Guild Wars 2

Yeah as the title states, I have zero knowledge on computer parts.
Any recommendations on which parts that I should buy in order to play guild wars smoothly? I wanna have a smooth Zerg fight in wvw. Help please! Thanks!

Are you building the computer yourself?

Upgrading or building from scratch?

RAWR.4273:

Are you building the computer yourself?

I’m buying the parts and asking my friend to build in for me

Sagramor.7395:

Upgrading or building from scratch?

I’m building from scratch!

Cpu – get any intel quad-core, intel i5 ( for example i5 2500) or some amd fx 8350
Ram – 8gb is enough
gpu – the best u can get

I hope i helped u

Alchymista.8192:

Cpu – get any intel quad-core, intel i5 ( for example i5 2500) or some amd fx 8350
Ram – 8gb is enough
gpu – the best u can get

I hope i helped u

Guild Wars 2 is single-threaded and therefore only runs on a single core, and is usually bottlenecked by the CPU rather than the GPU. An i5 is still a very good recommendation, of course.

Zoplyse: It’s hard to give exact suggestions without knowing a few things:
What’s your budget? There’s good-for-$700 and there’s good-for-$1400, if you get what I mean.
How high do you want to crank your settings? Your screen resolution? Are you willing to lower settings in WvW for the sake of framerate?

This gives a fair overview of parts at various price points. Also includes a few sample builds.

http://techreport.com/review/27832/system-guide-current

Budget is everything. Also remember that a legit copy of Windows is around $100.

For this game getting a better CPU, in terms of single core performance, is more important than a better video card. AMD CPUs while cheaper are inherently slower and having lots of cores doesn’t help this game, fast cores help this game.

SierraRei.8526:

Alchymista.8192:

Cpu – get any intel quad-core, intel i5 ( for example i5 2500) or some amd fx 8350
Ram – 8gb is enough
gpu – the best u can get

I hope i helped u

Guild Wars 2 is single-threaded and therefore only runs on a single core, and is usually bottlenecked by the CPU rather than the GPU. An i5 is still a very good recommendation, of course.

Zoplyse: It’s hard to give exact suggestions without knowing a few things:
What’s your budget? There’s good-for-$700 and there’s good-for-$1400, if you get what I mean.
How high do you want to crank your settings? Your screen resolution? Are you willing to lower settings in WvW for the sake of framerate?

My budget is about $1k~$2k. I wanna play it on high settings!

Behellagh.1468:

This gives a fair overview of parts at various price points. Also includes a few sample builds.

http://techreport.com/review/27832/system-guide-current

Budget is everything. Also remember that a legit copy of Windows is around $100.

For this game getting a better CPU, in terms of single core performance, is more important than a better video card. AMD CPUs while cheaper are inherently slower and having lots of cores doesn’t help this game, fast cores help this game.

Thanks man! I’ve looked through the website, it’s awesome, I’m considering on it now!

You need fast CPU for this game. So I suggest to buy components which are overclock-able.
That means:

• Get K processes, so core i5 4690k or i7 4790k (depending on how much you want to spend. i7 will not help much performance boost for games however.)
• Z97 motherboard
• Decent CPU cooler ($50 and up)

If OP has no idea what they are doing, overclocking might not be the best course of action. However, GW2 is perfectly playable (with great FPS, too) with non-OC’ed equipment, if the base specs are good enough.
And with a budget of up to 2k$, you can get some pretty great stuff.

$2k is a little steep for a GW2 machine even if you factor in mouse, kb, display and speakers/headset.

I would start by picking the CPU and GPU you want.

I’d go i5 4670k or the slightly upgraded version 4690k, or the i7 4770k or its slightly upgraded version 4790k. look up the AMD equivalents if you want AMD – they are very cost-effective and budget friendly.

For GPU you want something in the range of nvidia 770 gtx or 780 gtx. you can look up the amd equivalents. my friend just got an older AMD 7950 for $110 which gets the job done on a budget and can play max settings. you don’t need AMD processor for AMD GPU btw.

I built mine a year ago with a 770 gtx and i7 4770k and from there if you don’t know what you want go to a site like pcpartpicker.com and you can see what other people are building with those 2 components with prices.

