Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone like many others I have been looking through the forums looking for answers to the low fps in game like many others i do not have a high spec system i.e i5 or i7 but I do have the following but looking for upgrade options I am aware of the CPU but has done me well up to now.

OK here is my spec and fps or as follows

AMD PHENOM II X4 955 3,2GHZ
6GB RAM
Windows 7 64bit
EVGA Geforce 550ti 1gb
2x 500gb Seagate Baracuda HDDs
550watt PSU

ok and now for the fps stuff in gw2

PVE 60fps caped
Cities i.e lions arch 40-50fps
WvW (depending on battle size) 15-30fps

So looking on adivce where to go next new gfx card maybe Radeon 7750 im open to ideas and thoughts

It’s solidly mid range, imo.

If you’re looking to upgrade GPU, I wouldn’t bother looking at anything below a 7850, otherwise the difference won’t be worth the expense.

Thanks for the quick reply yeah I thinking of waiting to get a i7 and then maybe a new GPU then but this machine still solid and able

Both will help, but the CPU upgrade will be quite expensive. GPU upgrade should provide a cheaper but still decent boost.

I’d suggest getting a 660ti for the price or if that is too much then I would suggest a 660. They are both great cards. The x50 and under are terrible. Hope this helps

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/geforce-gtx-660-650-launch/#1 this link shows the the performance of the new 660 and 650 and also comparison of them with other cards.

A CPU upgrade to sandy / ivy bridge will give you the boost in the areas you need it most, while a GPU upgrade will only boost your max fps in areas where the game is less CPU limited and allow you to run higher settings in those areas without lowering fps, but it won’t fix your min fps. Ideally ofcourse you should upgrade both, as the 550ti isn’t bad, but it’s not quite a high end card, only bordering on high.

If you go for the CPU upgrade you can save some money by getting the i5 equivalent of whatever i7 you had in mind, since they’ve very close in performance when it comes to gaming – the main difference of the i7’s is that they have hyperthreading, but most games don’t make any use of it at all and the few that do derive only a very minor performance boost from it. So unless you use your PC a lot for other CPU-intensive programs that do greatly benefit from hyperthreading, you have to ask yourself if the price difference is worth it, since on average an i7 is about 100 dollars / euro’s more expensive than its i5 equivalent.

Also if you live in the US near a microcenter, I’ve heard they frequently do great in-store deals where you can pick up nice Motherboard + i5 combo’s even more cheaply.

He could just upgrade to the AMD FX-8150 8-Core Processor which is nearly as good as the i5 2500k. The CPU is only like $200.

The FX chips are terrible in comparison to the sandybridge processors. Performance for the price you get less than you actually pay for with them. While the 2500k might be more expensive, the price/performance ratio is better, also the CPU is unlocked making overclocking to very high speeds very easy.

As Amarinth says, the i7 upgrade is a little too extreme for gaming machines, hyperthreadings advantage is minimal to none, but the modern i5 processors are very good quad cores

HxCFTW.8192:

He could just upgrade to the AMD FX-8150 8-Core Processor which is nearly as good as the i5 2500k. The CPU is only like $200.

It’s nowhere near as good for every day use. Only in heavily threaded applications does it even compete with the 2500K. For gaming it struggles to best i3s.

HxCFTW.8192:

He could just upgrade to the AMD FX-8150 8-Core Processor which is nearly as good as the i5 2500k. The CPU is only like $200.

Terrible advice. If gaming is primary concern, Intel beats AMD at EVERY price point.