Guild Wars 2

Hiya all, I built a gaming rig back in 2011, I’ll list the components:

Case/Tower: Cooler Master HAF 932 High Air Flow ATX Full Tower Case Black

Motherboard: Gigabyte LGA1366 SATA3 ATI CrossFireX ATX Motherboard GA-X58A-UD3R

Processor: Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz 8M L3 Cache LGA1366 Desktop Processor

RAM: Corsair 6 GB PC3-12800 1600MHz 240-Pin DDR3 Core i7 Triple Channel Memory Kit CMX6GX3M3A1600C9

Graphics Card: EVGA GeForce GTX460 SE 1 GB GDDR5 (Which I have since upgraded to a GeForce 760)

Power Supply: Corsair CMPSU-650TX 650-Watt TX Series 80 Plus Certified Power Supply

With two Seagate 2TB 7200rpm hard drives as C/ and D/, and with Windows 7 OS.
This build has served me well, especially with the GeForce 760, I can play Vanilla Skyrim on Ultra like a dream; Total War: Shogun 2 I can play at Ultra but speeding up battles causes the framerate to dip terribly, but I am not sure if it is the graphics card or the processor or ram that is causing it. With Guild Wars 2, I have realized that the long loading times for zones is probably due to not having an SSD, so I have realized the benefit of SSD for that.

First question: At this point, is there any point in building a whole new PC, or should I just upgrade components and if so which ones? I have questions for each component:

1) I have 6gb ram now, I have heard that 8 is plenty, but is there a benefit in going 16gb of RAM at this point, or even 32gb? Also what is the best type of RAM to get? As in DDR3-1600MHZ or DDR3-2400MHZ or something else, or is a new, faster type in the pipeline?

2) I’ve read that the Intel i7-4790K was the best processor for awhile, but I also saw someone write that one of the i5’s was almost as good for a much cheaper price (this was probably a year ago or so I think). Then I saw people recommending i5 processors when I was looking on the builds here. So my question is, what is the difference between i5 and i7, and if they can be very similar, how can I tell which are the best ones for the money?

3) Same question for graphics cards. Nvidia has treated me well so I’ll probably stick with them, but all the different ones can be confusing. 760, 860, 960, 970, etc. What is the best and most up-to-date way to figure out “what is the best GPU for the least amount of money?”

4) How much wattage is plenty for a power supply? I have a 650, seems to have done fine.

As to building a whole new PC, one of the reasons is that as much as I like the tower I have, I think it only has two USB 3.0 slots, whereas I imagine 2015/2016 cases are all USB 3.0 by now. Am I correct in that? I feel like my motherboard may have been mid transition, as mine is a LGA1366 while it looks like all the current ones are LGA1150. I don’t know what the difference is, but I feel like LGA1150 is now a standard, yes? Or let me put it this way, since this relates to a question about MBR vs GPT. Are the LGA1150 motherboards now designed so that hard drives can be formatted in GPT to utilize more than 2.2 TB of space (UEFI vs BIOS or something like that), or do you still need to have your C:/ drive be 2TB or less and be set to Master Boot Record? I feel like once GPT becomes standard that would be a good time to upgrade.

Final question: I found this 1TB SSD drive: http://www.amazon.com/Mushkin-MKNSSDRE1TB-Reactor-SATA-2-5inch/dp/B00PAFJJRA/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1451778543&sr=1-1&keywords=mushkin+ssd
Anyone know if that 1TB is all SSD or is it a hybrid SSD/HDD, and do you know this “Mushkin” brand and whether it is alright?

I’d get a new system. 8GB is enough. But if you run alot of other programs while gaming then you are better off going with 16GB. I’ve never heard of the manufacturer of the SSD. 1150 cpu’s are great. My system.in in my sig, minus my 2HDD. I personally don’t see the point in kitten, the few seconds saved is not worth the price Imo.

You could probably reuse your HDD for a new build if they are in good condition.

As for GPU, currently the best value for money is with the AMD cards. But paying a little.more for an NVIDIA card will net you a better card overall. I have a 960, and it plays GW2 on full with no problems, I’m not saying I get a stable 60fps all the time, because no rig will, its the way the game is, however, I’ve have not suffered frames drops to the point the game has gone in to stop motion, or noticed any drop that would effect game play. If I had the money at the time, I probably gone with a 970, but my budget simply did not stretch that far.

