Guild Wars 2

Hi. I have an i5 3570k CPU and an Asrock Z77 Extreme 4 Pro motherboard with 8gb DDR3 Ram running at 1600mhz and I am now looking to get a graphics card to be able to play this game at full setting.

I plan to play this game with vsync on at 60hz on a 1080p monitor with 2ms refresh rate.

Would an AMD R9 380 4GB max out the settings (AA can be set at 2x, I dont mind) and play with a solid 60 FPS (except in boss fights of course) ?

Or should I get the AMD R9 390 8GB and kind of future proof and “overkill” the specs a bit just to be on the safe side ?

Also, an Nvidia 970 is a possibility, but that whole 3.5GB scandal left me with sour grapes :P

Thanks for your replies!

I have an MSI GTX 960 gaming 2GB and i can play play GW2 at max no problem. So what ever the AMD card that is the equivalent will be fine.

BrotherBelial.3094:

I have an MSI GTX 960 gaming 2GB and i can play play GW2 at max no problem. So what ever the AMD card that is the equivalent will be fine.

Thanks, thats interesting because the R9 380 4GB is around 15% better than the 960.
So if your 960 can run that way, then I think it will be overkill the 390.

Uhkapian.7068:

Also, an Nvidia 970 is a possibility, but that whole 3.5GB scandal left me with sour grapes :P

Thanks for your replies!

I recently bought a new pc with a 970 and I love it, that thing is beastly.

Wait for Polaris then you can max everything out at 4k and they’ll be much more power efficient.

I have the same CPU and I have a R9 270x and I can run with everything on max.
Only the number of models I set at medium because in some moments there is no PC spec in the world that can maintain a good PFS with literally 100’s of players around.

Agemnon.4608:

Wait for Polaris then you can max everything out at 4k and they’ll be much more power efficient.

“According to AMD’s Raja Koduri (via VentureBeat), is Polaris 10, and is considered a “console class” GPU. It’s designed with small form-factor notebooks in mind, ones that value battery life and portability over grunt, but will still have some gaming capabilities. The focus of the second GPU, the Polaris 11, wasn’t named, but a bit of deductive reasoning suggests it’s either a higher-end piece of kit, or aimed more at business users.”

This news report states that Polaris 10 is for mobile/netbook and Polaris 11 will be high end and/or business users (workstation probably).

So in the near future its either gonna be the 380 or 390 for me as my budget is around 380 euros max.

Have you considered liquid cooling? Corsair’s Hydro series is great. I keep my i7 4770k cool even with a 4.4 GHz clock (base clock is 3.5) Also PCIe-SSD’s are out but your board can’t use them since only 2015 or later have the M.2 functionality. If you ever upgrade to Zen or Kabylake then the technology should be mature enough by then to justify those as boot drives but regular SSD’s work well enough for booting.

Uhkapian.7068:

BrotherBelial.3094:

I have an MSI GTX 960 gaming 2GB and i can play play GW2 at max no problem. So what ever the AMD card that is the equivalent will be fine.

Thanks, thats interesting because the R9 380 4GB is around 15% better than the 960.
So if your 960 can run that way, then I think it will be overkill the 390.

Yeah, you don’t need a super computer to run the game with decent FPS, it wont get you 60+ FPS at all times, but then no system will. As long as you have a solid CPU you are golden.

Uhkapian.7068:

BrotherBelial.3094:

I have an MSI GTX 960 gaming 2GB and i can play play GW2 at max no problem. So what ever the AMD card that is the equivalent will be fine.

Thanks, thats interesting because the R9 380 4GB is around 15% better than the 960.
So if your 960 can run that way, then I think it will be overkill the 390.

Yeah, you don’t need a super computer to run the game with decent FPS, it wont get you 60+ FPS at all times, but then no system will. As long as you have a solid CPU you are golden.

Agemnon.4608:

Have you considered liquid cooling? Corsair’s Hydro series is great. I keep my i7 4770k cool even with a 4.4 GHz clock (base clock is 3.5) Also PCIe-SSD’s are out but your board can’t use them since only 2015 or later have the M.2 functionality. If you ever upgrade to Zen or Kabylake then the technology should be mature enough by then to justify those as boot drives but regular SSD’s work well enough for booting.

