Guild Wars 2

@zqa the monk.6094:

You have 2 choices: either overclock or don’t:

• If you are going to overclock, you can get a K CPU and a cooler and go for the 660Ti
• If you are not overclocking, use that money to but the GTX 670 and go for one of the CPUs below, like I mentioned in a previous post: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/Need-computer-spec-help/219764

Intel Core i5-3550 3.3GHz Processor 6MB L3 Cache 5GT/s Bus Speed (Boxed), still very good (Turbo upto 3.7 GHz)
Intel Core i5-3450 3.1GHz Processor 6MB L3 Cache 5GT/s Bus Speed (Boxed), a bit slower (Turbo upto 3.5 GHz)

SO should i swap the sniper Mboard for …

http://www.cclonline.com/product/88650/GA-Z77X-UP5/Motherboards/Gigabyte-GA-Z77X-UP5-Motherboard/MBD0417/

And my current cooler for…
http://www.cclonline.com/product/76740/RR-212E-16PK-R1/CPU-Coolers/Cooler-Master-Hyper-212-EVO-CPU-Cooler/CLR0412/

any comment on the i5 vs i7 performance wise?

Grr head is starting to hurt lol

The setup you created for me before virtual (down below) this will work perfectly fine correct on max settings on GW2 (PVE and WvW) Bf3 you know the deal? and lets say i could spend the extra £100 on the motherboard and cooler stated above should I?

• Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Processor 6MB L3 Cache 5GT/s Bus Speed (Boxed)
• Gigabyte Z77-G1-SNIPER-M3 Motherboard
• 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws-X F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL 1600MHX DDR3
• MSI NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Graphics Card
• 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black 3.5" Hard Disk Drive
• Lian Li PC-K57B Black Lancool Series Midi Part-Mesh Gaming Chassis
• XFX Pro 650W Power Supply Unit

I personally think the G1.Sniper M3 has better specs than the GA-Z77-D3H.

If you want to overclock your CPU later (you’ll need to learn how):

• Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Processor 6MB L3 Cache 5GT/s Bus Speed (Boxed)
• Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler RR-212E-16PK-R1

If you don’t want to overclock your CPU later:

• Intel Core i5-3550 3.3GHz Processor 6MB L3 Cache 5GT/s Bus Speed (Boxed)
• No aftermarket cooler is needed, because there is already one supplied with the CPU, that’s why the description says “Boxed”.

The rest:

• Gigabyte Z77-G1-SNIPER-M3 Motherboard
• 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws-X F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL 1600MHX DDR3
• MSI NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Graphics Card
• 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black 3.5" Hard Disk Drive
• Lian Li PC-K57B Black Lancool Series Midi Part-Mesh Gaming Chassis
• XFX Pro 650W Power Supply Unit

1. I’m guessing learning how to overclock is just a Google search away
2. As for an Op (down below) that’s all good right?
http://www.cclonline.com/product/36356/GFC-00025/Operating-Systems/Microsoft-Windows-7-Home-Premium-Retail/SFT0110/

Also if that’s all in check I’d like to thank you for all the help you have given me

Operating system *

Yes, the OS is correct, however, Windows 8 is being released to the general public on the 26th October, so ask them first if you are going to be eligible for the £15 upgrade offer, since you are buying the full PC from them with Windows 7 pre-installed.

VirtualBS.3165:

I was using the reference point of the GTX 670 for all my percentages. Anyway, this should give a precise comparison between GTX 670 vs AMD 7870:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/598?vs=548

Also, between GTX 670 and GTX 660 Ti: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/598?vs=647
660Ti and 7870: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/647?vs=548

@Tanira.8157: My list of components above is specific to the shop the op referred http://www.cclonline.com. The sniper.m3 is a great board for that price point, with a good audio and network chip — here’s the feature comparison between both:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/comparison/list.aspx?ck=2&pids=4140,4168
I also agree that the 660Ti is a great card, although a bit memory bandwidth starved.

Yeah, I agree it’s a nice board, but looking at what OP needs he can cut the price from 120 to 80 on a board without ever notice anything.

For mainstream boards from gigabyte (which i mean gives better value for money than asus, my personal opinion here)

GA-Z77-D3H, cheaper by 40gbp
You get VIA audio which is worse, no SLI support.
Atheros NIC, which should be fine.
A bit fewer OC settings. No cooling on VRMs (which should only matter if OCing much)

OCing with the new 3D UEFI bios on Gigabyte is very easy. It’s a menu where you can use mouse and you can do by just changing multiplier on the different turbo boosts. With low OC, like setting TB on 1-2 cores to x43 (4300mhz) and TB on 3 and 4 cores to x42 (4200mhz) can be done without any additional tweaking. I know some will say that you should never use those auto features, but mobo’s are more intelligent now and there is no need for it at low clocks. However, when you start to go beyond 4.5GHz on all cores you need to be more careful and preferably use manual settings.