Upgrading your case because it doesn’t have enough USB 3.0 ports is like buying a new car because it doesn’t have enough cup holders. If your concerns were more about cooling such as adding a 240mm liquid cooler or a cleaner layout for better airflow/cable management or even just more room to get your hands in there, that’s a good reason. Just saying, there are USB hubs for a reason. That said I found the HAF 932 to still be a very reasonable case. Also it’s a lot cheaper buying a USB 3.0 port drive bay insert than a new case.

The socket 1366 is pretty old socket in CPU years. The last processor made for it came out in June of 2011. 4 1/2 years is like antique status. The i7-950 is around half as fast as the i7-4790K at stock clocks (socket 1150). While the 4790K isn’t the latest CPU generation from Intel, that is the i7-6700K, the 6700K hasn’t really shown an improvement over the i7-4790K. What the 6700K and socket 1151 does do is lay the foundation for the switch over to DDR4 as well as the latest standards of USB and onboard SSD interfaces. Except I think the socket 1151 motherboards came out a bit too soon for the latest USB standards which were still in flux at the time. But that’s what bleeding edge buys you.

As for graphics, the GTX 960 isn’t a significant upgrade over the GTX 760, about 10%. The GTX 970 on the other hand is a major upgrade of around 70% but only using 25 watts more than the GTX 760. Maxwell GPUs are so much more power efficient. An AMD R9 290X, similar in performance and price to the GTX 970, uses 100 watts more power than the GTX 970.

PSU wise, as long as you are sticking to a single video card, it’s fine. Power requirements are dropping and 600+ watts available at 12 volts is way more than you need.

MBR vs GPT. It’s not really a hardware issue on the motherboard end but a BIOS one. And yes, over 2TB drives need GPT. Can’t think of a modern socket 1150 motherboard that isn’t UEFI nowadays.

And if you are asking about drives for booting, 250GB Samsung 850 EVO is $90. Yea, pain to reinstall the OS but notable improvement in performance. Also newer motherboards have an M.2 slot on the motherboard for a stick version of SSDs so no drive bays are used. The very latest have a PCIe x4 express slot for ludicrous speed (they’ve gone to plaid!) SSD sticks but they are twice the price of the M.2/2.5" variety.

Memory, DDR3-1600 is still decent but you’re either going to need a 4th stick or buy a 2×4GB pair to get you to 8GB.

Imperator.3475:

2) I’ve read that the Intel i7-4790K was the best processor for awhile, but I also saw someone write that one of the i5’s was almost as good for a much cheaper price (this was probably a year ago or so I think). Then I saw people recommending i5 processors when I was looking on the builds here. So my question is, what is the difference between i5 and i7, and if they can be very similar, how can I tell which are the best ones for the money?

3) Same question for graphics cards. Nvidia has treated me well so I’ll probably stick with them, but all the different ones can be confusing. 760, 860, 960, 970, etc. What is the best and most up-to-date way to figure out “what is the best GPU for the least amount of money?”

For right or wrong, I’ve found the passmark website useful for both of these; they have performance rankings and price/performance for both cpu’s as well as gpus; so you can look up how your current hardware compares to “the best” and narrow down what to research further.

Mushkin has been around a good while, but I’ve had good luck with the Samsung SSD mentioned above and less than 1/3’d the price.
If map loading times are the only reason you’re considering an SSD, I’d use the 64 bit beta client first; running the 64 bit client off of both a 5400 rpm usb 3.0 external drive and a 7200 rpm internal drive map load times are almost as fast as with an SSD ime (and with 8 gigs of ram). You will notice faster boot times, and programs generally launch faster.

I think, the likely thing you will want to upgrade is SSD. HDD is cheap and great for storage but for PC and Gaming experience, SSD is always better. Use HDD to store stuffs while SSD to run your applications.

Some people say that 8gb is plenty but honestly speaking, I find 8gb not enough for certain games if you want to keep your pagefile turned off, you will need 16gb for those games. Otherwise, with pagefile turned on, 8gb is good.

