Guild Wars 2

Let me start off by saying, I really know nothing about PC computers. That being said, I am looking to build a new computer for gaming. My MacBook, although doing surprisingly well at running the game, is starting to have some issues. After lots of searching and reading up on what other people are building/telling people to build, I have found 2 builds that sound “promising.” Again, I don’t have a lot of knowledge in this area.

Here is the first build I found that seemed promising:
CPU: Intel Core i5-4670k 3.4 GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87-D3HP
Video Card: EVGA GTX 760
RAM: Kingston Hyper X Blu 8GB
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 500 GB
Case: Antec One
Power Supply: SilverStone Strider 500W
Optical Drive: Samsung 24x SATA DVD RW

Here is the second build I found:
CPU: Intel Core i5-4430 3.0 GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte LGA 1150 mATX GA-H87M-D3H
Video Card: VisionTek Radeon R9 270X
RAM: Kingston Hyper X Blu 8GB
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 500 GB
Case: Antec One
Power Supply: Antec VP-450
Optical Drive: Samsung 24x SATA DVD RW

My goal is to get a computer that can handle Gw2 well. I’m not expecting 100FPS in full 100+zergs, but I would love to get more than 15-30FPS when running SE.
Really, I’m just looking for some honest help. I don’t care what everyone is running. I know there are a lot of people out there with over clocked this and that and it works for them. I don’t know how to over clock and it genuinely scares me to even try. I just want a machine that works well and has the wiggle room to upgrade as seen needed.

Also, if anyone has some great references to how to build a computer and some tips and tricks, that would also be extremely helpful!

Thanks in advance for the help!!
-Oona

Inb4 someone comments on the typo. kitten you shift key! XD

Looks good to me

There’s really no other part recommendation I could make. Maybe a solid state if you want to keep it nice and fast if money is not an issue, but otherwise it’s fine.

Awesome, that is great to hear! Now, besides price, what is the main difference between the CPU, Motherboard, and Graphics card between the two builds? There are other games I currently have on my MacBook that I would like to play, but it currently cannot handle them. Which would be the all-around better option?

If you don’t plan to overclock your cpu, i would avoid k series intel chips and z series motherboards as they are used mainly for overclocking. You would be paying a premium for features you won’t be using.

My suggestion would be a Intel Core i5-4570 with the second build instead of the 4430. It’s a faster chip AND cheaper for some reason. Also a third party cpu cooler like the cooler master hyper 212 would be nice too (not necessary but recommended), along with a solid state drive for faster boot times/load time if you can fit it in your budget.

The 270X is a great card, but its suffering price hikes which make it almost as expensive as the nvidia gtx 760 but with less performance. So i would recommend the 760 for now unless the 270’s get a price drop. Or you could go for a lower end card in the 150-200 range which will also do fine

My last suggestion would be to get at a 500w power supply (Corsair CX500 would do nicely)instead of the 450.

With the builds you posted you will get 60+fps at 1080p for the most part with everything maxed (even super sample), except in la/bosstrains/wvw zergs. GW2 is very cpu heavy and changing that “character model limit” option will help relieve some of that load in heavily populated areas.

In other games you’ll get ~60 fps with high to ultra settings at 1080p.

@dodgycookies being a noob that I am (^^), would the intel i5-4570 and the gtx 760 be compatible with the motherboard that is in the second build. My major worry about this whole endeavor is that I will be getting parts that will end up not compatible maybe it is an unrealistic worry or irrational, but it is something that is looming above me. Lol. I can’t imagine a way that upping the power supply would be a problem. XD

The main difference between the three components you asked,
The i5 4430 is a locked quad core at 3 GHz. Nothing special but it will handle just about anything you tell it to do like the 4670K, which is an unlocked 3.4 GHz quad core and the 4670K with the Z87 chipset is an overclocking motherboard. You can get more performance out of it without spending more money.

The board paired with the i5 4430 is an H87. H87 is a very much dumbed down version of the Z87 featuring only essential bits of the Z87. H87 I think is the third one down the line. I’m not entirely sure how it goes but I think it goes Z series, H series, Q series, and then B series for business. So I guess the H series is the second tier.

i5 4430 and H87 board combo is a very inexpensive combo compared to the other.
A good compromise between the two CPU is the impressive i5 4570.
Keep in mind you can pair any Haswell processor with a Z87 board as long as it supports it. You can get all of the goodie Z87 features without needing an unlocked processor.

the GTX 760 and Radeon R9 270X are very similar. One of them supports PhysX and the other supports Mantle (Radeon Mantle, Nvidia PhysX) Neither of which will ever be implemented in this game (For the love of god, please do not turn this topic into another STUPID mantle topic.)

