Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone! My name is Tyler and my computer has been getting worse and worse and now that this megaserver is out I’m having 1-2 minute loading screens. It’s not my internet so that’s not the problem. I am completely dumb when it comes to computers so when you reply please just trying to dumb it down as much as you can. I have already put some money into this PC and everyone keeps giving me to same answer which is that I need a new processor and so I ask if I can just buy a processor and they say as long as your motherboard supports it and blah blah. They might as well talk like the adults off of Charlie Brown because idk wtf they are saying. Here is my computer info:

Processor: AMD Athlon™ II X2 250 Processor 3.00GHz

Ram: 8 GB

64-bit operating system(idk wtf this means)

Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 560 Ti < I bought that and I also bought a new power supply.

So if anyone can shed some light on what I need to do.. whether it’s even worth updating this computer or if I should buy/build a new one(about a $600-$700 budget)
If you are going to tell me to build one please include every little possible detail I need to do so. My goal is to have a computer that can run Max Graphics with as little lag as possible with that budget. I don’t really WvW because of the amount of lag(it’s a slideshow on lowest graphics) and wouldn’t mind getting into it. I can’t even change characters before a TPvP match because I will get in late due to the long kitten loading screens. TY for reading this really long post! I really appreciate any help.

Some may disagree with me here but generally with long load times it is because of a slow processor or system in general. If you are still on an Athlon CPU then it is best to upgrade, you will notice a system wide performance boost…except for maybe opening the internet lol.

Gw2 is fairly dependent on the CPU unlike a lot of other newer popular games. AMD does make great products, but its single core performance is lacking so it really struggles with games like gw2.

All my friends running i5’s seem to have half the load time as me and around 1.5-2x the frame rates. Im running an AMD Phenom II 955 with a R9-280x and I get a whopping 25fps in busy towns and 35fps elsewhere. I just upgraded from a HD 5750, which I was getting slightly fewer fps. The obvious culprit here is my processor. My CPU does beat yours by quite a bit, and it runs other games perfectly. Im getting 60+ fps ein every other game and it pains me that I have to switch to Intel and not be such a huge AMD fanboy haha jk, Intel is great stuff.

I’ve yet to try AMD’s FX series processors, so if anyone could tell me how well they are performing on gw2 that would be great.

With my advice I would get a new CPU and motherboard. Get an i5 processor and a motherboard that is not a z87 chipset if you do not plan on overclocking and if you want to save a little money.

Processor:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116895
Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157453

But I suggest this combo deal if you are planning to purchase soon.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1624059

But if you want to overclock and have a motherboard with all the bells and whistles you can go ahead and spend a total of $400+instead of $275.

This is just a small piece of advice comparing my AMD system to my friends i5 systems and this is the conclusion I have come to. But there are some people out there with AMD processors getting 60fps in quiet zones and 40 in busy towns, so there might be a bunch of us arguing here before you make a final decision lol.

Edit:
I also forgot you will need ram, you are probably on DDR2 ram and you will need DDR3.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231546

Here is some nice cheap quality stuff, 8GB is more than enough for gaming.

Load times are heavily affect by hard drive performance. Only having a dual core CPU doesn’t help either. Graphics card, ram and OS is fine.

If you are keeping the case, power supply, video card, ram (assuming DDR3) and OS then you only need to upgrade the motherboard and CPU to an Intel i5-4xxx series CPU and a Z87 (name of the chipset) motherboard. Tossing in a 3rd part cooler like the Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo. To improve load times you could add in an SSD like the 250GB Samsung 840 EVO.

I will assume others will be by with PCPartPicker lists. An important question is will your case take full size ATX motherboards or just mATX (microATX)?

Here’s what I outlined above. I chose a mATX motherboard just to be on the safe side.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2irp4

You don’t need an aftermarket cooler, and SSD is always nice, I should get one.

You do the route I took which is a Z87 motherboard and an i5-4570K so it’s overclockable. And overclocking an Ivy Bridge or Haswell processor you will need a 3rd party cooler, the thermal load shoots up awfully fast once you start overclocking.

He said, “I am completely dumb when it comes to computers so when you reply please just trying to dumb it down as much as you can”

I don’t think he will venture into the overclocking world.

Thanks for the reply guys. I didn’t know I could replace a motherboard.. I’ve been told to just buy another computer. If I can just replace the motherboard and the cpu that sounds way better than just buying a whole new gaming Pc. I mean I guess I have to just trust yall to say that my graphics card is fine and my ram is fine. I bought new ram, graphics card and the power supply right before gw2 game out. It’s just these loading screens are getting ridiculous.

That’s the great thing about computers, you can replace each primary component. In your case you can certainly buy a prebuilt from Dell, Alienware, HP, ASUS, XoticPC, Falcon-Northwest, etc, but in the end you will be paying a lot more because it is a prebuilt.

Behellagh gave you a great part list, but I would change the motherboard in that list to this one,
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-motherboard-z87mg43

No sense in the higher price for same feature set.

Switching from HDD to SSD massively improved my loading times to around 10sec average and 4sec in pvp. Coming from around 30 – 40 sec on my older 1tb HDD,no kidding..SSD will be your best investment if you get one just make sure its not a cheapo that will break in 3 months.