- i don’t see any benefit of Z97 over Z87 motherboard for most people (esp. if you don’t know what those means). make sure the socket of your board matches your cpu (socket 1150 for any cpu listed above).
- get a 240gb ssd hard-drive which you can get for $85-95 nowadays. up to $150ish
- get a solid but cheap cpu cooler like a hyper evo 212 or noctua. $25-50.
- 2×4gb ram is enough (~$60). 2×8gb ram is not too expensive at around $100-$130.
- power supply is important. i have a 650w Gold for my i7 4770k / 770gtx build. wasn’t more than $50. once you pick your components google “psu calculator” to determine what wattage you need

I use slickdeals.com and hunt for deals so i made mine very cheap (under $700 w/o monitor). i can run on max settings on gw2 as well as the only other game i’ve played on it which is shadow of mordor.

There are no AMD equivalents when it comes to individual core performance. The Bulldozer architecture sacrificed fast cores for many cores, which is fine as long as the application you are using can use many cores. It’s when an app only needs a few cores that AMD loses badly to Intel. In games that performance is mainly about GPU performance, it isn’t as much of a problem but with this game, Intel is the better, but more expensive, choice.

Here’s my back of the envelope choices for the major parts for a general gaming system.

CPU – i5-4690K
3rd party CPU cooler – Hyper 212 EVO is good and cheap.
Video Card – GTX 970, overkill here but assuming you play other games.
Asus Z97 motherboard – they have a plethora of options.
8GB of DDR3-1866 Cas 9 memory. Not too pricey, not too exotic.
650 watt high end power supply from Seasonic, Antec or Corsair (personal favorites)

Case, drives (I do recommend a 250GB SSD if you have the budget on top of a normal drive) I leave up to you. You know your storage needs and case aesthetics.

pcpartpicker.com is an especially helpful site to make sure that everything is compatible. I’ve built maybe 7 or 8 computers, from HTPCs to my work/gaming desktop, and you can really get a good handle on your budget through this.

Behellagh.1468:

Here’s my back of the envelope choices for the major parts for a general gaming system.

CPU – i5-4690K
3rd party CPU cooler – Hyper 212 EVO is good and cheap.
Video Card – GTX 970, overkill here but assuming you play other games.
Asus Z97 motherboard – they have a plethora of options.
8GB of DDR3-1866 Cas 9 memory. Not too pricey, not too exotic.
650 watt high end power supply from Seasonic, Antec or Corsair (personal favorites)

Interesting, this is pretty close to the rig I’m getting close to building.

What I have so far:

CPU: i7 4790 (regular, I have no plans to overclock)
Motherboard: MSI Z97-G45 gaming
GPU: GeForce GTX 760 (This was actually a gift, I didn’t buy it)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
Memory: 16GB DDR3 that I got on sale at Newegg for about $60.
HDD: 3TB capacity

What I still need to get:

Mid Tower (I should be getting that this weekend, and I’ve been doing my research on which case should fit that massive CPU cooler).
Power Supply.
Any extra fans.

I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 on my CAD machine at work. I can’t wait to start playing at home as well.

I’ve decided on some parts,
CPU: i5 4460
Motherboard: Asrock H97M Pro4
GPU: Sapphire Vapor-X R9 270X 2GB
Power Supply: Corsair CX600M 600W

Any opinions on these?

Zoplyse.4910:

I’ve decided on some parts,
CPU: i5 4460
Motherboard: Asrock H97M Pro4
GPU: Sapphire Vapor-X R9 270X 2GB
Power Supply: Corsair CX600M 600W

Any opinions on these?

On more than on occasion I’ve seen mention of Nvidia being a better choice over AMD for GW2. Whether that’s based on some fact or personal preference I can’t say. Either way I’d try and read up on it a bit.

Also the price difference on the K CPU shouldn’t be prohibitive should you want to OC down the line.

I would also highly recommend an SSD as others have.

Zoplyse.4910:

I’ve decided on some parts,
CPU: i5 4460
Motherboard: Asrock H97M Pro4
GPU: Sapphire Vapor-X R9 270X 2GB
Power Supply: Corsair CX600M 600W

Any opinions on these?

parts are slightly lower than what people recommended and definitely a budget build.

