a high rate of compatibility, but some have gone that bit further. And it makes an immense difference.

After just a quick search on youtube here is a comparison video of Alice-Madness Returns. A huge immense difference yes? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0UBtzKRUKI

Had to squint at that case. I would avoid it. there is no room behind the motherboard to route your cables, they will end up really clogging up and overheating your system. When you build, definitely look up cable management – it is important to keeping your system well-cooled. It doesn’t have much of a front air intake and no top exhaust, either.

Check this out to learn more about air cooling : http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cooling-airflow-heatsink,3053.html

There is also water cooling.

You’ll need to think about your overclocking goals, and if your case doesn’t come with fans (or only one fan like that one), you’ll need a few more. Check out the air cooling schemes in the link above.

For the OP,

Consider a simple Antec 1100 case, plenty of room in that, but the HAF 91x case someone mentioned is good also, but in my honest opinion is too ugly outside, too much artsy fartsy stuff :P

But if you have more money stashed away consider looking at Lian Li cases, expensive but well built and sturdy as hell, will give you muscles carrying it :P

EDIT: What Ceallach said with water cooling is good, but consider Liquid Cooling which is different, it doesn’t use large pumps like water cooling, and is easy to install, this is based on experience on using the Corsair H80 and H100 (double sized radiator that requires 2 120mm fan slots next to each other)

Ceallach.8740:

Hi there !

You build idea looks pretty good. I would however trade that 500 Gb HDD for a 1Tb one. You can get one for around the same price, or very little difference. I don’t know what you use your computer for, but these days with people getting movies and games on-line from iTunes / et cetera, you will eat up space very quickly !

I’ve already used 300Gb of a 1Tb drive and the computer is barely a week old ! (and I’m not torrenting, that was mostly just my old stuff + GW2 and the like).

I really don’t need much hard drive space to be honest I doubt I will get over 200gb in the computers life time

Ceallach.8740:

You can drop to 8Gb RAM without any worry. You really don’t need the 16. Looking at my RAM usage right now – I have tons of internet tabs open, GW2 is actually running (was going to do WvWvW, but got a phone call), iTunes, and a bunch of other stuff and it’s only about ~4Gb being used. I wouldn’t worry about RAM unless like others have said, you need to do a TON of heavy lifting while playing.

Considering hosting a server and I’m ridiculous I’ll generally have 40 tabs open at a time after being on my computer for over an hour, and I just like to have a lot extra than needed (I just like RAM for some reason)

Ceallach.8740:

I would not get that power supply. It’s not even rated for 80+ efficiency. I used the Antec Neo Eco 520W and am pleased with the quality, but if you’re going to overclock, you may be looking at needing more than 500W to give you wiggle-room. Check your 12v rails – how many amps do you get on them as opposed to how much you’ll need to draw – and single or multiple rails ? If you’re overclocking an expensive system, the LAST thing you want is a crappy PSU. It can destroy everything hooked up to it. This is your most important component. With your system, I’d expect to pay at least double what you have listed now for the PSU. I paid $60USD for a good one, and that was about baseline for a decent no-frills 500W.

I think I’m going to be unlikely to overclock the system now unless I really feel I need the performance and agree with you I have updated my power supply to something that looks a little more reliable

Ceallach.8740:

I might suggest dropping that monitor and getting a 60Hz (is there a reason you want a 120Hz one ?

I already have a fair 60hz screen, and I’m also a pretty big player in League of Legends and after using my friends 120hz monitor I was like I NEED this as FPS is a lot higher and I plan on using my other monitor for just general multi tasking

120hz monitors have faster refresh rates but doesn’t affect the GPUs performance as such, so won’t affect FPS, as to show correctly at 1080p, a 120hz monitor has to show 24 frames 5 times a second.

A newer GPU and decent CPU will help gain you FPS in games etc.

Dang every time I think I’ve got a cheaper price people are like well this could help and I’m like omg maybe I do need that seems that I should go for the Antec http://www.amazon.co.uk/Antec-Three-Hundred-Midi-Case/dp/B0017Q8IAA/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1346929296&sr=1-1-spell

Would the two fans cooling be sufficient enough on this case? I really don’t have the budget right now to do anything more so I guess overclocking is out of the question.
I never expected to get such a good response from a game forum about computers, thanks a lot

@DABhand I don’t expect it to have a higher FPS but a high FPS is pretty much worthless if you don’t have the refresh rate to see it while on a 120hz monitor you really can see the difference between 60-120fps in my opinion and experience I’m probably wrong about all the technicality’s but personally I can see the difference

seriously how come nearly all of you guys choose to bottleneck your PCs with outdated (HDD)harddrives?? HDD may have a lot of space, but it’s stoneage tech, and not something for a serious gamer, you really aught to look into SSD drives, it makes a huge difference in gaming. almost all the trouble i had in MMOs centered around PvP on my previous PC was not caused by all the other tech, but by my standard HDD drive
But it’s usually the bottleneck everyone overlooks :-)

@Thechin – Yes cause it looks smoother by the amount of refreshing, your eyes will only see 30hz, but a screen showing something 4 times quicker will look smoother

The 300 case is a good standard case, but if you can afford it go for something a bit more sturdier, in the £80+ range.

In terms of the GPU you sure you need the 670? Cause you can get a 580 for just a bit less. Ok its not a series 6 card but it has a couple more features than the 670. Or simply consider the 660ti which is cheaper and still does a good job.

