Guild Wars 2

Trying to pick a good card for my newly built PC. Trouble is, I’m trying to figure out which card would be better. I would mostly play GW2 yet I play a few other games, well own them… like TSW, Batman Arkham Asylum, a few games on Steam I might get like the Ghostbusters game from 2009.

I keep getting conflicting info though, like that the 280X from Radeon causes bugs and such for GW2.

If I picked the 770 from Nvidia, most seem “Superclocked” with programs that can let me fiddle settings. I rather not fiddle with settings out of fear I’ll break something. I don’t really overclock.

Anywho, if anyone has tips or advice. Also, my PC is built with… http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3vKYS

It really comes down to “Personal Prefrence” i personally run SLI Gigabyte GTX 760 OC’s Windforce X3

I would go with the NVidia. I’ve seen too many graphical glitches with AMD’s latest cards and though I like AMD’s prices a LOT better, I’d rather not have the issues that others are having. Check the tech support forum here and you will see what issues I am talking about.

It really comes down to preference and cost.

And the graphical issues you are referring are a hit and miss. its still uncertain on what causes them (I still think its hardware).

that being said, I would suggest the 280x as that is what I’m upgrading to from my HD7790 pretty soon here.

*edit*
And have a look here -> http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2014-vga-charts/compare,3593.html?prod[6785]=on&prod[6797]=on&prod[6798]=on&prod[6786]=on

Sir Kaboomski.1508:

I would go with the NVidia. I’ve seen too many graphical glitches with AMD’s latest cards and though I like AMD’s prices a LOT better, I’d rather not have the issues that others are having. Check the tech support forum here and you will see what issues I am talking about.

you’ve personally seen graphical issues? or just others’ screenshots?

i’ve done a brief scouring of some threads elsewhere where odd lines/polygonal shapes were fixed by a certain driver version. i’ll have to do more reading after work, tho.

this decision would be a lot easier if there was an Nvidia card priced in between the 760 and 770 : |

Honestly, I would suggest going with whatever appears cheaper.
They’re around about the same performance on paper, and with GW2 you’re probably more likely to suffer a CPU bottleneck, anyway.

does it seem like most people don’t have issues (or have fixed them) with a 280X?

i bought an account to test with a 7790 (same architecture as the R5/7/9 series) but haven’t had a chance to run it for very long…

A couple of years back i would have said go with nvidia but last few years their drivers have had just as many issues as AMD.
Neither will help you one bit as far as GW2 goes in any case.

plonk.8369:

you’ve personally seen graphical issues? or just others’ screenshots?

Both. I owned one as well, and returned it.

It was disappointing considering the extra money I had to shell out for NVidia, but I have yet to have an issue with any game.

I’m using an ASUS GTX770, and this thing is pretty mint

I play on the highest settings and fps range from 40 – 65 depending on the circumstances.

The software that comes with it is pretty amazing, you can monitor temperature and also overclock performance. There is also a built in stream/recording function for any gaming. Supports up to 4 displays.

I would say go for it! Make sure your case is large enough tho!

Now here’s something else I want to know, if I go with Nvidia, I notice mostly all the cards say Superclock/overclock. I know they come with software to monitor temp and to overclock them however I want..

Thing is, I don’t want to overclock. The idea scares me, and I don’t want to screw something up. Would this program have a default that’s safe/good for those that don’t want to overclock or don’t want to? Could I just use the program to monitor and -not- tweak stuff I don’t understand? If it comes with a nice factory setting by default I’d feel safer.

I know it sound lazy but I rather put the card in, install drivers/programs the disk comes with, then not worry about fiddling. Aside from updating drivers.

Only experience I’ve had with graphic cards has been PNY GeFroce. Namely the 8400, 9800, 630 and 650.

it doesnt matter, modern cards all have dynamic throttling and change the clock speeds based on temperature/power.

Gpu boost 2.0 in the case of nvidia. Basically these cards will “boost” (overclock themselves) when needed and able to, and slow down to save heat/power when it is the smart thing to do.

All the “overclocked/superclocked” label means is that the max “boost” are higher than what nvidia set as reference due to the bigger coolers the board makers have put on them. Base clock is also changed but that has no real effect on anything. In the end “clock speed” is more of a function of cooling capacity these days rather than a setting in and of itself.

for example: my titan blacks superclocked from evga have a base clock of 967 mhz and a “boost clock” of 1072 mhz on the box. what actually happens is this: i launch gw2: it goes from idle 135mhz to the base clock of 967. It sees the temps are low and then boosts the clock to 1166. then after my cards heat up and hits 70c, it slowly drops the clock speeds down/cranks fan up and stabilizes at around 1100. the thing is even if i lower the base and boost clock speeds to reference levels, the card does not care and will still boost to very similar levels because cooling and power are available. All this happens without me doing anything since installing them.

edit: never install the disk drivers, always use the latest from amd/nvidia websites. GeForce expierence does an amazing job of managing driver updates for you.

You will be fine with either or, but just as I tell my clients, with my years of experience with tech from both NVIDIA and AMD/ATi, to this day, NVIDIA products seem to be a “better” out of the box experience, whereas AMD is known for being finnicky, which hasn’t changed. It makes sense though, because NVIDIA is far larger than AMD’s graphics department and has the resources and larger R&D/driver team for their final products.

When it comes down to it though, both are excellent. If you specifically want ShadowPlay or PhysX then NVIDIA is the obvious choice. Outside of those proprietary features, both will play modern titles at High/near Max settings. My vote would be to flip a coin if you don’t need shadowplay or physx, whatever side it lands on, that’s your new card lol. But no, in all seriousness you can just go with what’s cheaper, just make sure you get a brand that offers warranty that’s worth a kitten .

Oh, and good luck with whichever you choose, you can’t go wrong!

Nvidia forever here.

Why? I don’t like Catalyst Control Center. I don’t like the ATI settings options (or lack of). Nvidia has more settings options and is easier to configure for each game.

Just my opinion.

per-game configs seem easy with CCC, tho i don’t use them

i’ll admit i don’t like the lack of native control panel scaling on AMD, tho (e.g. 2880×1440 on a 1440×900 monitor for deliciously large screenshots), but that’s all i can think of.

I havnt used a AMD GPU for many years, i got nothing against AMD, i just find Nvidia cards a tad better when u consider the whole package. Not just performance, but quietness, coolness, and build quality (in the case of refference designs).

Current generation GPU’s i would choose Nvidia, which i have, becouse the AMD cards run hot and require more cooling, which usualy means more noise.
A 280x or 770 will be more than enough for GW2 and should handle other games fairly well on high settings, just dont expect to max out games like Crysis 3 with ether of them, even a 780 ti cant manage to run Crysis 3 maxed out with MSAA even at 1080p without dropping below 60 fps.

Also consider your resoultion, if ur going above 1080p then u will want atleast 3gb Vram.

As for CCC vs NCP, i do know CCC does not have downscaling available (NCP does), which might be somthing u would want if a game does not have good AA inbuilt and also cant be forced via the drivers, its especialy usefull for much older games where even high AA cant help with low res models. I personaly used to run GW2 at 3200×1800 downsampled to 1920×1080 WITH the GW2 SuperSampling on, it removed all allasing and i could turn of the crappy FXAA that GW2 uses by default.

Which ever u decide, i would recommend a EVGA, MSI, Asus, or Gigabyte branded card with their cooler design as they are all far better than the stock refference coolers.