Also, if you intend to upgrade RAM, it might also worthwhile to consider upgrading your processor/board so you can make use of DDR4. Eventually, DDR4 will replace DDR3.

Casing wise, if you are talking about front USB, Yes, most are 3.0 now while some are mixed but is not hard to find a adapter cable for USB 2.0 to USB 3.0.

Overall, your rig is good. The only thing you should consider is SSD, processor and ram.

I can tell you I got a 970 this Christmas and it munches GW2.
I would have gone with an R9 390 8GB, but I use some obscure programs that have a lot of issues with AMD cards over some OpenGL stuff that is not worth mentioning here, anyway, like BrotherBelial, AMD line up right now is really a better option compared with Nvidia, that’s just how it is, sometimes it’s Nvidia, sometimes its AMD, don’t fall for the “brand loyalty” trap because you don’t owe these companies anything.

As for how to check whats the latest cards, wikipedia.
Go there, to the Nvidia and AMD pages, you’ll find lists with release dates as well as original price among other stuff, from there you can check whats the latest on the market, then go on YouTube and look up their performance and VS one another and even VS the competing GPUs.
The numbers aren’t as hard to get as you might think, for example, GTX960, GTX970, GTX980, are just different tiers entry, mid and high end, the 980 being the most powerful and expensive, but normally you’ll get more bang for you buck in the middle range.

Lastly, a word of advice, if you can wait till spring, wait.
Right now the GTX960 and GTX970 are advertised as having 4GB of VRAM but they only really have 3,5GB of usable VRAM.
The AMD line up, like the R9 390 I mention has 8GB which is gonna be much more future proof, BUUUUT, expect a new lineup of GPUs from both companies in the spring or around it, since these cards that are on the market today are basically rehashed cards from 2014.

Till then and if you have any trouble with GW2 as far as frame rate goes, get the water reflections to none, people normally forget this and it can boost your frame rate by 10 frames a second and the water will still look perfectly alright.
Also set the population limit to lowest and quality to low, turn on the names so you can “see” people around you, but you won’t have to process them.

Dean Calaway.9718:

Lastly, a word of advice, if you can wait till spring, wait.
Right now the GTX960 and GTX970 are advertised as having 4GB of VRAM but they only really have 3,5GB of usable VRAM.

No, the 970 has 4GB and can use it.

Warning, tech talk ahead.

The 970 is a cut down 980, basically a 980 that doesn’t test out fully so they disabled the broken areas down to a known specification. Now basically a 970 has 3 of the 16 streaming processor clusters disabled and one INTERNAL memory bus out of the 8 the 980 has and one eighth of the L2 cache. This means while externally the 970 like the 980 is 256 bit, eight 32-bit memory buses each each with 512 MB of video memory, internally the 970 only has a 224 bit internal memory bus and 1792 KB of L2 cache instead of 2048 KB.

So as long as you use less then 3.5 GB of memory, there is a 1 to 1 relationship between external and internal memory buses. However if you use that last 0.5 GB, it has to double up with another 0.5 GB chunk of memory to share one internal 32 bit memory bus.

So as long as you only use 3.5 GB or less, you have one to one ratio between internal to external memory buses, just like the 970. However if you go beyond 3.5 GB, that last 32 bit external bus has to time share with one internal 32 bit instead of having it’s own which then impacts performance. So there is a small drop in performance due to memory as well as the reduction in streaming processors between the 980 and the 970.

The GTX 960 standard configuration is 2 GB since it’s literally half of a GTX 980 in terms of streaming processors and external and internal memory buses. Going to 4 GB means that instead of 512 MB tied to each of the four 32 bit external buses, they are hanging a full 1 GB. It also means with 4 GB you have the same amount of memory being cached with a L2 cache half the size of the 980. That’s going to impact overall video memory performance as well.

But there isn’t a similar issue with number of internal and external memory buses not being the same on the 960 and the only issue is from gamers who don’t actually understand the tools they are using.

