Guild Wars 2

Hey All,

My 3 year old Alienware Andromeda R5 finally died. Please look at my old build and tell me if this is a great improvement. Also, tell me if there is anything in the new build that can/should be changed. I play a lot of PvP and WvW. I want to be able to run high graphics (ultra isn’t necessary, not that I could run ultra in zergs/roaming anyways)

Old Specs:
i7-2600 @ 3.4GHz
Ram: 8.0 GB
Windows 7
GTX555

New Specs:
CPU: i5-4690kn3.5Ghz 6MB Cached Quad-Core
Heatsink/Fan: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU Fan
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI (intel z97, hdmi, dvi, 2xPCI-E, 6xSATA, 4xDDR3)
Memory: 8GB (4GBx2) Corsair Vengeance 14900 DDR3 1866Mhz (16GB worth it?)
Hard Drive: 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA3 6Gbps Western Digital Blue
Solid State Drive: 128GB Crucial MX100 CT128MX100SSD1 SATA3 SSD
Video Card: 2GB GeForce GTX 960 GDDR5 PCI-E Dual-DVI/HDMI
OS: 7 or 8.1?
Case: Raidmax Scorpio V Black (3 5.25, 8 3.5) 2 Fans, Audio/USB 3.0
Power Supply: 600watt Corsair CX600 V2 80 PLUS CERTIFIED

That new build should be a decent bit better then the old one for GW2, assuming you overclock the CPU. A GTX 960 isn’t the greatest bang for your buck, though, so you might be able to buy something better there. It seems like you’re getting a prebuilt, though, so it’s hard to say.

Imo, get windows 8 for sure. You can always upgrade to 10 later for free as well.

What died on the old PC, though? You may be able to salvage some/all of it and save quite a bit of money.

I can’t get the old pc to run for 10 mins straight. Half the time it doesn’t make it to 2-5 mins before it freezes, or gets so slow its unbearable. A couple of weeks ago I was getting BSOD, then the video card went out shortly after. Just went haywire from there, I think I was rocking PvP too hard cause that’s where it all began. Some people are surprised that system last as long as it did. The tower is small and crammed, I haven’t opened it up but I bet heatsink may have been some of the problem.

By a decent bit better what do you mean?

Haswell beats SB by like 15-20%, clock for clock, iirc, so overclocking a 4690k to ~4.4-4.5 GHz should show a nice performance increase in zergs and the like.

If it’s your GPU that died and stuff was going nuts, a solid dusting out of the PC and reinstallation of Windows might work wonders on your old PC, though. 2600ks have held up really well, so a new GPU with that old build might be fine to keep tanking for another few years. My laptop started BSODing on boot and just not working in general and it just took a reformat+reinstall to fix.

CPU: Perfect
Heatsink: I would go for something a bit better, like Ashura, Mugen Max, Ereboss… The evo is not a bad heatsink, but only allows small overclocks.
MB: Would get a better motherboard than that with just 4 phases. Z97-Pro Gamer or the Z97X Gaming 3 are better options.
RAM: 8GB is more than enough for these days for gaming.
HDD: Fine
SSD: Install the game here. Would try to look for a 850 EVO at such size, they have much better speeds. Anyway the MX100 is also a very good option. I have the 512gb and very satisfied with it.
GPU: Also very good option.
OS: I recommend W8.1. Much better overall so speed (mine it shut downs in 3 seconds) and it gives a small perormance boost while gaming.
Case: Fine.
PSU: Too much wattage for that system and a meh quality psu. Cooler Master G550M is a better option.

Overall you’ll have quite a beast to play gw2. At high you can expect 60fps while roaming and in pvp, 35-40fps in zergs and 25-30 in blobs.
Here is a very similar pc to yours playing at 1440p, smae cpu at 4.3GHz and r9 285, equally than a gtx 960:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XSvcnLcmwI

TheNatural.2846:

I haven’t opened it up but I bet heatsink may have been some of the problem.

If you are in a dusty environment , the heatsink may be clogged with dust.
The symptoms seem to indicate a CPU over heating issue.
I think it would be worthwhile to open up the case and check.

I would not take a 960, I would take an AMD GPU like a 280x or 290 over that. as they have come down in price and offer far better performance then that neutered 960.

