Guild Wars 2

For a few years I was a desktop user running an i7 4770k and a nvidia 770. Ended up selling my pc. Now Im back in the market but possibly for a laptop. I know these things are no gaming machines like a watercooled savage with a 7700 and a 1080, but do they work to a degree? Im looking into a laptop with a 7700hq and nvidia 1060. My question is the enough horse power to play some wvw with? or am I better off getting a work laptop, and saving for a home pc. Has anyone used that processor? I have almost no experince with mobile cpus and don’t know how they scale compared to a desktop processor.

they over heat and tank in performance and the price you pay to get one, you could have bought 2 desktops with equal or more power.

unless you are traveling EVERDAY there is no point getting one.

I WVW on a work laptop. It’s amazing what you can do at 3 to 5 fps.

u can get CPU i7 7700K in a Laptop. Build is around $2000 like $500 more expensive than a i7 7700HQ laptop.

https://www.sagernotebook.com/17-Laptops/
http://www.eurocom.com/ec/modelsg(7)MobileSupercomputers
http://www.xoticpc.com/custom-gaming-laptops-notebooks-gaming-laptops-ct-118-96-98/custom-gaming-laptops-notebooks-clevo-sager-notebooks-ct-95-51-162.html

I used to play on a “gaming” laptop. I don’t recommend it. On paper they may have the horsepower, but heat really is a big issue if you want performance from it.

Unless you really want to be portable (and gaming laptops tend to be much heavier than their regular laptop counterparts— which imo defeats the purpose) or you have no space, I’d really recommend your primary computer be a desktop. Even “equivalent” parts can’t run as well as their desktop parts because of heat/power. And that’s the other thing. Getting good parts and a good battery life is even harder! Chances are you’ll have to be stuck to an outlet anyways!

I would say get https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834154497 ($794 atm) that will do your work and some games on the go (including Gw2) and then save $1000 in the future to get a desktop that will be way better than spending say, 1500-2000 on a single laptop. Those extra frames really aren’t worth it; and getting a 1060 wouldn’t really help for Gw2 anyways.

This doesn’t seem too bad though and it’s reasonably light: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=2WC-000N-00068

If you really wanted to…
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834233195

i own an hp omen w201 (i7 7700hq, nvidia 1070), max graphic setting full hd, quality and number of players as “High”, effect LoD deactivated (show all effects) and at worst with 3 servers full map zerging at thesamespot i get around 10-15 fps.

how do you feel about a heated keyboard? Not warmed, heated.

i always use gaming laptop from Asus rog to MSI i have 2 MSI laptops GT72 and GE60 they both been with me for more then a year if u have good idea u can clean it and dust it out every few months also changing thermal paste every year i use artic ice thermal paste my gt72 have gtx980m playing games like gw2 wvw raid for 2 to 3 hours and even the witcher 3 for hours and other games my gpu h80 to 85c 80c on i7 cpu
ge60 have gtx 860m and i7 4720 gpu hit 90C cpu 80c

just dose not mean laptops are better then gaming tower but if u maintain it well can give good resaults
Asus Rog with dual fans have better cooling Msi have turbo cooling mode on fans
Msi beat asus on keyboard made by steelseries and sound lot more better then Asus

i use cooling pad under my laptop + external keyboard and mouse help lot better to play games

I have a guildy friend who had to sell his desktop and downsize due to a new baby in the family. Some people just don’t have the room for a full desktop.

He got himself a nice MSI gaming laptop for around $1500 and is really happy with it. From what I have heard from friends who use Asus or MSI or Alienware gaming laptops, they have been quite pleased with them. Sure, if it is a 17", you’re going to be lugging around 10 lbs, and the battery life is cruddy, and they do get warm.

But if you’re ok with that, keep them plugged in most of the time, and maybe get an added cooler pad to help with the cooling….they work quite well, from what I have heard and read.

I have an older desktop(AMD 970 with a Nvidia GTX 970) that I use for my games and such, and I also have a 5 year old laptop that I use for business, and I have been considering getting an MSI gaming laptop for both my graphics oriented business, as well as to try some games on…..some of the newer gaming laptops look very, very interesting, imo. Although I couldn’t see paying more than $1600 for it…..any more than that, and I could just get myself a sub $900 newer business laptop and do a hell of an upgrade on my old full tower desktop. (new motherboard, memory, Intel cpu, and ssd)

I play the game on a GhostPro 3… on my lap, while sitting on a couch. It gets hot, you’re at a disadvantage, but it works fine overall. Keep it free of dust with compressed air, and buy a laptop cooler.