A lot of the time people will think that they need a huge power supply for a fair build like this as well. Some people opting for a 650-700 watt power supply that supports multi card setups. 500W will carry this spec list, a 450 can do it too. Easily if you don’t want to overclock.

Tip: Instead of R9 270X, look for R9 270. They are EXACTLY the same, just the R9 270 is less expensive.

@Avelos Is there any game that requires one over the other (Mantle v. Physx)

the 4570 is compatible with any board that has the lga socket1150. So all boards that have model numbers with Q/H/B/Z follow by 81, 85 or 87. So yes they would be compatible.

The Z series boards are very nice and built well but the H boards (from good brands) aren’t exactly pieces of junk either. In the end its all about what features you want on your board (like high quality onboard audio, integrated wifi connections, etc.) The Z boards usually come with just about everything and you can’t go wrong with buying one, but then again you are paying a premium for those features.

use http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/ plug in your parts and check for incompatibilities, which the site will do for you and flag.

As for the PSU, I only suggest a 500w+ psu becasue alot of the sub 500 watt units lack the proper pcie power connectors for some cards. That antec 450 only has 1 pcie 6 pin where as some cards need a 6+2=8 pin(asus 760), 2 × 6 pin(270x,ref 760’s), 6 and 8 pin (msi 760), etc. Molex to pcie adapters are ok, but its just easier to have the proper connections in the first place.

The 270 is a great card, if you can find it under 200 i would definitely recommend it.

@avelos Im not in either camp, when the r9 series launched they were priced amazingly, but the subsequent price hikes for almost the entire range and the price drops on nvidia’s cards have made the radeons harder to recommend on price/performance. unless you are playing primarly bf4 =p

Mantle is brand new and only Battlefield 4 can optionally use it. PhysX, well there are a lot of games that have support for it.

http://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/physx/games

RebeccaJo.5403:

@Avelos Is there any game that requires one over the other (Mantle v. Physx)

Only game that uses mantle atm is Battlefield 4. Subsequent games one the DICE’s Frostbite engine should have that support too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frostbite_

As for physX:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_games_with_hardware-accelerated_PhysX_support

Clarification. Games that support Mantle don’t REQUIRE an amd card. They will run just fine on nvidia. Same goes for physX, games that have physX support will work fine on amd cards.

RebeccaJo.5403:

@Avelos Is there any game that requires one over the other (Mantle v. Physx)

Not that I know of if you’re asking if there’s any game that uses both. I know there’s only three titles currently using Mantle that are known, one of which is fully on the market.

dodgycookies.4562:

@avelos Im not in either camp, when the r9 series launched they were priced amazingly, but the subsequent price hikes for almost the entire range and the price drops on nvidia’s cards have made the radeons harder to recommend on price/performance. unless you are playing primarly bf4 =p

I recommend Radeons because I’ve been using them since Radeon HD 3650 My first graphics card.

Just to clarify though I’m really hoping this thread doesn’t turn into a discussion about Mantle or Physx and take OP’s topic waaaay off track like the last one I responded to. It’s totally unneeded and Guild Wars 2 will most likely not even get Mantle anyway, let aone Direct X 11 so staying on topic is more important.

But hey if OP is asking about a computer that can play Guild Wars 2 AND other games then sure why not? It’s all good.

I agree with the staying on topic XD. I will say, using pcpartpicker.com, I was unable to find the r9 270 within VisionTek. I did find it by chipset though… Does that equal the same thing? Or is it the brand I need to be looking for??

Yes they are about the same and will work almost identically. The chip is the most important part.

A primer on how video cards are made:

Amd makes the r9 270 chip, and hands it over to third party manufacturers (like visiontek,asus,gigabyte,msi,etc..) who make the rest of the card. What they do is design a circuit board around the chip (amd usually provides a reference example, but companies are free to modify it) and design a heatsink and fan system to keep the whole thing cool. And sell it in retail chains. The same processs goes for nvidia as well

Each company has their own take on the board and coolers, and sets the clock speeds of the graphics chip accordingly. Most of the time, they will perform very similarly (read: identical). and the only major difference inbetween the brands is how loud the fans get and how hot the chip gets, but the in game performance will be very similar.

Than being said, build and design quality are not identical. Heat slowly degrades silicon chips so the cooler a card runs (better heatsink and fan design) the better. Also the quality of the components used in between brands is not identical so this is why most people tend to stick to the well known brands. A final point is that in case your card is defective, well touted brands usually have better support and service to get you a replacement.

What would you consider a good second brand to the AMD VisionTek R9 270: Asus, Gigabyte, HIS MSI, PowerColor, etc. (I was looking at the list mainly to see what all had them… There are more still listed of course XD)

At the same thought would it be worth it to get the VisionTek R7 260X. If to try and keep with the brand since it seems to be highly regarded?