Hyper 212 has a limit against Haswell of 1.2v. If you are unlucky and cant push your i5 to 4.6ghz at 1.2v that hyper 212 is not going to be a good choice. You will be seeing temps in the mid 70’s using high end fans with a push/pull config. DH15, GNSS, or even a H110i would be a far better choice.

as for your old system, do what was suggested. Dust it out. You may still want to upgrade, but if you can get your old system stable…sell it to pad the costs of the new system. Maybe it can afford you some serious upgrade room (like going i7-5820K on x99 instead of 4690K on z97)

sirsquishy.8531:

DH15, GNSS, or even a H110i would be a far better choice.

All of which are significantly more expensive options. The cheapest is over twice the cost of a 212 and the others are over 3x as much.

as for your old system, do what was suggested. Dust it out. You may still want to upgrade, but if you can get your old system stable…sell it to pad the costs of the new system. Maybe it can afford you some serious upgrade room (like going i7-5820K on x99 instead of 4690K on z97)

Parting it out could also be an option., if you can’t/don’t feel like fixing the thing.

Fermi.2409:

sirsquishy.8531:

DH15, GNSS, or even a H110i would be a far better choice.

All of which are significantly more expensive options. The cheapest is over twice the cost of a 212 and the others are over 3x as much.

There is a reason the other options are 2x-3x the cost of that 212evo. they cool 2x-3x better. Which is a necessity if you are going to overclock.

You can get a respectable overclock just fine with a 212; that’s why it’s such a popular/highly recommended cooler. If you’re looking to max out your CPU, then yeah, get an H100i or whatever, but for someone looking to get a decent cooling boost to overclock to 4.4 GHz or whatever, a 212 will do the job just fine.

sirsquishy.8531:

Fermi.2409:

sirsquishy.8531:

DH15, GNSS, or even a H110i would be a far better choice.

All of which are significantly more expensive options. The cheapest is over twice the cost of a 212 and the others are over 3x as much.

There is a reason the other options are 2x-3x the cost of that 212evo. they cool 2x-3x better. Which is a necessity if you are going to overclock.

That’s only true when you plan to do extreme overclocks (haswell +4.7GHz, FX +4.5GHz) because heatsinks like 212 evo reach the maximum heat dissipation.
But if not doing such overclocks, those more expensive solutions aren’t that much better. You’ll be spending 3 or 4 times more to get barely 5-10ºC less even with an overclock about 4.2/4.3GHz in Haswell.

Hey all, thanks again for your input. Sorry I have been very busy the past couple of days and I could not comment on the things you all have said. I’ve updated my part list based on everyone’s feedback, please feel free to give more input.

New Specs:
CPU: i5-4690kn3.5Ghz 6MB Cached Quad-Core

Heatsink/Fan: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU Fan
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI (intel z97, hdmi, dvi, 2xPCI-E, 6xSATA, 4xDDR3)
Asus Z97-P ATX LGA1150

Memory: 8GB (4GBx2) Corsair Vengeance 14900 DDR3 1866Mhz (16GB worth it?)
8 GB (2x 4 GB) of Crucial Ballistix DDR3 1866 MHz Memory

Hard Drive: 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA3 6Gbps Western Digital Blue

Solid State Drive: 128GB Crucial MX100 CT128MX100SSD1 SATA3 SSD?)
Samsung 850 EVO-Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive

Video Card: 2GB GeForce GTX 960 GDDR5 PCI-E Dual-DVI/HDMI
PNY GeForce GTX 970 4GB XLR8 Video Card

OS: 7 or 8.1?

Case: Raidmax Scorpio V Black (3 5.25, 8 3.5) 2 Fans, Audio/USB 3.0
Corsair 300R ATX Mid Tower Case

Power Supply: 600watt Corsair CX600 V2 80 PLUS CERTIFIED

Thermaltake 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply[/quote]

You need to fix that @TheNatural. You replaced the GPU with an SSD, I suspect an editing problem.

Behellagh.1468:

You need to fix that @TheNatural. You replaced the GPU with an SSD, I suspect an editing problem.

Should be good now, thanks for the catch.

With this setup, wouldn’t It make sense to just go with GTX960 over the 970? I was recommended by someone else to get the 970 over the 960, but the roughly $110 price difference seems steep.

Also, which would be best for the 960 would the MSI 2GB or the PNY 4GB? Will the difference be that great?

Go AMD in that price range. You should be able to get a 280x/290 for ~the same as a 960, maybe a little more, especially if you’re patient and watch for a deal on it. Even 290x is doable at <$300. /r/buildapcsales is always a good place to watch.