I use a laptop because I have no interest in setting up a desktop in my house for a bunch of reasons. If you have no objection to a desktop, it’s probably the better route.

But, yes, you can play wvw on a laptop.

I bought a laptop because I always wanted one but grew up white trash.

I have a lenovo ideapad Y580, i7, gtx660M………what any of that means i have no idea.

Overall, I’m happy with it and don’t really get the heat issues others say. Runs pretty smooth and I guess my only complaint is the cheap keyboard they install on these guys. But I took other wvwers advice and bought a steel series keyboard.

Gist is, laptops work fine but you are at a handicapped spending so much with no future expansion/upgrades options. At least that is what others tell me.

I played on an Alienware for a couple of years, no issues in wvw. Unless mega blob stupidity ensued, that is.

Then it died a month ago, so I went back to a desktop:

Case
CM Storm Stryker – Gaming Full Tower Computer Case with USB 3.0 Ports and Carrying Handle (SGC-5000W-KWN1)

Monitor
Samsung UE590 UHD-QHD Monitor U24E590D 23.6-Inch Screen LED-Lit Monitor

Ram
2 of HyperX FURY Black 16GB Kit (2×8GB) 2133MHz DDR4 Non-ECC CL14 DIMM Desktop Memory (HX421C14FBK2/16) 32GB total

Processor
Intel 7th Gen Intel Core Desktop Processor i7-7700K (BX80677I77700K)

Motherboard
Gigabyte LGA1151 Intel ATX DDR4 Motherboards GA-Z170X-GAMING 6

SSD
Samsung 850 PRO – 1TB – 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-7KE1T0BW)

Power Supply
EVGA Supernova G2 850W 220-G2-0850-XR Fully Modular Power Supply

Cooler
Corsair Hydro Series H100i v2 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler, Black

Graphics Card
EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition, 8GB GDDR5X, LED, DX12 OSD Support (PXOC) Graphics Card 08G-P4-6180-KR

The laptop I use averages about 40 – 80 FPS in WvW small scale and in the 30’s in large scale with most settings on medium – high (with character model limit/quality on lowest in zergs).

It performs great and doesn’t overheat, though it does get warm, it’s not excessive. What impresses me most about this particular laptop is that it doesn’t appear to have a vent for the fan, if it even has a fan in it… And yet it’s a low-end gaming laptop and it never gets very hot, aside from when I first bought it. It used to get REALLY warm but after a bit of use it’s gotten much better.

ASUS K501UW-AB78 15.6-inch Full-HD Gaming Laptop (Intel Core i7, GTX 960M, 8GB DDR3, 512GB SSD)

I play on late 2015 mbpro 15" with i7 and it’s performing really well. But there are 2 things. First is sound of fans which is annoying and second is size of screeen. Jumped from 27" to 15". No good.

Asus rog laptops in price range 1500+ eur are just as good as desktops in wvw. The server side limits you before the laptop. They are bulky (I use 17") but they dont heat up and are more silent than desktops also.

Have you considered AMD’s new Ryzen line? They deliver about the same performance as an i7 but cost way less.

Unless you really need the “portability,” which I say with a grain of salt because either it’ll overheat from having a low profile or will be only marginally easier to transport than a superior micro-ATX build (a la ROG), and would only really be beneficial if you’re walking long distances with your computer day-to-day or are setting up in a public location. Generally-speaking, I wouldn’t really recommend it. It was a nice thing to have very early on in college when making new friends and gaming with them in other buildings/areas, but once we all started living together, and as the years passed on, desktops reigned supreme from reliability and superior hardware. Mind you, many laptops run full-fledged GPU’s now; ours didn’t, which also quickly because obsolete for new releases. I still prefer the desktop approach due to easy upgrades and reliable drivers. For example, I have an ASUS G75VW from 2012, but ASUS made no drivers for Windows 10, making the upgrade unstable. Most package-deal sellers for their laptops don’t keep their older models optimized for new OS features, and as such, you’ll potentially suffer long-term, depending on what happens with OS’s and updates over the years. Heat is also really bad for computers, and my desktop runs way quieter than my laptop ever did, while also never going over 30C. The laptop often went over 70C under load.

