Guild Wars 2

Hello to everyone, days ago I’ve posted a thread because I’m having low fps when I’m facing events that involve a lot of players or when I’m getting into World vs World. People told me that I’m getting something called bottle-necking, this happens when My CPU is unable to match the speed of my GPU.

This is the merged thread where I have posted my actual computer specs https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/FPS-Issues-merged-1/first#post970198

Due to the fact that I know that I really need to upgrade my components to new ones I’m right now prepared to buy the things that I need, it means that I have all the items that I think will suite my needs according to play every game that I want (in the amazon cart). But I’m not an expert in computers, I have some knowledge though. I need your opinion to know If this computer will be able to run most of the games out there.

Primary Hard Disk: Kingston HyperX 3K 240 GB SATA III 2.5-Inch 6.0 Gb/s Solid State Drive
Secondary Hard Disk: WD Green 1 TB Desktop Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, SATA III, 64 MB Cache
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K Quad-Core Processor 3.4 GHz 4 Core LGA 1155
Optical Drive: LG Electronics 14x SATA Blu-ray Internal Rewriter
Video Card: GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 660 Ti WINDFORCE 2X OC Edition 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express 3.0
Mother board: MSI Z77A-GD65 Z77 DDR3 1600 LGA 1155
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8 GB ( 2 × 4 GB ) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) (16 GB in total with 4 modules of 4GB each)

This it the monitor I have: Dell S2330MX 23" Ultra-Slim VGA Monitor 2ms response time.

All the items are going to be installed into a Soprano RS101 case (With transparent window). I have a Thermaltake CL-P0466 SpinQ (the CPU cooler) that is installed on my current computer. My PSU is a Thermaltake TR2 RX 850W. I cant change my case because I’m not living in USA and the shipping cost for a heavy product is impossible to afford right now.

So, what do you thing guys?
Can I run Guild Wars 2 with the computer I have in mind? most important, Can I run most of the games out there?

I’ll proceed to checkout once I get a solid opinion, I really need your help to make a good upgrade. Thanks in advance for your help and again sorry for my English (Not native). Merry Christmas to all of you.

Hi Rahxephonroh.6195,

Are you planning on copying blu-ray dvds? if not I would ditch the blu-ray rewriter and just get a blu-ray reader/ dvd rewriter combo drive. This would save you some money which could help towards my next idea.

The system you are building is roughly what I want to upgrade to and I reckon that it will run Guild Wars 2 great and even better if you are overclocking the CPU (I am assuming this since you are buying the “K” version of the processor).

Other games will run great too. Perhaps look for people with similar setups posting their “Can You Run It” results for different types of games.

My next idea was that you would gain better performace (yet again) if you bought 2x 120GB SSD’s rather than one 240GB. You could then place them in a raid 0 configuration. There may be a slight price difference but the money saved from not buying a blu-ray rewriter should cover that.

If not another Idea would be to buy a known CPU cooler to provide good overclocking results for the CPU. I have not seen how the Thermaltake CL-P0466 SpinQ performs on this CPU but most website recommend other ones for better cooling.

Hope this helps in your decision.

Good luck

Im not familar with your CPU cooler, however i do recommend OC’ing that CPU to as far as u are able to within your cooler’s capability. Hopefully close to 4.5ghz.
If you manage that then you can play GW2 as good as is currently possible. Any stock CPU out currently will cause your fps to drop below 30 in WvW battles, this is why OC’ing is required.

As for other games you shouldnt have a problem, you may not be able to run max settings on some higher end graphic games currently and those in the future ..im thinking crysis 3..since the 660ti is the lowest of the gaming cards. However it is still a strong GPU so i wouldnt bother spending more on one unless your willing to downgrade on some other parts like the Blueray read/writer and SSD.

Speaking of SSD.
The sugestion to raid 2x 120gb ones is good if you never plan on going any bigger, but ofcourse u also have the choice of just going down to 120gb and saving the money and getting a 670 or 680 GPU instead of the 660ti which is what i would do tbh, or even get a AMD 7970 (if your ok with doing without PhysX).
A single 120gb SSD is enough to store your OS and 2-4 games depending on their size, you want to leave roughly 25% of free space on the SSD to keep the performance up.

EDIT: Change the RAM to 2×8gb modules with timing of 9-9-9(CL9) if u can. Your CPU runs Dual channel not Quad.

Nitro.4732, SolarNova.1052. Thanks so much for your answers, I think that the idea of having 2 Solid State Drives in raid 0 would be great according to the performance upgrade I want to see, so for now I’ll go on with that idea (and I will buy the Blu-ray reader). I can buy a lot of CPU cooler brands where I live, so I think that it won’t be a problem to have a new one if required.

Changing the RAM to 2×8gb modules is great to, I wasn’t taking into consideration that this CPU runs at Dual Channel. thanks so much for this tip too. According to the GPU I think that I’ll buy the 660ti just because it’s almost the same as the GTX670 and overclocking it I can get the same performance as a stock 670, or that is what I’ve seen in a lot of overclocking forums (I’m not expert on this subject). But being a gamer one of my priorities is to have a very nice and durable GPU that ensures me at least 3 to 5 years without having the need of upgrading it. Unfortunately I can’t afford the GTX 690 which is the card I want. So, do you really think that I should save the money buying one SSD and getting a GTX 680?

Thanks for your help guys I really appreciate it.

GTX660 ti will run GW2 at max settings. Do you need anything higher in the next year or two? If not, stick with a the 660ti. By the time you need to upgrade a 680 equivalent would have dropped in price considerably or you could get another 660ti for cheaper and SLI.

Once you go SSD you can never go back. Its just too nice.

I would honestly drop 1 SSD, You will not notice (in gaming) the difference between a single SSD and 2 in raid. The difference between a mechanical HDD and a Single SSD you will love ..trust me. So dont worry about raid0.

I would not get a 690, 2 main reasons.
1)Some games have issues with sli, if u disable sli and run on 1 of the 690’s cores you are effectivly running a downclocked 680 gpu which is slower, iirc, than a 670. Not to mention there are some peculiar issues that can come up with dual gpu cards.

2) You can spend the same amount of money that the 690 costs to get 2x 680’s and SLI them(which give better performance), that way if a game doenst like sli, u can disable it and still get the very good performance of a single fully fledged 680.

Droping down to single 120gb SSD would likely not save you enough money to go from a single 660ti to 2x 680’s or even a single 690 ..so i presume u have more money spare :P what ever the case, dont get a single 690 ..not unless u have seriose thoughts of getting 2 690’s in the futur for what would effectivly be quad SLI.

You other choice is to wait till end of Q1 beginning of Q2 next year (around march bassicaly) for the Nvidia 700 series or AMD 8000 series gpu’s which will/should be faster.