Guild Wars 2

Hello! I’m looking to build a PC for GW2: HoT and more and looking for some feedback.

What I’m looking for right now:

Right now I’m looking for a durable and quality mobo and CPU that will last for a few years while I upgrade the other hardware over time.

I don’t really know if something special is required, but I heard you can run two GPUs parallel so I’d like to try that.

Here are some previous recommendations I’ve received on a post a while back:

CPU:
Intel i5-4590
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116991

Mobo:
Asus Maximus VII Hero LGA Z97…
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132125

Asus Z97-P LGA 1150…
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1920603

Questions/Needs:

1. I want to run two GPUs, so I’d like a mobo that has plenty of space for two GPUs. So no cramped PCI-e slots. The Hero I linked seems to have a good gap between the slots.

2. How do I find a computer case that fits the mobo I choose? Does most any case fit most any mobo?

3. I currently have two Zotac GeForce GTX 560Tis I was going to use in parallel. Is that possible for this model of GPU? Any recommendations on a newer model for future upgrades?

4. I like lots of USB slots. The ones recommended to me have only a few. Do mobos have ports on them that additional USB slots could plug into or are you pretty much stuck with whatever USB slots you start with?

5. A couple people recommended that specific Intel i5 CPU that I linked above, but if I go with an i7 or something else, how much of an impact would it have on my computers performance for gaming specifically.

6. If I choose a specific CPU first, how do I know if a mobo will mesh well with it. The two mobos recommended to me both say something about a Z97 chipset. Is that specific chipset tailored to the specific CPU I linked above?

What important to me in hardware choices:
I’m not looking to spend tons of money but know it takes a certain level of cost to get quality. I don’t need top tier stuff. I’m no professional gamer. Reliable performance and durability are my main values. Coupled with functionality when it comes to the layout of the mobo. Whatever brands or versions can get me reliability and durability without a huge cost, I want that.

I was hoping to spend $600-$800 on the basics: CPU/mobo/case/powersupply/CPU-cooler. Could go slightly higher if it’s worth it.

Thanks for any input you have to offer!

1. Most mobo’s can handle 2 vga’s and the spacing are standard across the common brands.

2. Most fit but I will choose to have a mini-tower case, since most video cards today are long.

3. Not sure, the Zotac has a pci-e 2.0 interface, and the mobo you have has only 1 pci-e 2.0. It has 2x pci-e 3.0, but I’m not sure of backwards compatibility.

4. If you will notice, most cpu cases has 2-4 usb ports on the front now. Your mobo should have pins on where those front usb ports could connect. Please refer to mobo’s manual for this.

5. I have read somewhere that GW2 is cpu-dependent, so having an I7 may speed up the game – but don’t take my word on it since I’m also using i5.

6. Check their sockets from the spec sheet.

*I am by no means an expert on this, but I am the one who built my own pc. I can post the specs if you want.

I’m a very avid pc Techie so I think I could help, do keep in mind most of this is preference and to me certain brands are my preference.

You’ll want a large PC case to dual cards.
Now you said not top of the line things but what I’m about to say is an example.
the new R9 AMD cards you can just plug them in and they will be working together just fine nothing extra needed. Granted two of those cards will go over your max preferred cost (being around $900). Besides that older models and GTX cards will need cables for it, cables I don’t know because I didn’t dual GPUs before, imo a R9, a single R9 will do just fine. Lastly before I go into detail my three brands are Corsair, ASUS, and AMD. These brands have yet to let me down in years of owning their products.

CASE:
your case with 2 GPU and a strong CPU will get very hot quickly. You want nice air circulation so something like this case will work.
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/graphite-series-760t-full-tower-windowed-case
You can see what type of motherboards will go with that case. I suggest ATX.
Also has another 4 USB’s in the front for more USB as you wanted.

CPU COOLER:
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/hydro-series-h60-high-performance-liquid-cpu-cooler
This will keep you CPU nice and cool, no problems or trouble.