For WvW, the problems with skill lag have nothing to do with your PC. It’s ANet’s servers being unable to handle the game’s powercreeped coodlowns and proc effects in larger fights; there’s no fix unless ANet changes professions and runes/sigils. If the problem is FPS lag, it’s also largely unavoidable due to issues with the game engine optimization CPU-side. If anything, the lag will be more noticeable on a laptop with slimmer CPU hardware than a desktop, especially if things are getting throttled from heat.

So if you really think that the portability when gaming is a big deal, sure. Otherwise, though, it’s a huge waste. Most of those machines that are worth anything cost enough to a point where you can build a really powerful desktop for gaming and get a very low-profile high-battery ultrabook for work/browsing on the go. Battery is also a huge consideration; most powerful laptops will only get around 2 hours on a full charge, maybe 4 with the display dimmed and on battery-saving mode (so no gaming).

archmagus.7249:

Have you considered AMD’s new Ryzen line? They deliver about the same performance as an i7 but cost way less.

On optimized benchmarks, yes. If anything, they can be superior. The thing with AMD is that some software groups will optimize their engines for Intel architectures and will subsequently perform worse. It can be absolutely worth the savings on a budget build, but on a premium machine the Intel chip will typically perform better. I’ve yet to see GW2 be compared fairly between chip architectures, so I can’t comment on how it’d affect this particular game.

I prefer desktops. Specifically ones I build myself. Not only are they more reliable long term, if something does go wrong they are a heck of a lot easier to repair along with cheaper.

If my dekstop power supply goes, I put in a new power supply. If a laptop power supply goes and the warranty is out, you might as well chuck it given everything is integrated on the same main board. If my dekstop video card goes, I just plug in the one I had in there before I upgraded and am running again. If a laptop video board goes you are without a computer.

My current video card is robust and fine for GW2 but just slightly under specced for upcoming 3d gaming hardware. It an I7 so everything else is fine but if I do decide i would like to go that route it just a matter of upgrading the video board.

As Deceiverx mentioned , if one upgrading the drivers or firmware or bios on a dekstop, it tends to be a lot more straightforward and has a higher success rate then on laptops.

The Warranty period on laptops also tends to be lower than desktops from most manufacturers. The Laptop manufacturers have been lowering the warranties on their laptops as they are finding a higher failure rate and are exposed to higher potential costs when trying to replace a part under wty. To extend a warranty to what most dekstops provide , generally costs extra.

Better get a desktop because they offer far better performance for the same price.

You can play on a laptop and even my, 4 years old with i7-3630QM and Radeon 7970M worls well enough. I do get drops to about 15-20fps in blob fights with character limits at medium. Newer generation CPUs should work significantly better. Something with an i7 and GTX1060 should let you max out the settings.

There is one problem with it and it’s the price. A 1060 laptop costs so much that you could get a desktop with a 1080 for same money.

I do wvw on rMBP 2015 w/ external monitor and it works just great. running around 20-30 fps.

Anyway, I’m running on almost-lowest settings

ps. I install Windows just for GW2

Engelsstaub.4356:

Better get a desktop because they offer far better performance for the same price.

You can play on a laptop and even my, 4 years old with i7-3630QM and Radeon 7970M worls well enough. I do get drops to about 15-20fps in blob fights with character limits at medium. Newer generation CPUs should work significantly better. Something with an i7 and GTX1060 should let you max out the settings.

There is one problem with it and it’s the price. A 1060 laptop costs so much that you could get a desktop with a 1080 for same money.

Recommend any websites for those guys you mentioned?

the only computer where i could play gw2 w/o any fps or lag was in a desktop with a 980ti plus a oc’ed 6700k @ 5.2ghz

i got 2 laptops 6700 with 960 and a older cpu with a 970, but have alot of dps decay can run gw2 in zergs classhes.

It all deppends what games u will play, and what u do in gw2.