All the brands on pcpartpicker are for the most part great.

Iv had cards from all the brands that make the 270 atm except xfx and powercolor, but some love them so its up to you. Personally i would take the gigabyte since its the cheapest and the only one sub 200. Once you start edging close to $230 (like the sapphire) for a 270 i would then start looking at a 760 instead.

My favorite brand is MSI because their twinfrozr coolers are imo the best.

the 260x is much slower than the 270, and the price shows it. but for gw2 at 1080p the 260x can manage if you are on a budget and don’t want to spring for a 200 dollar card.

As for visiontek as a brand, they make good cards, but you cant say they really stand out from the rest of the companies they are competing with.

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/OonaBallona/saved/3GF2

This is what I worked out. I’m hopping this is a good middle ground…

Let me know what you guys think?

The brand I’ve been using for the most part has been one of the more out of the way kind. More thant VisonTek in fact. I’ve been using Diamond Multimedia since my 3650. 3650, 5770, and now two 7970s. I’d actually recommend the R9 270 or 270X from MSi with the Twin Frozr. I put one of those in my Dad’s PC and it’s a killer card and looks awesome as well.

Iv changed 4 things from your build

1) CX500 power supply to give you the connectors you need for the 270×. (which the antec 450 currently lacks)

2)moved your memory from 1333mhz to 1600mhz (this is the recommend memory speed) and it was cheaper!

3) upgraded your hard drive from 500gb to 1TB (the cost for those drives were very similar)

4)since you are moving from a macbook i assume you would need a windows os.

Options:
5) a cpu cooler would be nice(coolermaster hyper 212 evo), but its not really needed for non oced systems. its $30 extra

6) a nice solid state drive ill run you about $120. This will reduce your boot and load screen times by alot, but it is expensive, up to you in the end.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4570 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($179.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87-D3HP ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($126.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport XT 8GB (2 × 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($67.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.66 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: VisionTek Radeon R9 270X 2GB Video Card ($207.27 @ TigerDirect)
Case: Antec One ATX Mid Tower Case ($54.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($16.98 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 ($107.61 @ NCIX US)
Total: $851.46
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-08 02:51 EST-0500)

Would a solid state drive be something I could add into the computer to upgrade it as I see necessary or needed?

Also, I would rather run Windows 7. What is the difference between the regular and the OEM?

RebeccaJo.5403:

Would a solid state drive be something I could add into the computer to upgrade it as I see necessary or needed

yes its pretty easy to do and there are many video tutorials on how to do it

just for example since i was already browsing lifehacker for wall paper ideas.

http://lifehacker.com/5932009/the-complete-guide-to-solid+state-drives

http://lifehacker.com/5837543/how-to-migrate-to-a-solid+state-drive-without-reinstalling-windows

RebeccaJo.5403:

Also, I would rather run Windows 7. What is the difference between the regular and the OEM?

The difference between oem is non is that the oem version is forever locked onto the machine it was first installed.

a retail version can be moved inbetween machines. so say you built another computer a few years later (or you upgraded your motherboard, which to windows = new computer), if you have a retail version you can use that same license to install on your new computer. if you have a oem version your key is forever locked to your pc.

I personally suggest getting a retail version in case you need to move the license. or even boot camp/dual boot it on your macbook. only problem is that the only windows 7 version that has a transferable key still available for sale is the pro which costs $300.

Tbh for me 7 and 8 are pretty similar, just make double and triple sure you buy the 64bit version

Would you ever load a torrented version of windows onto a computer? Given that it was already tested and showing no signs of corruption and such?
(I feel childish asking this question, but I am general curious)

RebeccaJo.5403:

Would you ever load a torrented version of windows onto a computer? Given that it was already tested and showing no signs of corruption and such?
(I feel childish asking this question, but I am general curious)

No. Microsoft makes the windows disc files available online through their own official secure servers. They don’t work without the license key so Microsoft provides this service for repairs,builders, it people, or for people who have just lost their discs.

for example windows 7 home preimum 64 bit w/service pack 1: http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-58997.iso

Theres no need to take the risk of torrenting a copy from the internet when MS already has you covered.

as a side note: the best way to get discounts on ms software is if you have family/friends/children in college. Most schools provide their students with heavily discounted ms office and windows packages.

RebeccaJo.5403:

Would you ever load a torrented version of windows onto a computer? Given that it was already tested and showing no signs of corruption and such?
(I feel childish asking this question, but I am general curious)

Downloading a version of Windows via BitTorrent, I don’t really think it’s something that is not allowed, but making it work without an activation code is. However discussing this sort of thing I don’t think is allowed on the forums.