I have a good SSD already and my CPU is OCed to 4.3 on a Hyper 212 Evo.

I am just asking if people here have been running this game maxed out on a 380.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Uhkapian.7068:

BrotherBelial.3094:

I have an MSI GTX 960 gaming 2GB and i can play play GW2 at max no problem. So what ever the AMD card that is the equivalent will be fine.

Thanks, thats interesting because the R9 380 4GB is around 15% better than the 960.
So if your 960 can run that way, then I think it will be overkill the 390.

Yeah, you don’t need a super computer to run the game with decent FPS, it wont get you 60+ FPS at all times, but then no system will. As long as you have a solid CPU you are golden.

Well the idea is really to get 60+ fps at 99% of the times, except maybe in towns and raids/world bosses.

But that is the reason I am asking, because I really want to play this maxed out.

A 380 should more then suffice. A 390 might be a good idea if you’re looking to play new AAA titles on maxed settings for the next couple of years or you want to go for higher resolution gaming in general but at 1080P a 380 is plenty for GW2 and at least high settings on anything out today

Uhkapian.7068:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Uhkapian.7068:

BrotherBelial.3094:

I have an MSI GTX 960 gaming 2GB and i can play play GW2 at max no problem. So what ever the AMD card that is the equivalent will be fine.

Thanks, thats interesting because the R9 380 4GB is around 15% better than the 960.
So if your 960 can run that way, then I think it will be overkill the 390.

Yeah, you don’t need a super computer to run the game with decent FPS, it wont get you 60+ FPS at all times, but then no system will. As long as you have a solid CPU you are golden.

Well the idea is really to get 60+ fps at 99% of the times, except maybe in towns and raids/world bosses.

But that is the reason I am asking, because I really want to play this maxed out.

The only places I don’t get 60+ FPS is in towns/world bosses/ blob zergs.

I have an R9 290x and I can run the game with all the graphics settings on high and usually get around 60 fps. Obviously it drops when there’s a lot going on, but as someone else said no system in the world will maintain the same fps regardless of what you’re doing.

So I think you’d be fine with the 380.

Also I’m always kind of wary of futureproofing because, although it’s not as bad these days as it used to be (thinking of the late 90’s/early 2000’s specifically when it seemed like there was new hardware coming out every week) it always seems like a bit of a gamble to me. You could get the more expensive hardware and get away with a few extra years without needing to upgrade. Or you could end up tying yourself to an old set-up while something new comes along that you’d really prefer but can’t justify buying yet.

I have a r9 285 (which is a 2gb 380). I can play gw2 at 1440p nearly maxed out at +60fps in most places.

I did a test some time ago, the gpu was at 1040/1550, just a tad better than 380 stock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XSvcnLcmwI

Here is a much recent video, gpu is at 1100/1570 and settings are all maxed, but disabling reflections and shadows and character model limit to low. Again 1440p:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBSIOXtBfAk

Ansau.7326:

I have a r9 285 (which is a 2gb 380). I can play gw2 at 1440p nearly maxed out at +60fps in most places.

I did a test some time ago, the gpu was at 1040/1550, just a tad better than 380 stock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XSvcnLcmwI

Here is a much recent video, gpu is at 1100/1570 and settings are all maxed, but disabling reflections and shadows and character model limit to low. Again 1440p:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBSIOXtBfAk

Thanks for the videos.

Though I noticed that you have shadows on medium, character details on medium and you have turned off High Resolution Textures.

That is why I am trying to figuring out what takes to have EVERYTHING maxed out and turned on.

Because you also have AA turned off. Know what I mean?

So I think to just be 100% sure I will go with the 390. Its currently 370 euros here, still much more than the USA but it is what it is.

I put an r9 390 in the computer I made for my little brother this past Christmas.

His computer has an i3 4360 CPU, and an h97 Asus mobo. The monitor he uses is 1080p w a refresh rate of 60 hz. He can run the game at a stable 60 fps with everything maxed out (even super sample). I had to set his shadows to medium and character model limit to low. So you should be able to run the game maxed out too. Don’t get the 380.

S/n: I have a 980 ti and I set my character model limit to low as well. It ain’t worth the fps drop.

