Guild Wars 2

Hello guys,
I am about to build my first PC for gaming and guild wars 2 will be what I play most. I wanted to know from those of you that are more knowledgeable than myself if you think I will be able to play WVW comfortably with the following –
CPU = Intel i5 4670k
GPU = Gigabyte GTX 770 2gb
8GB Ram 1600mhz

I wont be overclocking anything (at least not for a while!)
Currently only have a laptop for playing GW2 and although I can play most PVE and PVP fine it wants to scream and die when I try WVW or join a big zerg.
Any advice is greatly apprecieated

Well, that’s pretty much the best thing for GW2 as of today. GPU is more powerful than needed and unfortunately the CPU is lacking a bit, but there is no better option available. WvW will give you 15-25 fps in big zergs but it’s what you have to roll with, no one is getting much better. The only thing you can do is to overclock indeed, and it’s actually as easy as clicking two buttons. Grab a decent aftermarket cooler, like Hyper 212 EVO (only 30 bucks!) and you’ll get 20-30% performance increase!

Thank you, I’ll look more into overclocking and cooling then, thanks for the recommendation. Know the GPU was more than enough but wanted to have some extra poke for games like battlefield 4 among others. Of course GW2 comes first though!

Yep, it’s never a bad thing to have more than required! And you never know if ANet adds some eyecandy and makes it more graphically intensive. Plus if you wanna go 1440p or multi monitors you’re gonna need a bit more!

Also, be sure to buy a mobo with Z87 chipset instead of H87 so you can overclock.

If u have the budget to get a i7 that will add a couple FPS in CPU heavy situations. More and more people are finding that their i5’s are maxing out in a lot of the large events nowadays in GW2, so If u can afford a i7 like the 4770k or a 3770k then go for it.

If u have an SSD in ur build list already with the i5, then I would suggest removing the SSD from the list and going for a standard HDD and use the saved cash for an i7.

Load times in GW2 are not SSD fast even with an SSD now, and an SSD will only help with load times in other games and ur OS so its not something u get ahead of something like a better CPU. You get an SSD last.

Make sure u choose a good case, it will affect air cooling more than u think. Try find one that allows the front fans to blow directly into the CPU air cooler (once a HDD cage is removed most likely) and that will easily reduce CPU temps by 5c.
Also, if u end up getting a case that does not have great air flow, for what ever reason, be it size constraints or wanting a silent designed case with sound deadening, then make sure the graphics card u get is a blower style and not an open air one like the Gigabyte windforce.

One final bit of advice, don’t skimp on the PSU, get a good quality unit from a manufacture like Seasonic or Corsair.

I just got myself a new Computer last week with the same specs (4670 no k though, dont want to overclock) + SSD and I’m totally happy. Even in WvW in mid to biggish fights I have 40 FPS on high and in open world 80-120 or so.

My old PC was a QuadCore,3GB RAM, HD kitten … so I’m pretty happy with the Progress.

Thank you for taking the time to reply guys, helps a lot to hear directly from GW2 players and their experiences. I think I’ll go with my original build, and if need be go for some overclocking (knowing me, even if runs sweet I’ll end up doing it anyway!) Thanks again.

in the first place …. why A-Net dont optimize this game? if A-Net will optimize the game we dont need to overclock our systems.

gabriel.8540:

in the first place …. why A-Net dont optimize this game? if A-Net will optimize the game we dont need to overclock our systems.

Overclocking is still added performance, be the program optimized or not. For some people it’s a way of life anyway. Also optimizing a program is not as simple as adding some content to it. It’ll take time to come up with the solution and even more time implementing it.

an i7 clocked at 4.6ghz vs a i5 clocked at 4.6 for this game is going to yield minimal differences in results. Mainly because DX9 is single threaded an this game heavily relies on it. While the HT would help with all the tiny worker processes and the background OS processes, you will see maybe 5-7 MORE fps on the i7 vs the i5 for THIS game. IMHO, that is not worth the 80+ investment to get the 4770K over the 4670K.

But other games/applications that run multi-threading the 4770K will out perform the 4670K because of the HT.

Since you are going to investigate OC on your build you NEED to bin your CPU. That means buying 2-3 at a time until you get an above average CPU. This means setting your out of box overclock to 4.6ghz at 1.2v and see if you can boot into windows, then pass a 45mins Prime95 cycle loop. If so, then you have a good CPU and won the silicon lottery and will be able to push the CPU as much as you want. It took me 12 i5-4670K’s to find a chip that did that much. I ordered them in pairs and ran RMA’s against the ones that did not OC well.

The rest goes with out saying, you have a good build on paper. It will do well for GW2 out of the box (no OC) and do really well for games over the next 2 years or so.

But, side note, you should look into a 650w+ PSU since you are going to OC. my 500W was not up to the task to push my 4670K to my OC. I went to a 650 and the issue was resolved, so that is now my min rec for OC based systems. 650W.

^Also at least in theory 4670K could be a better overclocker since HT heats the cores more, might be able to push a little higher on the i5. Hard to test since it’s impossible to find an i5 and i7 with the same place in the silicon lottery.