As for graphics, 670 is the better card, but in GW2 i can assure you that you won’t notice the difference between them at all, unless you have a monster screen.

This would shave 110gbp of the price, although you get a slightly weaker build.

Tanira.8157:

GA-Z77-D3H, cheaper by 40gbp
You get VIA audio which is worse, no SLI support.
Atheros NIC, which should be fine.
A bit fewer OC settings. No cooling on VRMs (which should only matter if OCing much)

I agree that is also a very nice board, but the Creative audio on the Sniper is night and day from VIA, especially for HRTF positional audio (Creative’s CMSS-3D), and even better when using headphones. It also has a dedicated headphone amp.
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4168#ov

No cooling on the VRMs is only okish when using a top-down cooler; when you are using a side cooler like that Cooler Master 212, the VRMs will have much less airflow, so having heatsinks on them will help alot.

Tanira.8157:

OCing with the new 3D UEFI bios on Gigabyte is very easy. It’s a menu where you can use mouse and you can do by just changing multiplier on the different turbo boosts. With low OC, like setting TB on 1-2 cores to x43 (4300mhz) and TB on 3 and 4 cores to x42 (4200mhz) can be done without any additional tweaking. I know some will say that you should never use those auto features, but mobo’s are more intelligent now and there is no need for it at low clocks. However, when you start to go beyond 4.5GHz on all cores you need to be more careful and preferably use manual settings.

This! ^

VirtualBS.3165:

The 670 is around £290-300, the 7870 is around £200-210, so you are spending 33% more, for more 33% performance… Ignoring the fact that the 7870 will become obsolete 33% faster!

Also ignoring that no modern decent graphicscard will go obsolete before it stops working.

These people here playing salesmen are kitten scamartists or what? Get the decent mb not thekittensoundsystem, and buy a 7870 or a GTX660 (don’t need Ti) cause that is fine for 1920×1080.

If some guy spend 3000$ to buy a computer like the one guy here brags, I would never take his advice. Not in a million years.

Felix.2613:

These people here playing salesmen are kitten scamartists or what? Get the decent mb not thekittensoundsystem, and buy a 7870 or a GTX660 (don’t need Ti) cause that is fine for 1920×1080.

If some guy spend 3000$ to buy a computer like the one guy here brags, I would never take his advice. Not in a million years.

Looks like someone have never done building PC before.

I’ve built from Budget to High end system and test with wide range of spec. I pretty much know by heart what wrong with the system or not.

zqa the monk.6094:

Grr head is starting to hurt lol

The setup you created for me before virtual (down below) this will work perfectly fine correct on max settings on GW2 (PVE and WvW) Bf3 you know the deal? and lets say i could spend the extra £100 on the motherboard and cooler stated above should I?

• Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Processor 6MB L3 Cache 5GT/s Bus Speed (Boxed)
• Gigabyte Z77-G1-SNIPER-M3 Motherboard
• 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws-X F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL 1600MHX DDR3
• MSI NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 Graphics Card
• 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black 3.5" Hard Disk Drive
• Lian Li PC-K57B Black Lancool Series Midi Part-Mesh Gaming Chassis
• XFX Pro 650W Power Supply Unit

This is a topnotch computer. The ggggraphicscard is an expesive one, and you can as I said, get a GTX660 or a HD7870, and you will still be impressed with how well it plays.

People who have spend too much money, always want others to do the same mistake. That way it doesn’t feel so dumb.

DJRiful.3749:

Felix.2613:

These people here playing salesmen are kitten scamartists or what? Get the decent mb not thekittensoundsystem, and buy a 7870 or a GTX660 (don’t need Ti) cause that is fine for 1920×1080.

If some guy spend 3000$ to buy a computer like the one guy here brags, I would never take his advice. Not in a million years.

Looks like someone have never done building PC before.

I’ve built from Budget to High end system and test with wide range of spec. I pretty much know by heart what wrong with the system or not.

Ye I have been building mine too for a good while, and build for friends also. Lapping dem cpus and all yo tough guy.

Edit: Oh you’re the guy I said I wouldn’t listen to. Well that still stands.

My head just exploded with all the illumination on this thread! /bow

(Just a sidenote: you don’t lap the CPUs, you lap the heatsinks…)

Oh well…!

https://www.google.dk/search?q=lapping+the+cpu&aq=f&sugexp=chrome,mod=14&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

And why did the other 3000$ expert buy a GTX680, when he could have bought an overclocked GTX670, gotten a faster card and saved himself 100$ too.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_670_Direct_Cu_II/9.html

Felix.2613:

https://www.google.dk/search?q=lapping+the+cpu&aq=f&sugexp=chrome,mod=14&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

And why did the other 3000$ expert buy a GTX680, when he could have bought an overclocked GTX670, gotten a faster card and saved himself 100$ too.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_670_Direct_Cu_II/9.html

You’re so ignorant.