I have AA turned off because I like the way it looks. I know it warns about ‘jagged edges’ but I find that looks better than the slightly fuzzy/blurred look you get when zoomed in with it on. I also have depth blurring turned off for the same reason.

Some of those options are preferences instead of/as well as limitations to impose for the sake of performance.

Uhkapian.7068:

Thanks for the videos.

Though I noticed that you have shadows on medium, character details on medium and you have turned off High Resolution Textures.

That is why I am trying to figuring out what takes to have EVERYTHING maxed out and turned on.

Because you also have AA turned off. Know what I mean?

So I think to just be 100% sure I will go with the 390. Its currently 370 euros here, still much more than the USA but it is what it is.

This will be pretty much impossible. Gw2 works so everything that does the gpu also goes through the cpu. Even if you have an overkill gpu, you will be bottlenecked by the cpu, and yours is not so good without a top overclock and that ram at only 1600.

The first video is showing more the performance in heavy fights, and since there is cpu is stressed to the top, I reduced some settings to get more framerate in the blobfest.

In the second I have everything maxed, but disabling reflections, shadows and putting Character Model Limit to Low. This three changes gives me nearly double the performance while getting a very small graphic downgrade.
- Reflections only work in water, and while they’re nice, most of the time you won’t see the benefits (since there’s not much water around the game).
- Shadows is the most taxing setting. But I only find worth Ultra. The rest just change the distance at which shadows get low detail. But there’s only 2 types of details, None and Ultra.
- Character Model Limit only renders more or less people, putting a lot of stress in the cpu.

If you want to max everything, first you’ll need a 6700k oced to +4.8GHz and +3000MHz RAM. And even with this expect some drops below 40fps.

Uhkapian.7068:

Ansau.7326:

I have a r9 285 (which is a 2gb 380). I can play gw2 at 1440p nearly maxed out at +60fps in most places.

I did a test some time ago, the gpu was at 1040/1550, just a tad better than 380 stock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XSvcnLcmwI

Here is a much recent video, gpu is at 1100/1570 and settings are all maxed, but disabling reflections and shadows and character model limit to low. Again 1440p:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBSIOXtBfAk

Thanks for the videos.

Though I noticed that you have shadows on medium, character details on medium and you have turned off High Resolution Textures.

That is why I am trying to figuring out what takes to have EVERYTHING maxed out and turned on.

Because you also have AA turned off. Know what I mean?

So I think to just be 100% sure I will go with the 390. Its currently 370 euros here, still much more than the USA but it is what it is.

GTX 970

Ansau.7326:

that ram at only 1600

You really don’t get anything from ram above 1600MHz, though

Fermi.2409:

Ansau.7326:

that ram at only 1600

You really don’t get anything from ram above 1600MHz, though

Yes you do.

If you can get the R9 390 8GB go for that, future proof is always a good idea.

I got me the GTX 970 3,5GB just because some render apps I use don’t like AMD cards, OpenGL stuff not important, the important thing is I know those 3,5GB will bite me bottom soon enough, on that the R9 390 with 8 juicy GB has the 970 more than beaten.

On the flip side, games like Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 ran like a pig on day 1 in the AMD R9 390 because (and you didn’t heard it from me) NVIDIA plays a bit dirty…

Ultimately there isn’t a clear winner, the AMD has better hardware, the NVIDIA has better driver support.

Dean Calaway.9718:

If you can get the R9 390 8GB go for that, future proof is always a good idea.

I got me the GTX 970 3,5GB just because some render apps I use don’t like AMD cards, OpenGL stuff not important, the important thing is I know those 3,5GB will bite me bottom soon enough, on that the R9 390 with 8 juicy GB has the 970 more than beaten.

On the flip side, games like Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 ran like a pig on day 1 in the AMD R9 390 because (and you didn’t heard it from me) NVIDIA plays a bit dirty…

Ultimately there isn’t a clear winner, the AMD has better hardware, the NVIDIA has better driver support.

I have purchased the 390 and when it arrives I will be back to the game.

So excited!

It arrived and this thing runs everything maxed out! woooo

The game looks a million times better than when I had my old graphics.

Next purchase is Heart of Thorns

Enjoy it! You can also add sweetfx on top if you want the game to look even better