Guild Wars 2

hey fellow Tyrians!

just wanted to seek some advice for some potential upgrades for my laptop:

1) SSD
- worth it to upgrade?
- if so, what brand / make?
- i don’t carry it around as MUCH as i used to, but occasionally will still travel with it. and i’m a sucker for fast load / boot times. : PP

2) Graphics card
- what’s a good upgrade?
- currently running NVIDIA GeForce GT540M
- i’ve heard that ATI is better suited than Nvidia for gw2?

not the most tech-savvy/able. so any advice is welcome. and let me know if you guys need any further info.
much thanks in advance!

you cant upgrade your video card. It’s a laptop.
An SSD will boost your system, and help in load screens in GW2.
My choice of SSD is the Crucial M4 256gb. Can go 128gb.

thanks for the reply, Kalec! i’ll look into the SSD
for graphics, i’ve heard you can do it with an external dock though?
unless if that’s not worth the trouble?

to be honest, so far, the game’s been running fine, but i tend to not run on highest settings so seeing if there’s anything that can be done.

External GPU on a laptop will end badly. Way to expensive & your processor will be underpowered.

gotcha. i guess i’ll be sticking with what i have for a while now. : )))
will look into the ssd though.

For SSD Crucial M4, Samsung 830 or OCZ Verterx 4.

stay away from vertex 4…

I’d start building a desktop before bothering with an external GPU for a laptop.

It can be done, I’d really research it to see if it makes sense for you. You need an ExpressCard slot, anyway. Personally, I think the money on the external GPU chassis is better spent saving for a desktop.

I tried laptop docking setups before, but I always found it incredibly awkward – you’re either stuck with the laptop’s tiny monitor or you’ve got it off to the side and the keyboard is in the way, making using it as an extra screen kind of annoying. I ended up just closing the screen and using it as a very flat, underpowered and overheating desktop.

I’d rather just synch data. These days it’s pretty easy. I’m actually thinking of paring my laptop down to a tablet – a tablet would cover all I use my laptop for while being lighter and smaller.

SSDs are still rather small and not something you want as your primary storage. It’d be impractical to have one tethered to your laptop – to see full benefit from an SSD, you need your Windows OS to be on the SSD. So your choice is to tether or replace what you have now – sacrificing storage for speed, or tether it via a USB 3.0 (2.0 is limited to 60Mb/s, no point, you’d be going slower) port.

I’ve had trouble booting from USB 3.0 in the past – you might have to update drivers or even update your BIOS. If the latter, that’s potentially a huge pain in your butt with the chance of killing the BIOS chip. If you are not very tech savvy, it’s definitely something you don’t want to do since a small mistake can mean you’ll have wrecked the computer until you can get a replacement chip and likely pay someone to fix things.

You’ll likely still need your old HDD in an external enclosure, too, if you replace the internal one. It’s a good idea to have an external to backup data, regardless of HDD or SDD – but this one would be something you’d probably need just in the course of everyday computing. I’m using 180Gb on my new desktop already, and I haven’t transferred the bulk of my data files !

Ultimately, if you keep tethering stuff, you’re making a laptoptopus. I think it makes more sense to invest in a desktop chassis and add as you can to it.

SSD: Mushkin Chronos (runs rings around my m4) Pair a 128GB+ one with an Intel RST board (i.e. Z68 and newer) to make your HDD access at 99% SSD speeds with a 10-sec boot.

GPU: As much as you can afford. Personally, I never liked ATI as every one I’ve had was poor by comparison. GTX x60Tis are a good value.

If you want gaming horsepower, get the right tool for the job rather than wasting money/effort on souping up a turtle: build a desktop or, if that isn’t possible, get a gaming laptop (more pricey but if you just don’t have the space…)

128gb minimum for SSD
I recommend the Corsair Performance Pro, i bought one about 2 months back i think it was and it had only just come out. it was tied 1st as the fastest SSD available (tied with a Plextor). it has incredible fast access times and balanced performance on both read and write ..unlike others that ether have fast write & slower read or visa versa.

As for is it worth it ..well it will deffiantly increase your boot times and loading times but as for ingame performance. You wont see a difference unless your running a fast desktop..even then it will just reduce or remove stutter caused by loading textures from your drive.

Best SSDs For The Money: August 2012
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269.html

Samsung 840 Pro SSD: More Speed, Less Power, And Toggle-Mode 2.0
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/840-pro-ssd-toggle-mode-2,3302.html

Simply put – yes invest in an SSD. Get something like a 128gb SSD. Put your games and OS on the SSD and everything else on your normal HD. I run a 128GB SSD and a 1TB HD.

Anything more then that is just overkill really. (If your into overkill i’m right there with yah =D )

I’m using GTX 580 for vid card and the thing purs , my i7 is OC to 4.5 – i’m very happy with performance.

What brand of laptop to you have? Some of the more gamer oriented Laptops allow pretty simply upgrades for GPU. I have a Sager and its was rather easy to upgrade its 580M to a 680M using kit provided by the retailer…….however was rather expensive but no way around that when dealing with high powered laptops. Couple screws to remove old one……..apply some paste/pads….install new….update bios. Really not anymore difficult/different than doing a desktop CPU upgrade.

And one of the best things I did was slap a Samsung 830 SSD in it.

wow, thanks for all the replies, folk! will have to check out some of these recs and pick a good SSD. yea i was gonna aim for a 128.

currently running a sony VAIO (sucker for sony : PPP lol), F series though. it’s their line of “gaming” laptops but can’t compare to your powerhouses out there so i don’t think it’ll allow for simple GPU upgrades but i’m planning to check nevertheless.

have thought about upgrading to a desktop too, but for 1, space is an issue and i like to be “mobile”. guess i should have thought this out better when i got this laptop (not 2 years old). so desk top is something down the pipeline, but like a few of you mentioned, maybe i should just save up for a reall nice rig and not waste money for a small upgrade.

so far though, my laptop’s been treating me very well. : ))) just wanted to see if i could up my experience. gonna go shop around some SSDs now!
Samsung 830 seems to a reoccuring name lol

The samsung 830 would be a fine choice. Yeah if you really need a gaming rig I would suggest invest on a desktop.

You can get more for your money with a desktop. but for a gaming rig, imo, you should have over £1k to spend if you getting everything ..keyboard mouse and all. Anything less and you may be dissapointed with the results and/or have to upgrade relativly quikly down the line.