I’ve gotten these GTX680 before 670 was announced months later. You’re going off the edge here, we are here to help the OP and he wants to run GW2 at max. That was his desire.

And I don’t know where are you looking at or reading. Get your brain straight. I’ve never said he should get 680. I’ve already mention decent $1000-$1500 range can run GW2 easily at max.

If you want to know why I have $3000 machine. It’s not just for gaming, I do modeling and other heavy programming. I’m making money and that’s none of your business.

Oh by the way, lapping CPU and etc. doesn’t make you an expert automatically.

Also, you are being very rude to many people here.

7870 can max this game and theres no denying that so why bother spending $150 more?

Felix.2613:

https://www.google.dk/search?q=lapping+the+cpu&aq=f&sugexp=chrome,mod=14&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

And why did the other 3000$ expert buy a GTX680, when he could have bought an overclocked GTX670, gotten a faster card and saved himself 100$ too.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/GeForce_GTX_670_Direct_Cu_II/9.html

Thanks for that search result! I particularly liked the link How to destroy your CPU by lapping it.

Felix.2613:

And why did the other 3000$ expert buy a GTX680, when he could have bought an overclocked GTX670, gotten a faster card and saved himself 100$ too.

And why all this anger and resentment?

Esrever.8613:

7870 can max this game and theres no denying that so why bother spending $150 more?

Would you buy an expensive videocard so just you could max one game? Or is it better for it to be a little future-proof?
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/598?vs=548

VirtualBS.3165:

Esrever.8613:

7870 can max this game and theres no denying that so why bother spending $150 more?

Would you buy an expensive videocard so just you could max one game? Or is it better for it to be a little future-proof?
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/598?vs=548

Theres no point in futureproof as that does not exist. The 20% difference between a 670 and a 7870 is insignificant to being able to play games well or not. When a day comes where the 7870 can’t play a game well, neither will the 670 offer much more, doing 40fps on a 7870 would mean you do 50, not a huge difference when cards become much better each generation. Here a compilations of a large selection of games and how well the cards rank with respect to price.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_7870_PCS_Plus_Vortex_II/29.html

By the time a 7870 can’t play games well, 120 pounds can buy much more performance than a 670.

Lets end this pointless discussion, both points of view have merit. The £100 difference between both is the choice of whether you want better quality visuals during the lifetime of the videocard, or a 10% save on the overall price of the computer.

It up to the op to decide that. Personally, I bet on the GTX670 because you’ll get to be playing most (all?) games at Ultra settings and it shows a clear advantage on current and next-gen game engines. For example, there are several games coming out this year on the Frostbite 2 engine, where the GTX670 has a pretty nice advantage (41fps vs 60fps, 46% faster than the 7870 or the 7870 is 32% slower, whatever percentage reference point you prefer).

After letting the site do a once over, they said everything is fine but they suggested that I should get an SSD as a primary drive. Should I take their advise or are they just trying to milk me for more cash XD?

I am having sever problems running this game. I only get about 30fps and it took forever to create a character! The lag was aweful!
These are my pc specs:
amd fx8150
msi twin frozr III 6950
8gb of ddr3 ram 1866 dual channel
windows 7 ultimate
1tb hdd @ 7200rpms
If you need more just let me know. I can’t figure out why my pc can’t play gw 2 without hessitation. It plays skyrim on ultra with over 60fps. BF3 with about 60 on average @ 1920×1080. Any help would be nice! Thanks!

Sorry, my processor runs at 3.6ghz and it has a 3.8ghz turbo on it.

Depends on how much you want to spend. SSDs make excellent boot drives, windows will feel alot snappier with one, but you are already buying a great HDD (a Caviar Black), so if you don’t really want to spend that extra money now, you can always but the SSD later.

This should give you a nice overview of the boost you get from an SSD:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lR0XoHFU6Y

And look at this article to get a grasp on which SSD to choose vs price points:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269.html

Do you think SSD’s would make a difference on game play?

I don’t want to spend that much extra on an SSD but will this (link below) make a big difference in terms of how smooth things run on my computer its only an extra £50. So do you think I should swap out the caviar black for this SDD?

http://www.cclonline.com/product/54873/VTX3-25SAT3-240G/Hard-Drives/240GB-OCZ-Vertex-3-2-5-SSD/HDD0523/

Tjboyd.6942:

Do you think SSD’s would make a difference on game play?