As others have said, if you do not need portability, then stick to a desktop PC. The amount you would spend to make a laptop gaming worthy is not worth it. As a user of integrated graphics (i7-6700k hd 530 IGP), it does work with guild wars without a hitch, but you need to jump through a lot of hoops to get more modern engine based games running. I have to run modified config files for games and heavily tweak the bios in order to run anything current. I am holding out for VEGA to drop the price threshholds lower before splurging on a mid-high end card (im not an amd/nvidia/intel fanboy, its all about performance/dollar to me)

Give it a year or two more before seriously considering a laptop for gaming. AMD has their Zen/Vega based APU releasing this year, and that should drive the price of gaming laptops down thanks to not needing a discrete video card to get 1080p performance greater than a ps4.

All I can tell you is, I run a ASUS RoG laptop. Cost me $1700 CDN, 3 years ago. It stays super cool always, screams like the devil. I never get lag in the game with the very rare exception where there are actual ANet server issues. Not even when there are three blobs in the same spot.

All this talk about laptops being substandard really just means, to me, that some people haven’t found the right laptop yet . No I don’t work for the company, I’m just a user like the rest of you and it doesn’t matter if I’m at home, or sitting in Starbucks on their internet, I can still play with no issues. Mazda never had ZOOM like this

Edit: I run mostly HIGH on everything, and Medium settings on a couple.. nothing in the graphics is set to low.

don’t do it dude.

Even high end desktop PC’s does poorly in WvW cause GW2 is so terribly otpimized towards todays standards. That guy who suggested AMD ryzen is way off, GW2 doesen’t utilize 8 core CPU’s. I can’t imagine any laptop do well in WvW heavy blob fights with max settings.

Timelord.8190:

Even high end desktop PC’s does poorly in WvW cause GW2 is so terribly otpimized towards todays standards. That guy who suggested AMD ryzen is way off, GW2 doesen’t utilize 8 core CPU’s. I can’t imagine any laptop do well in WvW heavy blob fights with max settings.

Perhaps you should read the persons comment better before referring to their post. They did not say anything about utilizing the chips full 8 cores. They spoke of price point by goin Ryzen, even without proper optimization their chips are in a few fps above or below the i7-7700k in gaming.

As for wvw blob fights, i have yet to have lag at all even with my i7-6700k igp, any lag i do get, is server based not client. Its not hard to find a laptop that can support gw2, but its the next generation of MMOs you will need to worry about.

Ryzen doesn’t cost that much less though. The 1700 costs 329 while the 7700k is 349. Now against the broadwell-e chips which it was meant to take on, then it is sick good and great for streamers and content creation while still being good at games.

Now the ryzen 5 chips could be intresting.

neven.3785:

Timelord.8190:

Even high end desktop PC’s does poorly in WvW cause GW2 is so terribly otpimized towards todays standards. That guy who suggested AMD ryzen is way off, GW2 doesen’t utilize 8 core CPU’s. I can’t imagine any laptop do well in WvW heavy blob fights with max settings.

Perhaps you should read the persons comment better before referring to their post. They did not say anything about utilizing the chips full 8 cores. They spoke of price point by goin Ryzen, even without proper optimization their chips are in a few fps above or below the i7-7700k in gaming.

As for wvw blob fights, i have yet to have lag at all even with my i7-6700k igp, any lag i do get, is server based not client. Its not hard to find a laptop that can support gw2, but its the next generation of MMOs you will need to worry about.

Ryzen is only good in newer games that has better multithreading support. Games like GTA 4, Doom 4, Tombraider, BF One. Any ryzen CPU is terrible for GW2. The best is probably 7700k.

Here is a video with the Ryzen 1700 CPU. Doesen’t seem very good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iVn1A6Hd0M&t=42s

Having 8 cores doesn’t make it terrible lol.

And that video is full settings in world boss events that destroy performance on any comp. If yours can get 60 fps I want to see a video. If they reduced character model limit to medium or low it would be a lot better.

Having 20+ fps in worse case scenarios isn’t terribke by any means.

This game doesen’t utilize 8 cores efficiently. You wan’t alot of GHz for this game, so 7700k will be a better choice for gaming overall.

You never know, he could want to stream Just so you know you can even settle for a i5-7600k for the slightly higher clock rates that timelord is pushing plus a costs savings. The advantage to going for an intel over amd at this point is you can delay buying a video card if you are cash strapped.

in the end though, go with what your wallet will let you. In the real world, there is little difference between the current generation amd (ryzen) vs intel (kaby lake) based systems aside from cost.