Dean Calaway.9718:

4
The AMD line up, like the R9 390 I mention has 8GB which is gonna be much more future proof

But in reality it’s not. By the time games eat up 8GB VRAM the processor on that card will be too slow to handle it anyway. Only on reduced settings, but then you won’t need 8GB. Practically no game but very recent titles even hit 4GB. And only if you crank up every setting or mod the game.

If you want to go for a high end card atm I’d wait for the announcements of new hardware this year. They may be quite a bit faster due to new tech like stacked DRAM.

Four gigs gets hit at 4K resolutions with high AA modes and ultra hires textures. But since this game uses Dx9 and memory allocation is under dev control rather than DirectX, I’m not sure we even get close to 2 GB even. More like hovering around 1GB.

I am so pleased that my thread brought out such discussion, hopefully a bunch of people can be helped by this.

And shout out to Behellagh for explaining just how much more advanced the i7-4790k is to my processor, and the 1150 and the upcoming switch to 1151. That is the type of explanation and comparison people like me need.

So it sounds like I should wait until either the new standards come out this year to either buy state of the art or buy the current best at a discount.

Imperator.3475:

I am so pleased that my thread brought out such discussion, hopefully a bunch of people can be helped by this.

And shout out to Behellagh for explaining just how much more advanced the i7-4790k is to my processor, and the 1150 and the upcoming switch to 1151. That is the type of explanation and comparison people like me need.

So it sounds like I should wait until either the new standards come out this year to either buy state of the art or buy the current best at a discount.

Personally I’d buy current best at discount, unless you are planning to dive into 4K gaming down the line. For me personally, I’ve no interest in 4K, I really don’t see what all the fuss is about.

Holding out for the next gen stuff is a bit of a risk, as you don’t know what you will be getting. The only sure thing is that it will all be aimed at windows 10 compatibility, which is a plus. The other thing you have to take in to consideration is the performance increase vs price. Is it worth spending the extra for a small performance boost over current tech.

When I got my GTX960, I only got it over a GTX 750Ti because when I got it, it was £30 more for the 960. I asked here, and on review sides and hardware comparison sites and they all said I should go for the 960 over the 750Ti.

The other question you should ask your self, is do you plan on playing any other AAA titles any time soon. If the answer is no, then you might want to look at something like the 960 for the time being, then upgrade to a better card down the line. You could end up saving some money that way. I’ve done this in the past and saved a fair bit of money. Personally the only other game I’m planning on getting is Mass Effect Andromeda. And that’s not till the end of the year, so I may or may not need to upgrade my card for it then. But that is only is it gets better reviews than Mass effect 3 did by the players after a few weeks. I kinda don’t trust Bioware at the moment.

On a related note, if anyone is still checking this thread, what is the deal with Windows 10 currently? I have heard people say stick with Windows 7 if you have it. But considering that Windows 10 is a free upgrade until June or July 29, it seems to me I should upgrade all of my Windows 7 to 10 before it stops being free. Not gonna do it right now, but it will be interesting to watch the development of both the tech and Windows 10 in the next 6 months.

Windows 10 is just the newer version of Windows. Get it off you want and if you don’t don’t like it you can just downgrade (which is what I did, I don’t like Win10 at all). It does have some improvements over windows 7 so in that sense is definitely worth trying.

Imperator.3475:

On a related note, if anyone is still checking this thread, what is the deal with Windows 10 currently? I have heard people say stick with Windows 7 if you have it. But considering that Windows 10 is a free upgrade until June or July 29, it seems to me I should upgrade all of my Windows 7 to 10 before it stops being free. Not gonna do it right now, but it will be interesting to watch the development of both the tech and Windows 10 in the next 6 months.

I find windows 10 boots alot faster than 7, and programs seem more responsive than in 7, for instance, plunging in my usb headset in 7 would some times take more than a minute for the sound to change over. In 10 it is nearly instant.

I’ve nit had any BSOD, or other random system crashes. When 10 first came out sometime programs wouldn’t show in the system tray, but that’s not happened in months.

I’d say get 10, as by now everything that is going to have windows 10 drivers will have, and the backwards compatibility wizard is really good at working with programs that do not have drivers for 10, both my printer and the headset I mentioned don’t have windows 10 drivers and both work better on 10 than they did with 7.