They’ll make a difference more on level loading and stuff like that. Once everything is in RAM they don’t make any difference. On general windows performance, you’ll see a big increase when using an SSD, since everything will load much much faster.

zqa the monk.6094:

I don’t want to spend that much extra on an SSD but will this (link below) make a big difference in terms of how smooth things run on my computer its only an extra £50. So do you think I should swap out the caviar black for this SDD?

http://www.cclonline.com/product/54873/VTX3-25SAT3-240G/Hard-Drives/240GB-OCZ-Vertex-3-2-5-SSD/HDD0523/

Will 240GB be enough for your needs right now?

• If yes, then swap the HDD for the SSD.
• If no, then keep the HDD.

Also, remember you can always buy the SSD now and later on buy an HDD (internal or external) if you need more space.

Yeah I hear yah. Idk I just can’t believe my pc performs this bad on this game. The graphics aren’t even really all that good to be honest. I don’t understand it.

Well, looks like the specs are all sorted out now. As for a monitor I know you suggested a 2mm response speed but will a 5mm be ok as I’m already £100 over budget. Is there a noticeable difference?

(monitor I picked)
http://www.cclonline.com/product/86726/ET-VS1HE-004/Monitors/Acer-S231HLbid-23-inch-Full-HD-Widescreen-LED-Backlight-Display/MON0944/

Tjboyd.6942:

Yeah I hear yah. Idk I just can’t believe my pc performs this bad on this game. The graphics aren’t even really all that good to be honest. I don’t understand it.

It’s the AMD cpu:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/guild-wars-2-performance-benchmark,3268-7.html
It bottlenecks at 43.8fps with a 7970@1280x1024, when running @3GHz. Even if yours runs @3.6GHz, when going to 1920×1080 and using a 6950 performance is going to be even less than those 43.8fps. Check the thread about the AMD CPU performance.

What?! That’s nuts! I just bought this cpu like a week ago!

Hopefully someday they will patch the game so that AMD users are actually able to play the game smoothly. I run about 20-40 max on all high settings at 1920×1080. Do you think I should try to overclock my cpu to 4.0? I have a high end cpu cooler.

And my motherboard has the smart auto-overclock genie on it.

zqa the monk.6094:

Well, looks like the specs are all sorted out now. As for a monitor I know you suggested a 2mm response speed but will a 5mm be ok as I’m already £100 over budget. Is there a noticeable difference?

(monitor I picked)
http://www.cclonline.com/product/86726/ET-VS1HE-004/Monitors/Acer-S231HLbid-23-inch-Full-HD-Widescreen-LED-Backlight-Display/MON0944/

There is some noticeable difference in 5ms vs 2ms if you also play shooters, but that seems a good monitor for its price.

It’s so weird that my cpu is causing this. On my task manager my cpu don’t hit 20% usage. Ugh. I do not want to go out and buy an intell just to play this game. Although, I have always wanted an excuse to buy the new Ivy bridge i7 (;

Tjboyd.6942:

Hopefully someday they will patch the game so that AMD users are actually able to play the game smoothly. I run about 20-40 max on all high settings at 1920×1080. Do you think I should try to overclock my cpu to 4.0? I have a high end cpu cooler.

Definitely! O/C it as much as you can. Performance will almost double going from 3GHz to 4GHz.

From the same link:

AMD’s dual-module FX-4000-series demonstrates a colossal gain between 3 and 4 GHz, though, telling us that the processor is bottlenecking performance in a big way at lower frequencies.

Best thing to do when building a pc is spending alot of time at Tom’s hardware site and compare components.

Iam building a new rig myself very soon.
Mobo
CPU
Memory
are 1st and maybe i wait it out and stick to my Asus Radeon 4850 who still pulls amazing kitten in PvE at 60FPS on high settings.

The rumors of Ati’s new line up are out in the open (the 8xxx series) and they have around 30% to 40% more power then current Nvidia’s flagship like the 680.

If you still have a little patience and still have an old video card i would wait a few months before buying a new GPU.
Its a win win if you ask me, Nvidia will drop in price with their 680 / 670 and Ati comes out with new eye candy.

I woulnt recomend anyone buying a AMD CPU tough they have lost battle after battle after battle with Intell past 3 / 4 years.
And you will have much more power in a I5 / I7 then any AMD on the market.

Goodluck !!!

For anyone thinking of OC’ing a ‘new’ cpu, and are going to get an intel one.
Dont get an Ivybridge if your planing on going over 4.3ghz, they just cant do it without ‘extreme’ cooling.
Instead get a SB-E, they are more expensive but are by far the better overclockers.

Where 85c at 100% usage is the limit:
IB = 4 to 4.3ghz air cooled depending on the chip lottery
SB-E= 4.4 to 4.7ghz air cooled depending on the chip lottery

Note that when you go water cooling SB-E can go up to 5ghz, but IB even with water cooling strugles to go past 4.5ghz.