Guild Wars 2

So, I’m building a new PC because I’m sick of playing on my MacBook Pro. I mainly want to know what would be the best budget option for CPU and GPU. I would like something that won’t really break my bank, but will still have high performance options. My budget for the PC would hopefully be below $500, if at all possible.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks all!

Do you have any parts from an old PC that you can keep? Monitor, OS, keyboard, mouse, etc? Helpful to know if those things need to fit in your budget too.

I’ve got 2 monitors and a keyboard and mouse.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Rpv8Lk

No idea if that PSU is any good but w/e

Do you also need a copy of Windows?
If you do, this was the best I could do at about $500, but the specs aren’t great and its not very future-proof… I’m not sure if I can recommend it as a gaming PC
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/wb9jf7

I appreciate it. I mean, I’m sure I’m going to go over budget for most of this stuff. And I’ll be buying a lot of it over the next few months, so that I will be able to buy higher quality items at a higher budget. My main concern is having a GPU and CPU that will be able to handle GW2 at decent settings.

For CPU, check this site for single thread performance, don’t use the pricing for reference. You should also take note of the performance / price ratio to get the best value for money CPU.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

For GPU, check this
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gpus,4380.html

Do note that gw2 is highly dependent on CPU performance, not GPU.

Honestly, 500 usd wouldn’t get you much. 1000 usd will be more reasonable.

I have to agree with skyshroud; skimping now will probably mean you’ll end up with something that needs upgrading in a year or 2.

An option would be to get a reasonable CPU, say an i5, and just use the iGPU until you’ve saved up enough for a discrete GPU. Graphics performance won’t be great, but iGPUs now aren’t the complete garbage that they used to be.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Can-my-computer-support-Guild-Wars-2/5998391

Also, both AMD and nVidia are rumored to announce/release their 14/16nm GPUs this half year, so it may be a nice upgrade from the current architectures that are based on a 4+ year old process node. At the very least, when that happens, the current gen GPUs will get a discount.

If you want my advice don’t get a cheap PSU, I see a lot of people do this so save money but those can kill your entire system if they go wrong, absolutely DON’T buy a case with a PSU included, more often than not those aren’t worth scrap value of the metal they were made of.

One place you can save money on, is in a mainboard, since companies push these as if they will give you a better performance, when they don’t.
For example, I just built a PC from the ground up, and I used a MSI B150M PRO-VH, now typically you find those mainboards on office computers, but, if you take all my components and get them on a high-end gaming mainboard, the performance would be ABSOLUTELY THE SAME, and that’s because my mainboard is not slowing anything down.
Sure there isn’t much room to upgrade, but, with the money I saved there I was able to afford a GTX 970 instead of settling for a GTX 960.
And like I said, that board doesn’t slow down the performance of my components, including RAM.

If I were you I’d try to use whatever parts you might have, even an HDD from a console would do, and you can buy things like the case in a second hand market, then replace the fans for news ones since they’re dirt cheap.

Lastly it might be the case of just wait a bit longer and save more money, it won’t be long before a new line up of GPUs turns up and that will drive the price of the current ones down, till then you might even have enough saved to get a nice shiny new mid-range one.

Thanks for all the suggestions, friends! Right now, I’m looking at getting an Intel i5 6500 processor and GTX 950 (possibly a 960). I’m looking for something to just work for a little while until I can afford better quality items down the road. Does anybody have suggestions on a PSU and a case?

Also, is a motherboard with dual memory channel slots necessary? Or should I just purchase one with 2 RAM slots for 8gb of RAM?

That looks like a reasonable set up.

As long as the PSU is from a reasonable brand, you’ll be fine. Just avoid the absolute cheapest, and if you are upgrading, get something with more W than you currently need. Anything with a 80plus rating will be of reasonable quality. Case is completely up to your discretion unless water cooling is in your future plans. I personally use a Phanteks Evo pro with a Silverstone PSU.

In terms of number if slots, it’s only useful if you think you’ll end up upgrading in future. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, I can’t think of any game that benefits from greater than 8gb RAM.

An additional money saver is to get a mATX motherboard instead of a ATX. You lose PCIe slots, but unless you are requiring them, e.g. SLI, capture card, etc, you’re not losing much.

For PSU, you can check this community made tier list

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html