CASE FANS:
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/air-series-sp120-led-blue-high-static-pressure-120mm-fan-twin-pack OR THESE FOR NOT LED:
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/air-series-sp120-pwm-high-performance-edition-high-static-pressure-fan-twin-pack
You can get 7 of these fans (NOTE THIS IS A TWIN PACK) because that case can have 7 120MM fans. with that many fans moving air around you could probably freeze a cup of water in that case. ( Please don’t put a cup of water in your case.) Some people say LED fans tend to be weaker so its up to you, keep in mind 7 fans is nice. With this case I’d go with LED, unless some research says other wise because with that side view it will glow like a beast.

PSU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139057&cm_re=Corsair_RM-_-17-139-057-_-Product
Do yourself a favor and get a 1000w PSU, you CAN get a 850 but with dual GPU I think you WILL run into problems somewhere. 7 fans, 2 GPUs, a most likely OC’d CPU, and a bunch of other things you’ll want it trust me, and even if you don’t use up all of it when you upgrade you wont need to upgrade the PSU any more. the 80+ Gold is also really good.

CPU:
I was told there will be new ones soon but in case there isn’t by HoT.
either cheap out and get a i7 2600k, (if buying new I don’t suggest being cheap with a CPU)
Something like this should do fine.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116987&cm_re=intel_cpu_i7-_-19-116-987-_-Product

GPU:
Remember I prefer AMD, others say Nvidia. I’d say either get a SINGLE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127787&cm_re=AMD_R9_290x_Lightning-_-14-127-787-_-Product
or possibly two of these.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150700&cm_re=R9_290x-_-14-150-700-_-Product
Please take note that the minimum requirement for this card is 750w, adding two doesn’t instantly mean 1500w but it will be high up there. And XFX cards have LIFETIME warranty. I REALLY don’t suggest dual GPU as I have faith these cards are strong enough alone, but again this is my PREFERENCE. So please do research on your own about these and Nvidia cards.

MOBO:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131989&cm_re=ASUS_ATX_Motherboard-_-13-131-989-_-Product
it LOOKS like this motherboard will fit dual GPU’s, at least it has the PCI’s for them. (I believe you’d use the two red ones). now the comparability you’re looking for here is two things first. LGA and ATX. LGA is the socket type and ATX is the board type.
Your PC Case can support a ATX which this case is. your CPU is a 1150, which this board can support. All good there. Also looks like it can hold enough Drives for your PC case too. Lastly I’m also seeing 8 USB slots. That’s 12 total slots. (8 on Mobo 4 on PC case).

*SSD for OS:
*http://www.corsair.com/en-us/neutron-series-128gb-sata-3-6gbs-ssd
This should be good to hold your OS and a few programs on it.

HDD:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236339&cm_re=WD_HDD-_-22-236-339-_-Product
This would work for storage as well.

RAM:
http://www.corsair.com/en-us/vengeance-pro-series-16gb-2-x-8gb-ddr3-dram-1600mhz-c9-memory-kit-cmy16gx3m2a1600c9r
Ram like this will help as well, I believe it is what I have, not a single problem.

That covers some of the basics. The remaining things are simple things like PCI sound card, PCI wifi card if needed, other coolers. This will be over your budget so once more PLEASE do your own research on this, use what I gave as a guideline. a very quick SIMPLE guideline. I recommend going over to a website called TomsHardware, it is where you’ll get a very nice answer to your question by people certified to help with this. I’m on there occasionally and they could give you indepth guide on what to do.
You’ll need more than what I listed to get your PC going as well, but as i said it is a guideline.To put the final nail in the coffin PLEASE do your own research.

Mo Mo.1947:

Questions/Needs:

1. I want to run two GPUs, so I’d like a mobo that has plenty of space for two GPUs. So no cramped PCI-e slots. The Hero I linked seems to have a good gap between the slots.

2. How do I find a computer case that fits the mobo I choose? Does most any case fit most any mobo?

3. I currently have two Zotac GeForce GTX 560Tis I was going to use in parallel. Is that possible for this model of GPU? Any recommendations on a newer model for future upgrades?

4. I like lots of USB slots. The ones recommended to me have only a few. Do mobos have ports on them that additional USB slots could plug into or are you pretty much stuck with whatever USB slots you start with?

5. A couple people recommended that specific Intel i5 CPU that I linked above, but if I go with an i7 or something else, how much of an impact would it have on my computers performance for gaming specifically.

6. If I choose a specific CPU first, how do I know if a mobo will mesh well with it. The two mobos recommended to me both say something about a Z97 chipset. Is that specific chipset tailored to the specific CPU I linked above?
Thanks for any input you have to offer!

