Guild Wars 2

Okay, so here is the deal. I am going to go back to college soon, hopefully. If I do, my dorm room wont have enough space for a desktop so I want to get a laptop that is powerful enough to play most my games, but at the very least, able to play gw2. I am on a strict $1500 budget because thats all the cash i have on hand that i can spare. Will a laptop with the below specs handle gw2 well? How bad or good specifically if you have any idea? I know a small amount about computers, so i think everything should be adequate, so what i am mostly curious about is the gpu. I know nothing about laptop gpu’s. Please give me any advice or changes you may have.

Processor
3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3630QM (6MB Cache, up to 3.4GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0)

Operating System
Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit

Memory
6GB (1 X 2GB, 1 X 4GB) Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz

Hard Drive
500GB 7,200 RPM SATA 3Gb/s

Video Card
2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660M

Display Panels
17.3-inch WideHD+ 1600 × 900 60Hz WLED

Wireless Networking
Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 2230 With Bluetooth 4.0

For PvE you will be fine.

For Spvp you will be fine

Wpvp will be rough. That said, roll a solid roaming class like thief, d/d elementalist, mesmer etc and avoid the big keeps and just move around.

But if you want to zerg surf, that will be rough with that rig..

And thanks for joining the military.. Bless you for your service.

60+ PvE on medium (with a few things high) at that res, 30+ in LA, and a hard time in WvW/zergs.

What would improve the performance in wvw? Would that rely on the gpu?

I spend most of my time rping or doing dungeons. I do wvw only for the monthlies and when im bored and have no friends online. It would kind of suck if i couldn’t ever do wvw though.

Can you give me some ideas for a rig that will run wvw well enough to compete?

its a laptop, and never will have good performance at WvW, done.

I don’t want “good.” Higher than 15 or 20 fps is workable if i can get that somehow.

with 1500$ you can get at least a 675m graphic card

It should be able do 15. Can’t make any guarantees though, as everyone has a hard time in WvW.

The difference between a 660m and 675m is probably around 30%. I’d go all the way to a 680m if anything (about 2x the 660m in both performance and probably cost).

I can probably get the 680m without exceeding my $1500 budget. I am getting a pretty decent discount. The current build i had listed was only going to run me about $1080.

How much of a difference will the 680m make for performance in wvw? If it could do 20-30 fps then i would probably put in the extra money.

It’ll give you more consistent frames in PvE (with high settings even at 1080p), not so much in WvW. That said, the 3630qm should pull 15+.

Ok. And the amd 7970m is their equivalent of the 680m right? Cuz i can get one of those waaaay cheaper.

7970 does bench very closely to the 680m. I know nvidia+optimus work well for battery life, can’t comment on how far AMD’s system has gotten (or if it’s moved at all since the 5xxx series with a hardware switch).

It will handle it just fine

my asus g74s – i7 2670 – 12g ram – gtx560m gets 50-60+ just about everywhere on medium settings.. In some places 100+

In WvW I’ve had 50+ ppl on the screen going at it with no issues. The only time I notice a drop in fps is when there is a bunch of smoke bomb things going off and I’m standing in or right next to them.

’@OP

The CPU is pritty much as good as u can ask for for a laptop without significant price increases. It still wont be the most suitable for WvWvW ..but even desktop CPU’s requir an OC to be ‘suitable’. If you have a choice for one that has a higher clock speed like the 3840QM, 3920XM, 3940XM, and have the money spare ..go for it ..it will help in those busy GW2 situations.

The 660m GPU is imo ‘adequate’ ..if you can get that 680 ..or the Ati 7970..i would go for it ..it will run much better than the 660 when the CPU isnt bottlenecked ..like in PVE for GW2 ..WvWvW you will likely not see any difference between the 660 and a 680 simply becouse the CPU will be maxing out on its ‘per thread’ performance.

Nvidia or Ati ? ..well tbh i have always(aside from VERY long ago) been with Nvidia ..but recently ATI have pulled ahead with its software updates and such ..so ether is fine tbh.

Other than that though ..$1200+ is about right for a laptop that can game ‘well enough’ whilst you away from ur desktop.