It will do well for gw2 but probably already outdated for some of the newer games out there. you can probably max settings or come close to max on gw2. if not sure google it i’m sure people have similar setups.

what I do when I build a PC is i don’t say I must have an R9 270x for example. i know it is in range of a 760 GTX and 7870 and 7950 in performance (off the top of my head so not 100% on this as the R and X naming from AMD confuses me). Then I get whicheer of the 4 is the best price. or if i have time i’ll see if any gpu’s from a tier up go on sale for the same price range.

Sagramor.7395:

Zoplyse.4910:

I’ve decided on some parts,
CPU: i5 4460
Motherboard: Asrock H97M Pro4
GPU: Sapphire Vapor-X R9 270X 2GB
Power Supply: Corsair CX600M 600W

Any opinions on these?

On more than on occasion I’ve seen mention of Nvidia being a better choice over AMD for GW2. Whether that’s based on some fact or personal preference I can’t say. Either way I’d try and read up on it a bit.

Also the price difference on the K CPU shouldn’t be prohibitive should you want to OC down the line.

I would also highly recommend an SSD as others have.

But $50, the difference between the 4460 and either i5-4xxxK CPU at NewEgg isn’t insignificant either if your budget isn’t large. It’s the slippery slope of “but for X more you’ll get …”. If you aren’t OCing at all the difference in performance is 9% for a part that costs 26% more.

The nVidia alternative closest to the 2GB R9 270X is a 2GB GTX 960. It’s only 10% faster and at NewEgg does cost $25 more, at least. It is a little more power efficient, nVidia has made great strides in the recent years in terms of power management. More power means more heat, more heat means more cooling, more cooling means louder rig. But Red Vs Green is still as big of a religious war as Red Vs Blue. If you are only budgeting under $200 for a video card, there isn’t anything wrong with the R9 270X.

I haven’t been keeping up with the current markets well enough then. Last PC I built there was a $10 diff between K and regular CPUs IIRC, so fair enough on the to K or not to K front.

Like I said I haven’t kept up, I just recall seeing quite a few Nvidia vs AMD threads with more professing Nvidia to be superior than vice versa.

But Zoplpse was looking at the i5-4460 and NOT either of the K less variants of the i5-4670 or 4690. Those are $15 apart from the K and $35 more than i5-4460.

If you’re just playing games the i5 will be good, the K variants are nice if you decide to try overclocking stuff later on. I agree with others, get a solid state drive if you can. 120gb at least, chuck your os and GW2 on it. 240gb works for me. Just get a second normal drive with a few TB for other games and programs. For ram, 8gb should do it.
Also agree with others on gfx card, will eventually be getting a gtx 970 myself. A 760+ should be good for you, also depends on what resolutions you intend to play at.

You will be good with these.

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690k
GPU: Nvidia GTX 960 or 970 depending on your budget
RAM: Guild Wars 2 uses approximately 2GB of ram. You will be fine with 8GB.
PSU (Power supply): 550-650W

Zoplyse.4910:

I’ve decided on some parts,
CPU: i5 4460
Motherboard: Asrock H97M Pro4
GPU: Sapphire Vapor-X R9 270X 2GB
Power Supply: Corsair CX600M 600W

Any opinions on these?

Can you stretch your budget some more and to what extent?
If yes, is your friend willing to overclock the computer he will build for you?
If not, do you want to bother with learning to overclock it yourself?

If not, then those are perfectly fine. Just browsing PcPartpicker, you can probably get a Seasonic S12II 620 Bronze for the same price for the CX600m.

Hi guys, I can’t buy too expensive parts because I’m from Singapore, the prices here are inflated. However, I’ve bought all the parts and assembled it, it’s awesome, I’m loving it! Thank you for all your contributions and opinions, I really appreciate it a lot! THANKS!!!!

I’m also building a new PC also, and have settled on the following;

i5 4690 3.5Ghz,
8GB DDR3 HyperX Savage 1600mhz
EVGA GTX 960 2GB
MSI H81M-E34

I’ll be reusing my HDD, and PSU as they are still good and not that old, in comparison to the rest of my current PC.