1. I must vehemently disagree with knives on his statement. Just because it looks to have two physical x16 slots doesn’t mean it supports the split x8/x8 that a duo nVidia setup would need. Many boards support CrossfireX in x16/x4 setups which won’t work with a pair of nVidia cards. You will need to read the descriptions that should say something along the lines of “single at x16 or dual at x8/x8 mode”. To see if you have enough room between the slots you will need to look at the boards themselves. NewEgg has excellent set of photos for each. All else fails, go to the motherboard manufacture’s site and download the manual unless any additional photos there help. For instance that Asus Hero MB looks to have two slots of space between the two video card slots (the red ones, even though there is only one x1 slot there).

2. You will likely be looking for a mid-size tower case that will fit an ATX sized motherboard. That’s relatively common enough with prices from dirt cheap to more than the cost of your CPU. Features like number of fans and mounts for additional fans; support for mounting a 240mm liquid cooling radiator; movable drive cages, space behind the motherboard tray for cable wiring as well as a wide case to support tall CPU coolers all impact the price as well as simple items like number of USB and other ports up front. So wider cases will tend to provide room for neat cabling and tall coolers and deep (front to back) will allow the most extreme length video card to fit which is why some cases position or let you move the drive bay lower in the case leaving plenty of front to back room for long video cards.

3. Yes they should have the SLi “fingers along the top edge”. You will need the bridging card but most motherboards come with one that will bridge the gap between the two x16 video card slots.

4. That Asus Hero MB may only have two USB 2.0 and four USB 3.0 on the rear but there are headers on the MB for two more UBS 3.0 and five more USB 2.0. Those tend to be used for the front panel ports on your case. Not if you have need for more than six USB 3.0 and six or seven USB 2.0 ports I recommend a USB hub for your lower speed devices.

5. Well the i5-4590 is a fine CPU. However it’s overclocking ability is limited or none. The current top end i5 is the 4690K. While stock speed is only 6% faster it is an exceptional overclocker with lower overall temperature during overclock. If you aren’t concern about overclocking now you don’t have to worry about the $40 more. As for performance between the i5 and i7, don’t let anyone fool you, they are both quad cores except the i7 can in certain conditions squeeze more performance out of each core due to design factors that would would likely bore you. For GW2 with Intel, it’s all about the clock speed and the top end i7-4790K starts at 4GHz, some 20% faster than the i5-4590 and that’s before overclocking it. Of course it’s also $120 more expensive than the i5-4590.

6. Well CPUs will only fit certain CPU sockets due to their pin layout. Those sockets interface to the other components on the motherboard via the chipset, the Z97 in this case. There are other chipsets but chipsets have features like enabling the CPU to use multiple video cards and allow overclocking, or not. Also MB features items like number of SATA (drive) and USB ports as well as version. CPU also determine memory support.

A nice overview of part picking can be found at Tech Report, including cases and power supplies (don’t skimp on the power supply) at various price points, they even have some sample builds.

http://techreport.com/review/27488/system-guide-current

Feel free to pop back here with more questions.

Alright this input helps me a lot. Thank you all! I’ll have to investigate it all and make some choices.

Seems dual GPU isn’t really that great or worth it from the feedback here. Especially since GW2 is CPU heavy. I’ll look into your alternative suggestions instead.

I will come back with more questions if I need but I do have one so far:

I have a general understanding of what overclocking a CPU is, but I don’t really know how to do it. How do you overclock a CPU?

Overclocking your CPU means it is draining more power to perform better. Simply put in my many GREAT analogies (sarcasm). OC’ing your CPU is like running the extra mile, you’ll achieve a lot more but at the cost of exhausting yourself to your limit, pushing youself past it, practically harming yourself at the same time.

In technical terms. You increase the performance of the CPU to make it do more at once while increasing the power consumption. This in the long run makes the CPU die sooner(nothing really to worry about unless you have a low yearly income to save up within the years you’ll have it.) But it is worth it to have a great PC performance.

