Guild Wars 2

Alright so I’m sure some peeps have read my topic or seen my comments regarding AMD FX 8 core processors and that I have one (By the way I am totally happy with the unit)

However, I like to get opinions from other people sometimes and this is one of those times so here I suggest:

What would be your thoughts on switching to an Intel i7 3930K (or Ivy bridge equivalent when they are available) and a new LGA-2011 (or LGA-#### if the next gen 6 cores will use a new socket) mainboard?

For this game I read people get amazingly high frame rates and probably better performance in different areas outside of Guild Wars 2 so I figured I’d ask the community what they think.

Also, I’d like to politely ask that people leave out biased opinions and intel fanboy / AMD fanboy stuff. My general question is basically; would the 800 dollar upgrade be worth it? (for LGA-2011 I found a specific board I would get already so it’s around 800 something dollars, probably 900 with taxes)

So that question once more is,
Would the 800-900 dollar upgrade be worth it?

I’m not looking to do any immediate upgrading but just kinda want to get a general thought idea from other people. Thanks!

I wouldn’t upgrade for Guild Wars 2, the higher end hardware simply just doesn’t justify the cost/performance for this game since high end hardware doesn’t scale well with certain parts of the game. I’m not sure what frame rate you get right now, but the 3930K and other processors of its kind won’t be using all their cores to play Guild Wars 2. You’ll be lucky to see a quad-core max its resources out on Guild Wars 2.

Now if you do a lot of video/audio encoding and stream yourself while playing the game, then it might be worth it depending how much non-gaming you do. Just for the game though, no.

Ilithis Mithilander.3265:

I wouldn’t upgrade for Guild Wars 2, the higher end hardware simply just doesn’t justify the cost/performance for this game since high end hardware doesn’t scale well with certain parts of the game. I’m not sure what frame rate you get right now, but the 3930K and other processors of its kind won’t be using all their cores to play Guild Wars 2. You’ll be lucky to see a quad-core max its resources out on Guild Wars 2.

Now if you do a lot of video/audio encoding and stream yourself while playing the game, then it might be worth it depending how much non-gaming you do. Just for the game though, no.

Haha, you are correct. Though for this game I’ve seen a fair amount of builds getting awesomely high frames with this processor

WvW FPS wont be any higher with a 3930k vs a 3770k or a 4770k.
I get 20-25 FPS in BIG zergs. Thats about as best as ur gunan get.
The thing with teh Intel CPU’s is heat vs performance.
The 4770k is better per core than a 3930k ..so it should be better for gaming however the 4770k is one very hot runing chip and cant OC to the the degree a 3930k can. That difference evens out any advantage the 4770k had per clock. So on air a 3930k can potentialy go up to 4.7ghz but the 4770k can only go up to about 4.3ghz. At those clocks they are both roughly at the same performance per core.
For GW2 that means 20-25 fps in those really big zergs.

Now if u move away from GW2 into games that tke advanatge of all cores/threads like Crysis 3 THEN u see the 3930k pull away.. but only when ur talking top end SLI (removing any GPU bottleneck) and multi monitor / ultra HD resolutions(requir more bandwidth). And thats thanks to the extra PCI-E bandwidth and ofc the extra cores of the 3930k.

Bassicaly unless u plan to spend a bucket load on the GPU side of things, and/or plan to use the 3930k for other thigns other than gaming, then u may aswell go 4770k.

I for example always knew that the 3930k would last alot longer than a cheaper chip. It should last 4-6 years at the rate CPU’s are progressing, and within that time i will go SLI, mainly to allow me to play at Ultra HD when i finaly get my hands on a Ultra HD screen. At that point ill likely have ether 2 or 3 GTX Titans or 2 of its faster successors.

SolarNova.1052:

WvW FPS wont be any higher with a 3930k vs a 3770k or a 4770k.
I get 20-25 FPS in BIG zergs. Thats about as best as ur gunan get.
The thing with teh Intel CPU’s is heat vs performance.
The 4770k is better per core than a 3930k ..so it should be better for gaming however the 4770k is one very hot runing chip and cant OC to the the degree a 3930k can. That difference evens out any advantage the 4770k had per clock. So on air a 3930k can potentialy go up to 4.7ghz but the 4770k can only go up to about 4.3ghz. At those clocks they are both roughly at the same performance per core.
For GW2 that means 20-25 fps in those really big zergs.

Now if u move away from GW2 into games that tke advanatge of all cores/threads like Crysis 3 THEN u see the 3930k pull away.. but only when ur talking top end SLI (removing any GPU bottleneck) and multi monitor / ultra HD resolutions(requir more bandwidth). And thats thanks to the extra PCI-E bandwidth and ofc the extra cores of the 3930k.

Bassicaly unless u plan to spend a bucket load on the GPU side of things, and/or plan to use the 3930k for other thigns other than gaming, then u may aswell go 4770k.