In the recent past, AMDs chips were no where near the benchmarks of Intel’s when it came to gaming, but the ryzen chips have put them back on parity with intels performance. The Cost savings would be in the number of cores you get for the price you pay, but as already stated, core count doesn’t matter in gw2 unless you are encoding video in the background as you play.

Timelord.8190:

This game doesen’t utilize 8 cores efficiently. You wan’t alot of GHz for this game, so 7700k will be a better choice for gaming overall.

Yes and no.

The game doesn’t take advantage of that many cores well, yes. In fact, an I3 can take this game on pretty well because of this. But do note that also applies to the i7 since its main thing over i5s is hyperthreading (simulate 8 cores)…. which as you’d guess isn’t used either in this game. That’s why most folks recommend I5s for gaming and especially this one. Yea, the i7s are clocked higher and you will squeeze more performance out, but the cost difference is big.

That doesn’t mean that Ryzen is going to suck at Gw2. Sure, 5 of its 8 cores aren’t utilized, but neither will the I7s. We’re not talking about the FX single threaded turtles anymore. At the end of the day the I7 does win but Ryzen does have some things to consider, such as streaming and it’s a little cheaper. Plus it comes with a cooler!

It’s a bit weird since I don’t think anyone’s necessarily wrong. Fact is, Gw2 doesn’t require the best stuff to run if one is willing to turn down a few settings that will perform badly regardless. But I have a higher tolerance for fps drops than many. I’m fine with my locked i5 which drops to 30’ish fps at worst. (in WvW)

But the best thing from this thread so far is that Neven’s been running the game off the iGPU, which I think is pretty clear evidence that one doesn’t really need a fancy graphics card for this game, which is why I wanted to drive the OP off trying to get a 1060 on a laptop.

In any case, I’d definitely like to see benchmark using more standard settings.

EDIT: I wonder if I’ll get negative fps with max settings @ a world boss.

Drinks.2361:

how do you feel about a heated keyboard? Not warmed, heated.

no heat at all, in fact is cooler than the msi gt70 i used before (i7 4770hq nvidia 880).
i use a logitec g13 instead the the keyboard, but my arm usually is were the heat vent is.

I don’t feel much heat. The keyboard is warm in some places but nothing alarming. i use a cooler pad under the laptop anyway.

However from a couple of years ago hp is being doing better with the heat vent desing. Not like those hp dv6.

but my point is not the brand but the microprocessor + graphic card should suffice.

Why would anybody in this day and age, who wasn’t in college or a hipster, ever buy a laptop?

Please buy a Mac so you can be like riding a bicycle with square tires. Yes you are different but you aren’t going anywhere.

Trajan.4953:

Why would anybody in this day and age, who wasn’t in college or a hipster, ever buy a laptop?

Please buy a Mac so you can be like riding a bicycle with square tires. Yes you are different but you aren’t going anywhere.

Not everybody lives at their moms basement.

Never play on a laptop. It’s ok for a “gaming emergency”, but never if you really want to play games on a regular basis.

Trajan.4953:

Why would anybody in this day and age, who wasn’t in college or a hipster, ever buy a laptop?

Please buy a Mac so you can be like riding a bicycle with square tires. Yes you are different but you aren’t going anywhere.

Space issues, not spending time at home, or the type to travel a lot. They may not be much of a gamer, and just happen to play Gw2. In those cases performance is secondary. Granted, as I’ve mentioned, that’s also why I’m not a fan of gaming laptops as their increased weight and need for power really hampers the mobility part. Though given people’s tendencies for phones to run out of power, it’s common practice for places to offer an outlet.

I recall reading a thread of which someone had to spend a lot of time taking care of their parents at their house for extended period of time. I guess they could just stick a desktop there, but a laptop has uses. That’s not comparable to say… buying a Mac for gaming.

Obviously a desktop is optimal for gaming and like I said above, much more cost effective as even a budget PC will run Gw2 decently.

I was using a Razer Blade for a while and it handled WvW fine but the keyboard does heat up like a mini supernova. I recently switched to the new 2017 Dell XPS 15 (i7 – nVidia 1050) and it seems to be handling WvW ok and no burning my hands on the keyboard anymore – and it’s barely over 4 pounds so it’s nice and light and the screen is gorgeous.