Now to DO so you’ll have to look at your motherboards manual as this is done within the BIOS. Some Mobo’s you just click a setting others its a few settings. Please find a guide on Overclocking before doing anything because it CAN be harmful quickly if done wrong. for intel CPU’s ending with a K can be overclocked. in example the i7 2600K.

okay that K thing is good to know! I’ll look for a K CPU and go through the manual and search the internet when I put things together.

You might want to look at the MSI gaming MBs. Just put one in with msi geforce 970.

http://gaming.msi.com/products/motherboard/z97-h97-series

Yes, overclocking is “officially” against Intel’s (or AMD’s if you are using one of their CPUs) guidelines but since the original Celeron 300A, Intel knows owners will try it anyways and instead of fighting them on it completely, they’ve choosen to steer them into the top end, most expensive models with the “K” version adding another $20 to the price. Then on top of that you need to have a motherboard with their top end chipset for that CPU socket to allow the overclocking and since overclocking requires more power for the CPU, those motherboards are more expensive, a high end CPU cooling system to dissipate all the excess heat created by using more power and lastly builders buy ludicrous speed and expensive memory trying to squeeze every last drop of performance out of their rig, etc.

Overclocking within reason doesn’t have to be that expensive and the “K” models are picked for their stability when overclocked and the “Devil Canyon” versions produce less heat when overclocked than the original top of the line “K” models for Socket 1150.

=======

Let’s do a little picking memory tutorial. First, the type of memory you are looking for are called DDR3, they come in a 240 “pin” stick, be bought/used in pairs and you should only care about ones that use 1.5 Volts.

There are two measurements of speed for memory. First is transfer rate. When you see memory listed as DDR3-1600, the 1600 is the transfer rate. Higher is better, to a point. Second is timing, listed as Cas (not important to know what that acronym means) and lower is better. It represents the delay before transfer starts. So DDR3-1600 Cas 9 is better than DDR3-1600 Cas 11.

When comparing the rule of thumb is same transfer speed, choose the one with lower Cas. If same Cas, choose the one with higher transfer speed. If you are comparing memory of different transfer rates and different Cas, that’s a bit trickier.

Note that DDR3-1600 memory can also be listed as PC3-12800. The 3 means DDR3 and the 12800 is simply 8 times the transfer rate, usually rounded to the nearest 100. So DDR3-1866 is PC3-14900.

In short getting either DDR3-1600 Cas 8 or DDR3-1866 Cas 9 is about the fastest you can get without going “extreme”. They should run you around $9 a GB and since you are looking to build a inexpensive rig, 2 sticks of 4GB each should be adequate.

Behellagh.1468:

Then on top of that you need to have a motherboard with their top end chipset for that CPU socket to allow the overclocking and since overclocking requires more power for the CPU, those motherboards are more expensive

That’s wrong.

kokiman.2364:

Behellagh.1468:

Then on top of that you need to have a motherboard with their top end chipset for that CPU socket to allow the overclocking and since overclocking requires more power for the CPU, those motherboards are more expensive

That’s wrong.

Overclocking is only officially enabled on the Z97, Intel’s top end chipset. How is that wrong? Also the motherboards with the Z97 tend to have more robust voltage regulator circuitry to provide stable power at the higher voltages overclocking needs.

I’ll be asking 1 question: does the i5 and the z976 allow for 32 pci-e lanes? (for 16x and 16x or is it 16x and 8x or lower?

No need to really run dual GPU these days… Roll with a 970. Lower price tag and it is beefy. This way you can put more money towards an i7 CPU; my opinion. I had 2 GPU at one point… didn’t see the REALLY benefits. I played WoW on that system and Counter-Strike. If you are planning on playing a game like The Division or some of the other games coming out this year or next then you might benefit from dual GPU. But also remember you’re going to have to worry about cooling those beasts too. So, invest in a GOOD kitten tower. A lot of these guys already posted their preferences and opinions. They are mostly legit ideas. Good luck!

Okay so one question about two graphics cards. Seems like it’s not worthwhile for running one game, but what about for running multiple graphics intensive programs at once?

I often like to stream movies or run multiple programs at once while playing GW2. I even have multiple accounts and sometimes run them both at once for various things like scouting or using the TP or crafting or just using mesmers to teleport my characters places.

If I had two graphics cards, could I make it so one program uses one graphics card, and another program uses another? And would that make a difference at all?

I’m probably not gonna do dual GPUs, but still curious about possibilities.