I for example always knew that the 3930k would last alot longer than a cheaper chip. It should last 4-6 years at the rate CPU’s are progressing, and within that time i will go SLI, mainly to allow me to play at Ultra HD when i finaly get my hands on a Ultra HD screen. At that point ill likely have ether 2 or 3 GTX Titans or 2 of its faster successors.

Many thank yous for the response! Probably the best one since you are using the 3930K XD I will keep this info noted. Though I probably won’t upgrade to it, was just a general question of curiosity but thank you for your time! ^^

No problem. Tis is always good to know these things even if its just for some extra general knowledge.

I personaly only got my 3930k for 2 main reasons. 1) for it to last a bit longer than a lesser cpu, 4+years. 2) becouse i could :P
I woud never recommend such an expensive CPU for pure gaming to som1 else unless they had a budget large enough to bassicaly have money to throw around.

SolarNova.1052:

No problem. Tis is always good to know these things even if its just for some extra general knowledge.

I personaly only got my 3930k for 2 main reasons. 1) for it to last a bit longer than a lesser cpu, 4+years. 2) becouse i could :P
I woud never recommend such an expensive CPU for pure gaming to som1 else unless they had a budget large enough to bassicaly have money to throw around.

that’s purely why I got the system I got myself XD Because I could. And my old one crapped out on me because it was garbage.

I went from a X6 1055t oc to 3.5ghz and I noticed a difference but, going from a FX to a i7 isn’t probably worth it for GW2 alone.
Anet dropped the ball by using an old engine and not thinking towards the future of multi core processors and their capability.

Stormcrow.7513:

Anet dropped the ball by using an old engine and not thinking towards the future of multi core processors and their capability.

Yeah… but, you never know, maybe a slight rework to accommodate AMDs good processors will happen some day. I hope for it but for now, I don’t mind. At least it’s not playing at 20 or below on this machine… I put too much money into it for that.

I’m with i5 2500k @ 4.5 Ghz and HD7870XT (Tahiti LE @ 975 MHz core and 1500MHz memory). I play on 1680×1050, all effects and details maxed. In LA i have 35-60 fps. The card is hot and loud … i dont know why LA load the gpu so much. Outside it i have 60-100 fps with little or no culling (i always see the names, sometimes in mass Cursed Shore events i dont see the skins).
In WvWvW, in the big zergs i got down to 20 fps and i could hear my GPU dying. It temp goes up to 80*C, while in the room is 25-30 and all the 3 vents of my case are on 100% . The CPU at this time is <50% loaded. If i change the graphic appearance to “best performance” i have steady 50+ fps, even in the zergs. I still dont see skins sometimes, but i dont mind. I play smoothly and can see how much and where my enemies are. The card temp is <60*C , it vent is silent, so is the whole pc.
Few months ago i had PC with G850 with HD4870. The cpu was always >70% loaded. The card is hotter and louder than 7870 by default . There was no problem to leave the vent on 40%. The GPU temp went up to 90*C+, but with no effects on performance, neither to stability of the system. In LA fps was 20-60, outside it was 40-80. Very smooth, except in mass events, where there was bad culling and fps drop. No matter “best performance” or “best appearance” – in best performance the bottleneck was coming from the CPU, in best appearance from the GPU. WvWvW was almost unplayable. There was invisible zergs killing you instantly or longer battles with ~10 fps, which was unpleasant to play.
There is significant difference between G850 and i5 2500k. I cant say does it comes from 2 more cores or from the higher speed. Overclocked 2500k is definitely an overkill for GW2, so should be an FX83xx or FX81xx. About the cards … GW2 is very beautiful game with lot of effects, but i believe you can enjoy the game enough with lower class cards like HD7770 or GTX650Ti . If you want to play WvWvW you will still need top GPU. Probably best upgrade for you will be to buy a video and see things you never suppose they exist.

It is possible to get higher than the 20-25 fps i get in really big zergs ..but to do so u need to turn culling up ..i.e character limit to medium and texture limit to low.
At which point u cant see half the zergs when they are really big.
I run with highest on the character limit which means u can see everyone all the time, this hits the fps hard but is neccessery if u want a good wvw experiance.
With that setting, depending on the texxture limit, ur lookign at 10-30 fps. 30fps if u have texture limit on lowest where every1 is green, and down in the teens (<20) with texture limit on highest where everyone u see is on max detail. Hence why i run at medium or low depending on the zerg size, to keep people close by on highest detail with those in the distance green.
Again this is in very large zergs..kinda worst case almost.

Yeah, Set I know what you mean. I started out on a good little Pentium 4 2.93 GHz way back. My system specs are definitely enough to eat this game like a million times over (okay exaggerated but who cares) just that single thread performance on the AMD procs aren’t as good as the intel counterparts. Maybe someday it will be fixed, maybe not. I’m having a blast though with the game on the upside. Got a 7970 here with my FX-8350 so all is pretty good!

As for WVW I should try those graphics options. I just play everything on max personally