At the moment I have GW2 running on both PC’s I have, one with a dual 680 and 3.8ghz Octo-Core AMD CPU, and one with a 460 SE with a 3.4ghz Quad-Core Phenom II. The latter plays good at near high settings, the first can play at top settings, but not much of a difference.

So even going for a 560 or 570 will save you even more money. As long as you get a decent CPU, even a simple i5 will work with at least 2.8ghz per core, preferably a quad core (4 cores).

EDIT: Forgot to mention, if you do go for a 5 or 6 series GPU, you will need a nice case, cheaper cases tend not to be long, which makes fitting large GPUs a pain

Also you will need a power supply that has 2×6 pin and 2×8 pin for PCI-e cards, depending on the GPU you go for. A series 5 card needs 2×6 pin, a 660 and 670 needs 1×6 pin and 1×8 pin, a 680 and 690 will require in some cases 2×8 pins.

And the power requirements go up, to be safe go for either an 800W or 1000W power supply.

DABhand.2079:

And the power requirements go up, to be safe go for either an 800W or 1000W power supply.

Waste of money.

DABhand.2079:

@Thechin – Yes cause it looks smoother by the amount of refreshing, your eyes will only see 30hz, but a screen showing something 4 times quicker will look smoother

I’m sure the eyes can see more maybe I’m wrong but it gets to the point where it was said you could only see 23 and that become standard for some cinemas (mainly old ones now I think) I can remember darkness saying this statement but all I know is the game was unplayable for me but either way we both agree it looks smoother – better and it really feels like a must feature for me

Couldn’t be bothered to quote rest of post but will the system work currently (as it should do of course) with the Antec case or will I need to change power supply again or case? I kinda fount it a little hard to digest all that information you gave me being as I never payed much attention to hardware so I’m dumb about it all to be honest.

@Waar – no its not, depending on the card the power requirements goes up. A 680/690 needs around 550W some even 600W, then there is 140-150W per motherboard+CPU, then the small amount of wattage per other card or device. All adds up doesn’t it :P

The cards can run on lesser wattage while in desktop mode, but if run it full pelt and you don’t have the required wattage available the card will lag, and eventually fail if run too long like that (long as in 6 months+).

@Thechin

Your answered post above gives a good list, but you could save more money on getting less than a 670 instead, 570 will save you at least £70-£100. Which you can use elsewhere in your build.

Antec cases will take all types of PSU so don’t worry about that. But like I said to waar above the more you have the more power you will need, 800W will be good with a 570. 1000W will give you options to upgrade in the future without having to shell out a lot more, for example if you choose to get another 570 and SLI them (i.e. link them up to be essentially double the processing etc).

The Antec 300 is a fantastic budget case. I have one of my PC’s in one and the airflow is pretty good and has plenty of room inside. Your link is broken so i can’t check but make sure it’s the newer model. As for fans, i think mine came with one on top and one at the back and i stuck a spare one from another case in the front, you won’t be overclocking so it won’t be necessary for you to do the same.

If you do go for a cheaper card make sure it’s something like the 7950, don’t go for a 570 as it’s not only slower but it runs hotter and uses much more power meaning a good 500W PSU won’t be sufficient.

There is Second Edition 570s now Kabaal. They addressed the issue some producers had problems with, I think the first edition cards that were faulty where Asus, MSI and Zotac cards.

But I was just giving an example on how to save a bit of money, he doesn’t need to go for a 570 of course.

The proposed system will use about 300 watt at load. PSU’s are most effecient between 20% and 80% usually with peak efficiency around 50%. You also need to take a little bit of degradation of the PSU into account. So 500 watt is fine, you could go 550/600 for upgrading safety/overclocking. If you consider going sli/crossfire in the future as upgrade go with 700 watt or higher.

As for the 60/120hz fps discussion and about your eyes supposedly only registering 30hz. That’s about information being sent to your brain. You do continually register everything. That’s why things get blurry when you move your head fast. All that information gets mixed. The thing with monitors is that you see static images. If the objects on your screen will move a great distance you will notice this as stuttering. Therefor higher fps does matter to a certain degree. Most monitors run at 60hz, that means they will read out the gpu buffer 60 times per second. So even if your gpu will render more frames per second, you won’t notice that. Having a 120hz monitor will thus up this limit to 120hz.

I have never seen a 570 or 580 run on a 500W PSU. Its impossible at full load without any type of lag.

Zalastra you also forgot about the motherboard using easily 140W-150W for that with the CPU, but then HDDs, Optical Drives, USB slots etc have to be added also. And obviously the GPU at full load.

There is eco cards that can run at the 400W mark at full load, but they are not great cards imho.

A 590 needs a 700W PSU with everything else. Yes the 670 is designed to run on lesser wattage, but not that much of a difference, once you factor in the other devices.

The higher wattage PSU comes into play later on also, with future upgrades etc. The lesser PSU’s like a 600W are more expensive for dedicated 12v rails for the GPU on them than a 800W that usually comes with it standard while offering more optionality later on. So best to spend the money on an 800W (1000W is for seriousness later on, I offered that as an option seeing as he wants to do more with it, like hosting a server etc then he has many options).

Ok I’m going to amp up to 600w PSU with
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CMPSU-600GUK-Gaming-Series-Performance/dp/B004WDWBUS
Seeing as its a small price mark up I’m pretty much decided on the GTX 670 I generally want a very strong graphics card and with the Antec 300 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Antec-Three-Hundred-Midi-Case/dp/B0017Q8IAA hopefully this link works this will keep me reasonably in my price range and keep me happy I guess I’ll repost the full build for convenience after this post